Chapter 5: The Photographic Proof
The hope, that foolish, fragile thing, lasted exactly seventeen hours. Dasha nursed it carefully through the next day, letting it colour her morning coffee, her walk to work, the tedious data entry of her archival project. He’d meant it. He’d missed her, the real her, the one in the quiet dark. The call had opened a door, just a crack.
She saw the crack widen when she walked into her father’s agency the next afternoon. Matt was there, leaning against the reception desk, holding a paper bag that smelled of garlic and chili oil. He’d texted: In the neighbourhood. Bring you a peace offering for the hour theft?
“You’re never in this neighbourhood,” she said, sliding her bag off her shoulder.
“I am today.” He smiled, the effortless one that still made something flip in her stomach. “Got your favourite. The spicy noodles from that place you’re weirdly secretive about.”
“I’m not secretive. I just don’t want it overrun by you people.”
“You people?” He raised an eyebrow, handing her the bag. Their fingers brushed. He didn’t pull his away immediately. The contact was warm, lingering. He looked at her, his blue eyes clear and focused. No trace of the drunk, slurry sadness from the sidewalk. This was daytime Matt, intentional Matt. “I had a feeling you skipped lunch.”
“You’re not my keeper.”
“Someone has to be. You get that monk-like focus.” He tapped his temple. “World disappears.”
For a dizzying second, she felt seen. Known. This was the not just she’d imagined. The air between them in the sleek, sunlit lobby felt charged, a private current humming beneath the agency’s usual buzz. She opened her mouth, a soft, stupid response about monks forming on her lips.
The elevator chimed.
The doors slid open with a whisper, and Linda Cole glided out.
She moved like light filled her, a golden, confident energy that immediately commanded the high-ceilinged space. She was laughing at something her assistant had said, her head thrown back, a cascade of honey-blonde hair. She saw Matt and her entire being brightened, zeroed in. “There you are! I texted, you scoundrel.”
Matt turned. And Dasha watched it happen—the absorption. It was immediate and total. His face didn’t just smile; it softened, all its angles yielding into pure, unguarded affection. His shoulders relaxed. His whole posture opened toward her.
“Your phone is on silent, I was hijacked by noodles,” he said, his voice a warm, intimate tease Linda couldn’t have heard from the elevator.
Linda crossed the marble floor and wrapped herself around his arm, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. She fit there perfectly, a textbook complement. “I should have known.” She noticed Dasha then, her gaze friendly and curious. “Hi.”
“Babe, this is Simon’s daughter, Dasha,” Matt said, his hand finding the small of Linda’s back, a gesture so natural, so proprietary, it made Dasha’s own spine feel stiff. “She’s the one who keeps this place running.”
Simon’s daughter. The one who keeps this place running. The identifiers landed with a dull, administrative thud. Not my friend Dash. Not the person I call at 1 AM. An employee. A function.
Linda extended a slender hand. Her grip was firm, her smile brilliant and genuine. “I’ve heard so much about you! Matt says you’re a genius with all the old film contracts. A total saviour.”
Dasha took the hand. She smiled. Her face muscles performed the task with practised ease. “He exaggerates. I just like things in chronological order.”
“A kindred spirit.” Linda laughed, touching Matt’s arm again, a constant, gentle point of contact. “He’s chaos. I’m always organizing his itineraries.”
The three of them stood in an awkward little triangle. Matt’s attention was a planet, and Linda was its sun. Dasha was distant space dust. She watched him listen to Linda recap her morning photoshoot, his head tilted with full focus, his thumb brushing absently over the fabric of her sleeve. He didn’t glance at Dasha, didn’t try to include her in the bubble. The bubble was just them.
“We should all have lunch!” Linda said suddenly, her generosity shining.
“Dasha has a mountain of archives to conquer,” Matt said, kindly, but the dismissal was clear. He was ushering Linda toward her next appointment, his hand still on her back. “Another time.”
“Absolutely,” Dasha said, the smile still glued in place. “Another time.”
She made it through the next forty-seven minutes. She sat in her father’s office for a scheduled update, while Matt and Linda lingered in the lounge area just outside the glass wall, visible. He fed her a forkful of his salad. She whispered something in his ear that made him duck his head and laugh, a real, shoulder-shaking laugh Dasha hadn’t heard in years. They planned a weekend in Santa Barbara, their voices a pleasant murmur. “Just us,” Matt said, and the way he said us was a closed door.
Dasha nodded at her father’s points about budget allocations. She took notes. All the while, a quiet, methodical demolition took place inside her ribcage.
She excused herself early, citing a deadline with her digitization project. She didn’t look back.
The occasions multiplied.
A month later, at a casual dinner at her father’s house. Matt and Linda arrived together, hand-in-hand. Linda brought flowers from the farmers' market. Throughout the meal, their connection was a public, vibrant thing. Matt’s arm was draped over the back of Linda’s chair, his fingers toying with the ends of her hair. When she spoke, he watched her mouth as if translating a fascinating text. He refilled her wine glass before she asked. He finished her sentences, not with interruption, but with a seamless understanding that felt like a shared language. They debated favourite films, their knees touching under the table, a soft, electric argument full of “but don’t you think…” and “yes, exactly!” It was intellectual intimacy, effortless and bright.
Dasha watched it all from the other end of the table, a spectator to a play she hadn’t auditioned for. She smiled. She passed the roasted potatoes. She felt her own laughter at Simon’s jokes come out a half-beat too late, hollow.
Another time, a summer party on a studio lot. Dasha was there with her father. She saw Matt and Linda across a pool strung with fairy lights. They were dancing to a terrible pop song on a makeshift dance floor, surrounded by people but utterly alone. Matt’s hands were on Linda’s hips, hers linked behind his neck. He was whispering into her hair, and she was beaming, her eyes closed. They weren’t performing. This was a private moment happening in public, because they simply couldn’t contain it. The affection radiated off them, a heat mirage that made Dasha feel cold.
She turned and walked into the shadowy interior of a soundstage, the sudden quiet a relief.
With each meeting, the cracks in her performed composure deepened. The smile began to feel like a physical strain, a cramp in her cheeks. Her polite questions—“How was Napa?” “Did you like the script?”—started to taste like ash.
So she started to fold herself out of their orbit.
When her father suggested a group brunch, she begged off, citing a migraine. When Matt texted, In town with Linda, wanna grab a drink? she replied with careful regret: Swamped with this German film collection. Raincheck? She used work as a shield, her archival project a legitimate and growing fortress. She emailed instead of taking calls. She left meetings precisely on time, with a wave and a “You two have fun.”
She saw them less. It was the only way to make the demolition inside her chest slow from a violent wrecking ball to a tolerable, dull ache. She fed Sir Lancelot extra tuna. She read until 3 AM, the words blurring on the page, replaced by the image of Matt’s hand, so sure and steady, always seeking the small of Linda’s back.
She was becoming an expert in his happiness, and it was a study that was systematically erasing her own. The late-night call now felt like a artifact from a different epoch, a whisper drowned out by the bright, unapologetic noise of a real and present love. He was not emotionally opaque with Linda. He was transparent, luminous.
And Dasha, in her cream-coloured room with the single lamp, was the one who had finally learned to build a wall thick enough to hide behind.