Christina Dominguez is going to be my undoing.

I scan through the dozens of photos of her I’ve just transferred to my laptop. I know I have to narrow what we’ll use for the campaign down to about ten, but deleting even one feels like a crime.

We timed the shoot perfectly, the fading daylight painting the white of the studio gold and giving Christina’s features the exact kind of soft glow we were aiming for. Her curves alone would be enough to give anyone with eyes a heart attack, but that’s not what I’m staring at as I click between photos.

I haven’t done any portrait work in a long time, and looking at the shots of Christina, I remember why it’s my favourite type of photography. When handled correctly, there’s nothing better than a camera for revealing who someone really is, for digging down past all the walls and bringing up the brutally raw, achingly honest truth. Anyone can take a picture of a mask, but a skilled photographer can show what’s behind that mask without even asking their subject to take it off.

That’s always been the goal of my work: truth. I don’t want to take pictures of what everyone else sees; I want to take pictures of the things they miss, of what’s hiding behind a raised eyebrow or a trembling hand. Everything that makes up my images— composition, lighting, the exact moment when I snap the shutter closed— is about that: leaving my subjects defenceless and exposed, unable to hide whatever beauty or ugliness they have inside them.

Christina is all beauty.

We didn’t plan the sections of the shoot around her personality, but they’ve each ended up showing a different part of who she is. Staring out the window in that blue bra with a no-nonsense look on her face, she’s the confident woman who’s at the top of all her classes and doesn’t take no for an answer. Dancing around to AC/DC, she’s the girl with an easy laugh and a flush of insecurity, a version of her I don’t think many people get to see. Lying on the couch, staring up at me with her lip between her teeth, she’s...

Sexy as fuck.

Which is highly problematic.

I noticed Christina Dominguez on my very first day of ad school, and I knew she was going to mean trouble. She walked into the room like she owned the place and started serving up searing comebacks with a smart mouth that just wouldn’t quit.

Women like her are the reason I act like an asshole. It’s easier to give up on getting close to a girl if I force her to write me off before she’s even gotten the chance to know me. I might have half the college campus clamouring for my phone number, but I know that’s just about looks and attitude. No one tries to get deeper than the surface because I’ve made myself seem like a person who’s all surface.

I’ve spent so much time figuring out how to break down people’s walls with a camera that when I decided to put up my own walls, it was easy. I push away anyone I feel the urge to get close to with sarcasm and irritating nicknames, and get left all to my lonesome on the ‘Planet of the Douche.’

That’s exactly how I want it.

* * *

“Do you have the stuff?”

Christina’s eyes are frantic as she approaches me in the parking lot. From the purple half moons underneath them, it’s clear she’s gotten as little sleep as me these past two days. I was up working on the project until three in the morning last night.

“No,” I reply, shutting my car door behind me. “I forgot it all at home.”

Her jaw drops open and I have to laugh as she clutches her face in an expression of horror that makes her look just like the cover of Home Alone.

“Relax, Dominguez. It’s all in the car.”

Annoyance replaces her panic. “Don’t test me, Penn. Not today. Today is the day we qualify to present in front of Epsilon Media, and I do not need any stupid jokes putting me even more on edge.”

“Epsilon Media?” I repeat.

She nods. “Gary showed me the list of attendees for the showcase. Epsilon is coming for the first time ever.”

“Gary showed you the list? Teacher’s pet.”

I smirk at her and she glares in return. It’s a common exchange between us.

We gather up all the project materials from the back seat of my car and head into the main campus building. We’re doing class presentations of our projects today, and seeing as Miss Teacher’s Pet volunteered us to go first, Gary’s letting us set up early.

Christina holds the door of the classroom open for me and I edge inside, careful not to knock the large posters I’m holding against anything. I don’t think Gary expects us to do much besides display our ads on the Smart Board, but we decided to go the extra mile and get prints done.

Christina starts setting up the stands I’ve brought and I pull the protective wrapping off the posters. I only picked them up this morning, and aside from a brief glance to make sure everything printed alright, I haven’t had a chance to see them.

“Close your eyes,” I tell her, once she’s got the stands all in place.

“What?”

“Close your eyes until they’re ready. I want you to be properly wow-ed by my brilliance.”

She lets out a groan.

“I said close your eyes, not roll them.”

She sighs, but places one hand over her eyes and tells me to hurry up. I grab the first poster by its edges, careful not to get any fingerprints on the front, and move it to a stand before doing the same with the next two. There’s one poster for each of the outfits we used, the images now edited to include the text of our ads.

The first shot captures Christina in the middle of a hair flip, one arm flung up in the air like she’s at a rock concert. A wide smile stretches across her face and her eyes are closed, giving the impression that she’s lost in the music coming out of her headphones. The text of the image reads: ‘Your Favourite band. Your favourite song. Your favourite bra.’ Along the bottom of the picture is the phrase we’ve used on all the ads: ‘Get that #favouritebrafeeling with Allure.’

I’m still staring at the poster when Christina walks up beside me.

“Meu Deus,” she gasps.

I turn my attention to her. She’s looking back and forth between all three ads like she doesn’t know which to focus on. She brings the fingers of one hand up to her cheek. I watch as she steps towards the ad on the far left, a landscape shot of her lying on the couch with a small, lazy grin on her face as she cups her chin in her hands.

We were going for cozy and relaxed, with the text reading, ‘Make time for some me time,’ but it was hard to find a photo from that set which wasn’t crackling with the tension in the room. I managed to find one that wasn’t blatantly sexual, but the pose still comes off as coy and inviting, giving a little more meaning to the phrase ‘me time’ than we intended.

I almost laugh at the thought, but stop when I see that it’s the ad in the middle that’s really drawn Christina’s attention. She stands in front of it, holding a hand just an inch above the surface as if she wants to reach inside the photo. I see her fingers shake.

“Aaron.” Her voice is tiny and soft, not at all how it usually sounds. “How did you do this?”

My reflex is to make some sarcastic remark about the mechanics of working a camera, but I stay quiet.

“I look...” she murmurs, sounding lost as she searches for words. “In this one, I look...I look like the woman I want to be.”

Something burns in my chest, setting fire to a part of it I’ve been trying to keep her out of. I step closer, fixing my eyes on the image. The slogan for this one reads, ‘Wake up. Take on the world. Repeat.’ In the photo Christina stands leaning against the windowpane, staring out at the flushed sunlight as she lowers a mug from her lips. She looks poised, in control, ready to start a new day. Everything about her, from the way she holds her head to the curving definition of her abs, speaks of confidence and strength.

“I take photos of what’s there, Christina, not what isn’t. You look like the woman you are.”

She turns, not expecting me to be so close, and her shoulder bumps against my chest. I catch her eye and for just a moment we’re frozen like that, her arm pressed into me, before we both take a step back.

“These are—” She swallows and flicks her eyes to the ground. “These are very good. Thank you for all the work you put in.”

“I mean, you basically threatened me with death if I didn’t give this my all. Just looking out for myself.”

“Good.” She gives a back-to-business kind of nod. “Now let’s rehearse.”

Forty minutes later we’re facing a standing ovation from Gary and our classmates. The presentation went off without a hitch and I’m pretty sure we’ve guaranteed ourselves a spot in the showcase.

We started off with the posters covered up, and after giving an anecdote about how the advertising world requires us to be prepared for everything, even model cancellations, we revealed the ads. I was worried no one would take the project seriously after seeing Christina in her underwear, but they seemed as awed by the images as she was. After the grand reveal, we used the Smart Board to explain our digital strategy and the consumer engagement tactics promoted by the hashtag.

We pack up our supplies as Gary walks to the front of the room and tells us we’ve done an excellent job.

“This has been a great note to start the presentations off on and I’m excited to see what the rest of you have come up with,” he says to the class at large. “So now, let’s listen to the next group wow us with their pierogi marketing strategies.”

I set the posters down at the back of the room and Christina places the stands beside them. She’s still beaming and I realize that I am too.

“Hey Peaches,” I whisper, as the next group starts their presentation, “we really shook them, all night long.”

Her smile stays fixed in place as whispers back, “Call me Peaches one more time and I’ll kick you in the nuts.”