Chapter 159: through someone elses eyes

Chapter 159 — Through Someone Else’s Eyes

Adrian was already crouched beside the old stone archway when Roxanne arrived, his camera tilted up toward the weathered keystone. Maya sat on the grass a few feet away with her sketchbook open on her knees, tracing the curve of the stones in quick pencil lines.

"Why this one?" Roxanne asked, stopping beside him. "There are prettier places on campus than a doorway with moss on it."

"Because nobody looks at it," Adrian said, lowering the camera to nod at a group of students walking through without a glance. "Hundreds of people pass under it every day and none of them could tell you what it looks like." He took a few more shots while Maya shaded the dark space beneath the arch, and when he finally handed over the camera, Roxanne scrolled through the screen and frowned.

"You took six pictures of the same archway," she said.

"Seven," Adrian said, leaning over to check the count. "The eighth was blurry, so I deleted it."

"That’s worse," Roxanne said. "They’re all the same picture."

"The differences are in the details. Look at the shadows, the light on the left side, the people crossing through the frame." He held out his hand for the camera. "You’re welcome to take it and do better."

"I’d rather write," Roxanne said, passing it back. "Convenient," Adrian replied, and Maya hid a grin behind her sketchbook.

They spent the next hour wandering the grounds in search of anything that could stand for leaving something behind. The old fountain came first, followed by the library entrance, the training pavilion, and a quiet corridor near the dormitories where the afternoon light slanted low through the windows. Roxanne had walked these paths for months, and it felt strange to watch them being studied like a puzzle.

Adrian ignored the grand views. He photographed a faded ribbon snagged on a railing, a yellowed notice pinned crookedly to a board, and a bench with a crack running down one leg. Roxanne watched him work and tried to hide how little she understood. "I don’t see how a broken bench becomes a story," she admitted.

"Each object could stand for a different relationship or memory," Maya said, still sketching the bench. "The ribbon belongs to someone who lost a friend, and the notice belongs to someone who stopped checking it."

Roxanne pulled out her notebook and began writing a short description beside each photograph as Adrian showed them to her. The first few came out stiff, but by the fourth she was enjoying herself more than she wanted to admit.

Under a tree near the east lawn, Adrian showed her a photograph of two empty chairs facing each other across a patch of dry leaves. "These two people drifted apart," he said. "They used to sit here every day, and now the chairs are all that’s left."

"Or one of them is just late," Roxanne said. "The other is waiting, and the seat is still warm from the sun."

"That’s less interesting. The picture works better when it stays open and people bring their own meaning to it."

"A story needs somewhere to go," Roxanne said, tapping the screen. "Even a quiet image has to tell the reader how to feel."

They went back and forth until Maya set down her pencil and sighed. "You’re both right, so stop. Use the chairs twice, once early and once near the end, and let them mean something different each time." Roxanne considered it and found she had no argument, while Adrian nodded with the look of someone annoyed that the answer was so simple.

They were still bent over the camera when Liam wandered up with Jace, both of them damp from a sports session. Jace squinted at the photographs and then at Roxanne. "Are you investigating abandoned furniture now?"

"It’s a project for the exchange program," Roxanne said. "We’re telling a story through pictures."

Liam took the camera without asking and thumbed through the images, offering suggestions that grew steadily more ridiculous. One involved a haunted bench. When he reached the chairs he stopped. "Two princes who keep missing each other because they’re too stubborn to talk," he said.

"That sounds suspiciously familiar," Roxanne said. Liam grinned and held the camera out to her. "Want to use it?"

Adrian looked between them, clearly entertained. "Does he always contribute to other people’s projects without being invited?"

"Only when the project clearly needs my genius," Liam said. Roxanne told him to go away, and he left laughing with Jace trailing behind him.

Maya spread the printed photographs across a library table and started rearranging them. "What if we put them in the order someone would see them while getting ready to leave?" she asked.

The archway went first, followed by the library, the fountain, the training pavilion, and finally the empty chairs. Roxanne stood over the row and felt a story taking shape, a student preparing to transfer schools and revisiting the places that had shaped her time at the academy.

"She doesn’t need a dramatic reason for leaving," Roxanne said. "It can just be about how hard it is to say goodbye to somewhere that became familiar."

Adrian studied the line of photographs and smiled. "I like it." For the first time since the project began, all three of them were looking at the same picture.

The campus café was nearly empty when they settled into a corner booth with tea and a plate of pastries. Adrian turned his cup in his hands before speaking. "I thought you’d want to control the whole written side," he said.

"I figured you cared more about pretty pictures than telling a story," Roxanne said. "So we were both wrong."

"You’re both terrible at first impressions," Maya said, and the three of them laughed until the waiter glanced over. They agreed to divide the next stage more clearly, with Roxanne drafting the narrative, Adrian selecting and editing the photographs, and Maya developing the illustrations.

That evening, Roxanne was walking back to her dorm when her phone buzzed with a message in the group chat. Adrian had sent a photograph of the academy’s main entrance at sunset, the gates glowing gold above an empty path. Under it he had written, "I think this should be the final image."

Maya answered almost at once and asked why. Adrian replied, "Because it’s where the story ends."

Roxanne stopped on the path and studied the picture for a while before typing her reply, "Or where another one begins." She sent it and watched the screen until it dimmed, since nobody answered for a long moment. Then Maya wrote, "That’s our ending."