Damon and I spent most of the afternoon taking wintery pictures of the forest. But as soon as twilight began to set in, I started setting up the equipment I brought with me. Boxes with wires, lights, and other things. Damon walked around and took pictures of the forest for a while longer, but when there was too little light, he came back over and stood to the side, just watching me.

I eye the installation I’ve set up. It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough. At least for now. I set up my camera, playing with the settings a little. Then I step back. This will have to do. It would have been better if I had more time to prepare, but I don’t.

“What are you doing?” Damon steps closer, looking at the installation.

“It’s a... thing.” I shrug. How the hell do I explain what I’m making without admitting that I’m obsessed with a particular girl?

“A thing?” He raises his eyebrows. “Right. And what does the thing do?”

“Lights.” I look through the camera one last time, and then go over to the installation. I turn the box on, and a pulse of light starts ‘walking’ over the string I’ve hung up. It keeps moving forward, a couple of lights at a time. The next pulse follows it a couple of seconds behind, creating a spiral going up around the tree.

Lola used to write fantasy stories, and one of them included a scene that has always interested me, though I never had an idea of how I could transform it from the page into actual physical being. But when I got to that scene again last weekend, when I reread her story, I suddenly knew how I could pull it off without having to resort to computer stuff. How I could represent that scene in ways that I’d never been able to do before. The scene in the book describes a fairy forest, a fairy kingdom, when the main character comes home again after a long trip. There is a lot of focus on the way the lights from the fairies move around the tree as time passes.

A couple of well-placed lights and timers will create the movements of the lights and then I just have to take the right pictures and video. Like there is such a thing as ‘just’ when you work with lights and photos and it’s not actually that light outside. But I’m sure I can make it work, or at least create something that I can use as the base for if I create this project for real.

The lights have started to blink, the pattern close to what I want it to do. Then I get back to my camera. First a short film, hopefully. It gives me at least something to work with.

I switch to the video setting, and after getting the settings to the best it can to film in the darkness, I hit the button to record. I look at the small screen as the video is being recorded, waiting for the lights to have run a couple of times, and then I turn it off again.

“Fairy lights?” Damon asks.

“Something like that.” I stand up further, going over to the lights and changing the location of a couple of them.

“Why? This is nothing like your previous work.”

“I guess.” I shrug. I had no reason to make fantastical things before. I’ve mostly stayed realistic before, even if I did experimental stuff. I get back to the camera and start taking pictures, hoping to get a good number of different ones.

“It’s because of Lola, isn’t it?”

I stop. There is something in his voice that tells me to be really careful now.

“I know that she writes fantasy. Or used to, anyway.” Damon comes closer.

I turn around, looking at Damon, trying to decide how much to tell him. The lights behind me color him slightly green. Darkness has really set in now. “Will you get angry if I say yes?”

“You worried about me, or about Hunter hearing the answer?”

“Don’t know.” I turn back to the camera, taking a couple more pictures, and we’re silent until I turn the camera off and start packing it away.

Damon helps me pack. “Can I ask you something?”

“Pretty sure you keep asking me things all the time.”

“Why do you do it? Why keep obsessing about her?” He seems honestly interested in the answer.

I stop. That’s the question, isn’t it? Why don’t I just move on? “I wish I had an answer to that question.”

“Lola is your ex. Isn’t that enough?”

I look up. Damon looks like he really has no idea. “There are things... Sometimes there is someone you won’t be able to let go. No matter how much you try.” I shrug. “I hadn’t seen her in years, and the moment I saw her, I only wanted to get to her. There is no way for me not to.”

“What about Lola? Doesn’t she get a say in this?”

“I wish it was that simple for us. I wish that we knew what to do. I wish we wouldn’t hurt so much inside.” I straighten, packing the camera away and then I grab my boxes to get them to the car.

Damon stands next to me, helping me. “Fight for her. No matter what.” His voice is strong, and when I look at him, there is a fire in his eyes. “If you really want her, and she wants you, fight for her.”

I nod. He seems to be the first one who’s actually okay with me doing this.

Fighting for her... I have no idea how I’m supposed to do that. No idea at all.

Because I’m pretty sure that to do that, I’ll have to fight myself. Myself and the stupid things I’ve done in the past.

Fighting for someone or something sounds easy enough until you actually have to do it.

After the shoot last night, I realized I was going to need a few more things for my setup if I’m going to make this into a real project. Especially different smaller lights, a couple of colored screens, and supplies to make little windows. The best place for those things, as far as I’ve figured out, is the craft shop at the mall. I’ve walked through the place a couple of times, but I’ve never been in the crafts store. Damon said that they have a good collection of supplies for different crafts, including things I can use for my crafty side of the project, like the windows. So, since I don’t have much else to do today, I decided to take a look. If nothing else, they may have some supplies that we can use for the staging of the movie.

I saunter through the mall. There are a good number of stores here: clothing stores, toy stores, some smaller specialized stores, and a lot of different types of restaurants. It makes me consider coming here with my camera when it’s not as busy. The way everything is laid out and designed is very interesting. And on the top floor, I saw a setup with colored glass and windows, which, if the sun is in the right place, you can also see in the main hall downstairs. I really need to come here when there is more sunlight and there are fewer people walking around.

I look around, trying to orient myself and follow Damon’s instructions on how to get to the craft store. This place is kind of a maze. I have no idea where I’m going.

My phone starts to vibrate, and I pick it up, expecting it to be Damon or maybe my parents, but it’s Chris. I frown. Chris is a guy I know from college back home. We had some classes together and I’ve done lights and installations at a couple of his events in the past. Nothing big, but it was always fun. “Yo.” I pick up.

“Hey, man. You enjoying your leisure time with that weird project you signed up for?” Chris sounds excited, though tired.

“Yeah. About to get busier, getting closer to filming and all.” I lean against the railing, letting my eyes wander.

“Cool. Cool.”

“What’s up? Your final project going well?”

“About as well as you can expect. No idea why I chose a research project as my final project.” He lets out a sigh. “It would have been easier to focus on it if people actually did what they signed up for and I didn’t have to keep emailing and calling them instead of finishing this damn thing.”

“What now?” Chris is setting up a—for him—big exposition at the end of next month. I couldn’t sign up for it because I’d be here and all.

“I need a huge favor.” He doesn’t ask that often.

Still. “No.”

“Please? I only need one person. One of the guys dropped out and now I need someone else.”

“I’m busy here. I don’t have the time to go over there and do stuff.” I sigh. Then I recognize the girl stepping out of a bra shop. Hanna, one of Lola’s friends.

“The guy then, the reason why that woman chose you to work on her movie?”

“Hunter?”

“Yes, whatever his name is. Can you ask him?”

Behind Hanna, a blond girl steps out, her hands full of bags, and the two are laughing together. “Eh, I don’t think that asking him would be the best idea right now.”

“What did you do? Fight with him?”

Not exactly, but it comes close enough. “Doesn’t matter.”

The girls turn my way, and as they get closer, my mouth falls open. Lola! The other girl, the blond, is Lola. Her hair is bleached a white-blond, she’s wearing boots, tight jeans, and a half-length leather jacket. She looks... stunning. Not that she normally doesn’t look good, she’s always fucking sexy. But this is a whole new level of sexy. Fuck. I’m hard. Like, really hard.

They come my way and when they’re a couple of feet away, Lola looks up. Her surprise makes her light blue eyes look even lighter. She stops for a moment, but then looks away and starts walking faster. Hanna looks around, trying to find why Lola is acting differently so suddenly, and when she sees me, she glowers. Well, I can’t please everyone.

I stare after Lo a while longer, surprised by her new style. Wow, that’s just... Wow.

“Blaze!” Chris yells at me through the phone.

“What?” I turn around, trying to remember what I was doing.

“I said that I can pay you. I have funds to pay the artists, pretty well. And you may be able to sell something, depending on the project.”

“I don’t know.” Though getting paid sounds pretty good right now. I haven’t sold much lately and living here means I can’t do small gigs over the weekend like I normally do—it’s just not worth the trouble of travel.

“I really need an extra guy, man. It would be a huge favor. Huge.”

My eyes fall on Lo again as she crosses the main area on the ground floor. There is something about her. She not only looks different, she also moves differently, stronger. “Fine. I’ve got a project I semi-started anyway. I think I can pull something off. When would you need it?” It’s a great excuse to improve on what I made yesterday. To keep working on this project, finish it the way I’ve been imagining it. Make something for the girl who has my heart, even if she doesn’t know about it.

“Two days before the opening. So twenty-second of March. Depending on how much time you need for setting up, of course. If you need more time, you’re going to have to come in earlier.” Chris sounds relieved. “Thanks, man!”

“I’ll figure something out. No problem.” I shake my head.

“Thanks. You saved my ass. Now I need to get back to work, make sure nobody else is dropping out. I’m counting on you. Later!”

“Later.” I disconnect the call and put my phone away. A show, an actual exposition this time. I don’t do them often, because the things I make don’t tend to be easy to display. But I think I can make this work. Hopefully.

I push myself away from the railing and start wandering the hallways again, and finally, on my second round of the ground floor, I find it tucked into the back, hidden from the main hall—the craft store. It’s supposed to be big, but the front door is unassuming and the store is triangle-shaped, with the door at one of the corners.

I step in and am immediately surrounded by Valentine’s Day crafts supplies. Lots of hearts and pink and red and things like that. Of course, it’s only two weeks from now, but I just hadn’t been prepared for so much of it in a single place. Yikes.

I walk around the setup. Damon said that they keep the stuff I want in the basement, but to get there, I need to walk through the aisle with notebooks and pens. And, of course, Lola is standing there, two notebooks in her hands, the bags from before at her feet as she compares them. She hasn’t realised I’m there yet and is mumbling to herself, probably about which book to choose.

“The black one, you prefer the sturdy cover.” I can’t help but comment, and Lola nearly jumps from surprise.

Then she turns to me and glares. “I didn’t ask you anything.”

“I’m not responding to a question. You looked like you could use some extra feedback.” I shrug. It’s nice to have her eyes on me, even when she’s glaring.

“I don’t need your feedback. Are you following me? You can leave now.” She turns her back to me, and my eyes slide down from her shoulders to her waist and then to her ass and hips. Fuck. She’s so sexy, and these clothes don’t hide anything at all.

“I’m not following you. I’m just here to pick up supplies.” My voice is lower than it was before. I can’t hide how she turns me on.

“Well, go pick them up.”

I step closer and then past her, to the stairs, not touching her, even though I really want to. “I’d rather pick you up.”

I don’t need to look at her when she lets out a little squeak of surprise. “You can’t...” Her voice is a little breathy.

This time I’m the one turning around, staring at her, surprised. She’s blushing, her cheeks red, her lips slightly apart as her eyes dart between me and anywhere-but-me.

Fuck. If that doesn’t make me even harder...

“Lo...” I’m not sure what to say next. She wants me just as much as I want her, the look in her eyes tells me all I need to know. If I could, I’d drag her to the nearest changing room and do her right there.

She shakes her head, her eyes glistening a little as she takes a shuddering breath. “Can you leave, please?”

I nod, lust still rushing through me, but also surprise and pain. Fuck.

“See you in class.” I turn back to the stairs, walking down, glancing up one last time before she disappears from view.

She’s still staring at me, her hand over her heart, breathing hard, tears in her eyes, and the big Valentine’s display behind her.

Fuck.