I don't remember the exact day I fell in love with Lena Hayes.
I just remember noticing that my life slowly started arranging itself around her.
It was early October, the kind of cold that creeps in quietly. The city always looked a little washed out that time of year—gray sky, wet streets, breath turning into fog in front of your face. Most people hated it.
Lena said it made everything look "cinematic."
We were sitting on the stone steps outside the university library when she said that. I was trying to read for an upcoming psychology exam, and she was lying on her stomach beside me, chin in her hands, camera pointed at absolutely nothing important.
Click.
"Why do you take pictures of random things?" I asked without looking up.
"They're not random," she said. "You just don't see stories yet."
I glanced at her then. Her dark hair was tied up in a messy bun that never stayed in place. A few loose strands kept falling over her eyes and she kept blowing them away instead of fixing it. She wore this oversized brown coat that looked like it belonged to someone twice her age.
She looked ridiculous.
She looked perfect.
"What story does that trash can have?" I nodded toward where her camera was pointed.
She gasped dramatically. "Rude. That trash can has history. Think of all the things people threw away there. Notes. Receipts. Secrets."
"You need sleep," I muttered.
She grinned, then suddenly pointed the camera at me.
Click.
"Lena—"
"Too late."
"I look tired."
"You always look tired. That's your vibe."
"That's not a vibe. That's a health concern."
She laughed, loud enough that two students turned to stare. Lena never noticed when people looked at her. Or maybe she noticed and just didn't care. I was never sure.
She lowered the camera and studied the screen. "You look like you're thinking about something heavy. That's interesting."
"I was thinking about neurotransmitters."
"See? Heavy."
I tried to go back to reading, but it was useless. Whenever Lena was around, the world didn't exactly go quiet — it just went… softer. Like she pulled the sharp edges off things.
We'd met a year ago in a shared statistics class. She'd leaned over during the first lecture and whispered, "If I fail this subject, I'm blaming you." We hadn't stopped talking since.
People thought we were dating. We weren't.
I told myself I was waiting for the "right time." A better version of me. A moment that made sense.
Truth was, I was scared. Because once you say it out loud, you can't go back.
"Ethan," she said suddenly.
"Hm?"
"If you could disappear for a week, no one could contact you, where would you go?"
"That's… specific."
"Answer."
I thought for a second. "Somewhere quiet. Mountains maybe. No people."
She wrinkled her nose. "Boring."
"Your turn."
She leaned back on her elbows and looked up at the cloudy sky. "A place no one is supposed to go. Somewhere abandoned. Somewhere with a story that got… left behind."
"That sounds like the beginning of a horror movie."
"Or a great photo series."
"You watch too many documentaries about serial killers."
She smirked but didn't argue. That should've been my first clue, maybe. Lena had this fascination with forgotten places—old factories, empty train stations, buildings with broken windows and peeling paint. She said they felt more honest than new places.
"People leave pieces of themselves behind," she once told me. "Walls remember things."
At the time, I thought it was just another one of her artsy lines.
I didn't know she meant it.
Later that evening, we took the bus back toward the harbor. The windows were fogged up, and someone at the back was playing music quietly through their phone speakers. Lena sat by the window, headphones in, one side hanging out.
She held the other earbud toward me without looking.
I took it.
We didn't talk. We just listened. Some soft indie song about losing someone, I think. Her shoulder pressed lightly against mine every time the bus turned. She didn't move away. Neither did I.
Outside, streetlights reflected in the wet road like broken lines of gold. The sea was barely visible in the distance, just a darker patch against the night.
She pulled the earbud out after a while. "I have a shoot this weekend," she said.
"Where?"
She hesitated. Just a second. "Outside the city. Some old building I found."
"With who?"
"Just me."
"Lena…"
"What?" She smiled, but it was the kind she used when she was already planning to ignore me.
"At least tell someone where you're going."
"I'm telling you."
"That's not the same as being safe."
She studied my face for a moment. Her expression softened. "You worry too much."
"Someone has to."
She bumped her shoulder into mine. "That's why I keep you around."
I tried to act annoyed, but my chest did that stupid tight thing it always did when she said stuff like that.
When her stop came, she stood up, then suddenly turned and aimed the camera at me again.
Click.
"Stop doing that," I said.
"One day you'll be glad I did."
"Why?"
She just smiled, walking backward toward the bus doors. "Because memories fade. Photos don't."
The doors closed between us. She waved through the glass, then disappeared into the night, swallowed by cold air and streetlight glow.
I watched until the bus pulled away.
I didn't know that picture she took of me that night would be one of the last normal ones.
I didn't know that in a few weeks, I would stare at photos she left behind, searching for clues like a stranger trying to understand a ghost.
Back then, she was just Lena.
The girl who took pictures of everything.
Even the things she should've stayed away from.