The Campus Gallery Ch. 04

Pacing restlessly around his workspace. Oliver was feeling the stress of his upcoming midterm critique, staring at the monitor, the half-finished shots he'd been working on seemed dull and lifeless.

Quinn hadn't been around much lately, and he felt it. Her presence had become a strange sort of anchor -- one that kept him balanced even when he felt like his creative momentum was slipping.

Frustrated, Oliver grabbed his camera and left the gallery. He walked aimlessly for a while, weaving through campus streets until he ended up in front of a tiny corner cafe. He didn't even know what had drawn him there until he spotted Quinn through the window.

She was sitting alone, a notebook open in front of her, scrawling words across the page. Her fingers tapped her pen against her cheek in thought. She looked different -- her usual sharp-edged confidence softened by whatever thoughts she was lost in.

Before he could overthink it, Oliver stepped inside.

"Hey," he said awkwardly as he reached her table. "Mind if I join you?"

Quinn glanced up, surprised. "You're stalking me now, freshman?"

"I prefer 'casual coincidence,'" Oliver shot back, grinning as he slid into the chair across from her. "What are you working on?"

Quinn closed the notebook a little too quickly. "Nothing important. Just... ideas."

"Ideas for what?"

"Art stuff," she said vaguely. "Doesn't matter. What about you? Why are you wandering around campus like a lost puppy?"

Oliver sighed. "I can't seem to make anything... work. My shots just feel empty lately."

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "Empty? You're the guy who shoots reflections on puddles like they're museum pieces."

"That's different," Oliver muttered. "It's like... I'm trying too hard to make it all mean something. But nothing I do feels real."

Quinn was quiet for a moment. Debating letting him see this part of her. The small notebook was a thing she did when she was feeling lost, when the ideas scattered across brain started to overwhelm her. The ideas, and emotions that she could fully form. Then she slid her notebook across the table. "Here," she said. "Pick a page. Any page."

"What?"

"Trust me," Quinn said with a grin. "Come on."

Oliver flipped the notebook open to a random page.

The words scrawled across it caught him off guard -- raw sketches of thoughts and phrases. Some were sharp descriptions of emotions -- restless hands, fading light, unspoken apologies. Others were half-poems, messy yet beautiful.

"You wrote all this?" Oliver asked.

"Yeah," Quinn said. "Kinda my way of sorting things out."

"This is... amazing," Oliver said. "Why don't you share this stuff?"

"Because people expect me to be something else," Quinn said, her voice quieter now. "Tough, sarcastic, always in control. This stuff..." She motioned to the pages. "It doesn't really fit."

"I think that's what makes it so good," Oliver said. "It's real."

Quinn's eyes flicked up to meet his, her usual armor slipping for a moment. Then she shook her head and chuckled. "You're way too sentimental. It's gonna eat you alive."

"Guilty," Oliver grinned. "But... let me try something."

He grabbed his camera from his bag and turned it on. "Can I shoot something based on one of these?"

"What?" Quinn asked. "How would that even work?"

"Just... trust me," Oliver said. "Pick a line you really like."

Quinn hesitated, then tapped one of the phrases on the page: Unfinished stories never sleep.

Startled by his unusual confidence and bravado he gathered her things and grabbed her hand, her turn to be led around the small college town like a lost puppy. He didn't know where he was going, he was just following the light.

The warmth of his hand was overwhelming, it was the first time ever really had touched her, she was unprepared but also amused. Something about the touch was electric, energized. It caught her off guard but she also didn't want to let go. They walked down a small alley that let out to the riverfront, right as the sun was setting and golden hour was at its peak.

"Okay," Oliver said. "Just... think about the words. 'Unfinished stories never sleep.' What does that feel like?"

Quinn's smile faded, and her gaze drifted slightly past him -- lost in thought. The teasing glint in her eyes softened into something deeper, quieter. Oliver raised his camera and clicked the shutter.

"Again," he said. "Whatever you're thinking, stay there."

She shifted slightly, turning her face away from the light, her hair spilling forward like a curtain. The sadness that flickered across her face wasn't forced -- it was real. He clicked the shutter again.

When she finally met his gaze again, Oliver knew he had the shot.

"Got it," he said softly, lowering his camera.

Quinn stood and crossed the dock, she leaned into him under the pretext of looking at the pictures, she had never realized before how much bigger he is than her. His lost demeanor always made him seem small to her. Peering at his camera screen as he scrolled through the shots.

"That one," she said quietly, pointing to a single frame -- her face shadowed, lips slightly parted, her eyes holding something unfinished and unspoken.

"Yeah," Oliver said. "That one."

They stood there in silence for a while, neither of them sure what to say next. Her body next to his, wanting him to push further to make a move. It infuriated her to feel this way.

"You're not bad, freshman," Quinn said at last, her voice quieter than usual.

"You're not so bad yourself," Oliver replied.

"If you get weird about this," Quinn warned, "I can still stab you with a paintbrush."

Oliver grinned. "I'd expect nothing less."

The days that followed were a quiet undercurrent of anticipation. Oliver found himself waking earlier than usual, his mind swirling with the photos he'd taken, with Quinn's advice, and, more than anything, with the way she made him see things differently. It wasn't just her looks -- though those had taken root in his thoughts far more than he liked to admit -- but the way she spoke, the way she saw the world.

He'd been stuck in a cycle of technicalities and restrictions, and Quinn had shattered it with a simple truth: art wasn't about rules. It was about feeling.

He had his first critique session a few days after their impromptu shoot. His professor had set up a table at the front of the classroom, piled high with the work of all the students, a mixture of basic assignments and personal experiments. Oliver hated the group critiques. His peers weren't particularly good at accepting feedback, and he was no different. But as he sat there, looking at the wide array of images -- photos of eggs, bowls of fruit, some questionable experiments with light -- he felt a quiet confidence growing. The photos he had taken the night with Quinn were different.

They had a rawness, an energy that wasn't in the rest of the work.

The professor's voice broke through his thoughts. "Oliver, you're up next."

Taking a deep breath, Oliver stood and walked to the front. His photos were pinned to the board. He looked at them for a long moment before turning to face the class. They were quiet, waiting for the professor to speak.

"So," the professor said, adjusting his glasses and studying the images, "what do we think here?"

There was a pause as some of the students murmured. The shots were good, better than good. They had a story, an intention that was missing from the others. The way Quinn had looked in the dim light of the gallery, confident and untouchable, still lingered in Oliver's mind. He could see it in the photos, the way the shadows and light met on her skin. He'd captured something real.

"These are... interesting," the professor continued, taking his time. "They show a level of understanding of light, shadow, and texture. But--" he gave Oliver a pointed look, "it feels forced. The technical ability is there, you've captured the moment, but there's a lack of emotional depth. These are images of a body, not of a person. Who is she?"

Oliver blinked, caught off guard by the question. "Uh, she's just... someone I know."

The professor nodded but didn't let it go. "She feels distant. Cold, almost. If this is someone you know, then show me who she is. Don't hide behind the camera." He gave a half-hearted smile.

"And maybe pick a different subject next time. Something a little less... obvious."

He felt gutted, he thought his images were his best work, but the professor just destroyed him in one swift move.

Oliver stood there for a moment, feeling the sting of the critique. But as he packed up his things and returned to his seat, something clicked. He had tried to capture Quinn, but not truly. He hadn't gone beyond the surface. It wasn't about her body or the way the light hit her skin -- it was about who she was, what she was feeling, what she meant. Quinn wasn't just a model; she was a muse, an enigma he hadn't yet figured out.

As he walked to his seat, she looked up at the TA in the back of the room. Jaz, she was putting down her phone while staring at him. At that moment he remembered her connection to Quinn.

"Oh Shit" He thought to himself as he sat down.