His Lens Never Had Room For Me Chapter 08

His Lens Never Had Room For Me Chapter 08

I walked back to my equipment and recalibrated the equatorial mount.

Behind me, the SUV’s headlights finally cut out, plunging the entire snowfield back into a deathlike darkness.

Yet, Everett didn’t leave.

He stood dozens of yards away, a silent silhouette watching me by the faint light of the stars while I ignored him and kept working.

Sienna could not stand the atmosphere. In the dark, she grabbed Everett’s sleeve.

“Mr. Hale, let’s go back. It’s too cold here. I can’t take it anymore.”

Everett shook off her hand.

It was a side of him I had never seen in all our five winters together.

“If you can’t take it, get back in the car,” Everett said, his voice as cold as the Arctic wind.

Sienna froze.

She had grown used to his absolute indulgence, used to being lifted onto a pedestal at the awards ceremony.

Her eyes filled with injured tears.

“Why are you yelling at me? You’re the one who insisted on bringing me here!”

“Didn’t you say at the awards ceremony that I was your light? Didn’t you say you could break every rule for me?”

Sienna screamed, nearly hysterical.

In a fit of rage, she yanked a high-powered flashlight from her pocket.

Then she switched it straight to the highest strobe setting.

A violent burst of flashing white light swept wildly across the snowfield like something deranged.

The beam struck my lens head-on.

The three field assistants rushed toward her in anger.

I did not even frown.

I simply removed the camera from the tripod and capped the lens.

Everett stared at the high-powered flashlight in Sienna’s hand.

Then he snapped completely.

He stormed over, ripped the flashlight from her hand, and smashed it hard against a nearby rock.

The flashlight shattered.

The light went out instantly.

“Who told you to turn on a light? Who told you to turn on a light?”

Everett roared at Sienna.

The veins in his neck stood out, and his eyes were bloodshot.

“Do you know where we are? Do you even understand what zero light pollution means?”

Sienna was so frightened she collapsed into the snow, trembling all over.

“But… didn’t you just say yesterday that light is only pollution when it shines in the wrong place?”

Everett went rigid.

Those were the exact words he had spoken from a note card, in front of thousands of people.

He had used that line to erase five years of Elena’s sacrifice.

Now, the same line struck him across the face like a ringing slap.

Slowly, Everett turned his head to look at me.

I was already packing my camera into its shockproof case, my movements clean, efficient, and devoid of hesitation.

“Elena…” Everett took one step toward me.

“Pack up the equipment. Back to base,” I instructed my assistants.

I picked up the case and walked toward the snowcat parked in the distance.

Everett cut in front of me, blocking my path.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Those two words were five years too late.

“Get out of my way.” I said, looking into his eyes with absolute indifference.

“I saw your photos,” Everett said urgently.

“You shoot better than I do.”

“I changed the name of that star.” He pulled a velvet box from his pocket.

“I contacted the registry and changed it to your name. Elena, this star is yours.”

He held the box out to me.

I did not take it.

I looked at that beautiful box and suddenly found it laughable.

“Everett, I folded one thousand and ninety-six stars for you, and you couldn’t even be bothered to look at them. Now you think a piece of paper makes up for it?”

Without a second thought, I tipped the thermos of hot water I was holding directly over the velvet box.

In the brutal Arctic freeze, the water crystallized almost instantly, coating the box in a thick layer of dead white frost.

“My sky is already bright. I don’t need a cheap star from you.”

I pushed past him and climbed into the snowcat.

The door slammed shut.

The tracks crushed through the snow, leaving him and that frozen box far behind in the lightless night.