Love/Fail

Chapter 21

"Hooray! Well, keep that in mind," he said, drawing me towards the storage room. "I've done something else and I hope you'll like it."

He opened the door and ushered me in. "This old room?" I said, wrinkling my nose. "What is in... Oh!"

My capacity for language deserted me as I took in the formerly dingy space that had hosted its fair amount of rodent guests and scuttling spiders. What was once dark and damp had been converted into a small studio, white and open, with large skylights in the roof letting in the night air and moonlight. The brick back wall had been plastered, and huge rolls of photographic paper hung from the ceiling, ready to tug down as backgrounds of blue, white, black and green. My tripod and camera had been mounted in the centre along with two giant lights and reflectors, while off to the left was a small changing area and a cute white desk where my laptop sat under a kitschy lamp.

Best of all, a large print of one of my photos adorned the side wall. It was a picture I'd taken of the big apple tree in the corner of Dad's garden. Mum had bought it as a sapling the year I'd been born, and it fruited every summer without fail. The image was of a shining apple dangling from a branch against a brilliant blue sky, and underneath there were scripted words reading, Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is.

"It's a Mark Twain quote," explained Rupert. "I wanted you to see it whenever you started to doubt if you should be in here."

I couldn't answer; I was overwhelmed. Sinking down onto the leather office chair at the desk, I marvelled at the conversion. "Rupert... This is incredible. How did you do this?"

"Well, I didn't do it alone. Cody rang me the other day saying that you needed a space to shoot in. Your dad mentioned the storage room was pretty much empty except for shampoo, and the three of us worked today to get it up to scratch. Did we do good?"

"Not good. Good doesn't cover it. I'm... I'm so blessed."

"Oh come on now," he joked gently. "It's not supposed to make you cry."

"Happy tears," I assured him, wiping at my face. I'd cried so much in the last month, I was surprised my tear ducts hadn't gone on strike from inhumane working hours.

"Thank god for that. How about we celebrate then, yeah?" He produced a ludicrously overpriced bottle of champagne and two crystal flutes. "Christen this place all proper-like."

We camped on the floor, sipping from our glasses while I simply gazed around in awe. "I still can't believe you guys made this happen. I've never had studio access before – I don't even know if I'll be any good at photos inside."

"You don't have to overthink it at this stage," he said. "I know you worry about failing, but this is your safe space. Fail all you want in here. Take a thousand pictures and then a thousand more, and don't worry about the awful ones because they'll be gold in there somewhere. Mia love, it doesn't matter if you never become a full-time photographer. Lots of people happily do the things they love part time without it ever turning into a career. It doesn't make your work any less valuable."

"You're right. And you're especially right about one thing – this does feel like a safe space. I think I could cope with just about anything in here." I refilled our glasses. "What about you? Feel safe enough to do some story swapping?"

The atmosphere shifted just a little with the anticipation of the tales we'd each held tight to our chests for so long. "I do," said Rupert, a shadow crossing his handsome face. "Ordinarily I'd say ladies first, being that I am such a proper British gent and all, but I think in this case the more gentlemanly thing to do is to kick things off."