Mia had just finished adding the watermarks to her latest set of photos. Attaching a select few to the client's email, she clicked the little paper aeroplane icon and leaned back in her chair, yawning as she did so. She glanced at the clock on the corner of her laptop screen: 8.03pm. Shit, she thought, realising she hadn't eaten. She stretched again to motivate herself to move and trudged through to the kitchen, screwing up her face as she swigged the last few gulps of a long-cold coffee. Scanning the contents of the fridge and making a mental note to pick up some essentials the next time she went out, she grabbed a slightly past-it's-best carrot and the remains of a pot of hummus as her bedtime snack.
Discarding the empty pot on the way, Mia headed upstairs to begin her night-time routine. After washing and brushing her teeth, she dragged a brush through her bright red hair before tying it loosely with a black, velvet-effect scrunchie. She then clambered into her duvet and scrambled around the side of the bed for wherever the TV remote had fallen last night. She flicked automatically to Netflix and continued her latest rewatch of "The Vampire Diaries". She pondered briefly about how her last "boyfriend" (well, it was more of a fling really) had ridiculed her for watching vampire shows, especially before bed, but she soon got shot of him. Most of the guys she had "dated" were the same and besides, she didn't have time for any of that - she was a strong, independent woman! But vampire shows and stories had been her comfort ever since she discovered the "Twilight" book series when she was 13. Of course, she could appreciate how badly they had aged now, but they got her interested in vampires and the various lore surrounding them and now The Vampire Diaries had become her comfort show. She didn't need to pay attention to it anymore, it was just background noise as she double checked tomorrow's photography schedule on her phone. She had the Davenports booked in for a shoot at her home studio at 9am the following morning, so she had to be up early to prepare for their arrival. She didn't mind though. She considered herself incredibly lucky to have found something she was good at during high school and turn it into a career for herself. She loved her work too, though she had to work a lot to make enough money to cover her costs and still have enough to eat and pay rent. She had grown up poor and had learned to thrift and save as much as she could, but if the work wasn't there, she just went without.
But after the session with the Davenports, her schedule was empty for the rest of the day. She quickly added a few essential items to a shopping list on her phone, along with a reminder, then set her alarm for 6.30am and drifted off to the sound of Damon Salvatore making another kill.