I Was Never the Woman in Focus Chapter 01
Zion Xavier had taken over three thousand photos of me in our eight years together.
Not a single one was decent enough to post.
Blurry outlines, out-of-focus eyes and brows, as if viewed through fogged glass.
I’d asked him countless times, “You’re a professional photographer. Can you just take one good photo of me?”
He’d keep adjusting his camera lens, never lifting his gaze. “This is what you really look like. I can’t help it.”
I believed him for eight whole years.
That was until last week, when his photography exhibition opened. I went early to help set up.
Tucked in the far corner of the gallery was an unreleased private series—Aurora.
Iceland, Norway, Alaska. He’d chased the auroras across three continents over five years to shoot this portrait collection.
Every shot was so crisp you could see frost crystals clinging to her eyelashes.
I knew the woman in the photos.
It was Selena White, his former assistant who’d worked with him on several projects.
The curator wandered over to me. “Mr. Xavier’s work here is absolutely stunning. Did you know? He’d fly out within 48 hours every time an aurora forecast came out.”
I did the math. Those days he’d claimed he was off on business trips to Iceland or taking commercial shoots in Northern Europe lined up perfectly.
Standing there in the gallery, between those three thousand blurry portraits of me and the twenty-seven sharp, luminous shots of another woman, it all clicked.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t capture me clearly.
He’d never truly bothered to look.
I unslung the vintage film camera he’d given me from around my neck and hung it on the coat hook by the gallery entrance.
Stepping outside, I opened my phone and accepted the visiting scholar invitation from a university in Norway.
Six months. Just enough time to witness a full aurora season.
His lens had chased someone else for five years. I refused to spend the rest of my life being nothing more than a flawed shot in his frame.
……
“Kelly Walsh, what on earth were you doing at the gallery?”
The moment I walked through the door, Zion’s sharp question hit me.
I hung my coat on the hallway hook, my movements calm and unhurried.
He came over, still carrying the chill of the outdoors and the faint scent of champagne.
“The opening ceremony was about to start, and you left without a word.” He tugged at his tie, his tone thick with irritation. “Do you have any idea what people are saying about me?”
I turned to face him, looking at the frown creasing his forehead.
“Does what others think of you really matter?”
Zion froze for a second.
He clearly hadn’t expected me to speak to him like this. For eight years, whenever he frowned, I’d immediately start wondering what I’d done wrong.
“What’s your problem?” His voice hardened. “Is this about those aurora photos? Kelly, you’re a grown adult. Are you really jealous over a piece of art?”
Art.
I let out a soft, bitter laugh.
“Those twenty-seven photos are flawless—perfect lighting, composition, depth of field. Not a single flaw.” I held his gaze. “Zion Xavier, your hands never shook once while you were shooting Selena.”
A flash of panic flickered across his eyes, quickly masked by annoyance.
“I told you, it was work!” He raised his voice. “I was working on that polar project back then, and Selena was my assistant. She knew exactly how to work with my camera. It was all for the sake of creation!”
“Did your ‘creation’ require you to lie to me?” My voice was unnervingly steady. “Did it require you to pretend every trip to Northern Europe was just you shooting empty landscapes?”
Zion took a deep breath.
“What would telling you have accomplished? You know nothing about photography. All you’d do is make a scene out of jealousy.” He nodded toward a glass on the coffee table. “Look at you now. Being so confrontational. You’re acting irrational.”
Irrational.
I closed my eyes and swallowed the ache burning in my throat.
For eight years, I’d stood by him, from his days living in a tiny basement with no fame to his current success with solo exhibitions.
I’d taken care of every little household chore so he could focus entirely on his craft.
I’d thought he was just quiet, that his love lived behind his camera lens.
That illusion shattered the second I saw Selena’s aurora portraits.
His phone suddenly rang.
The screen lit up with the contact name: Buddy Selena.
He glanced at the screen, and all his earlier irritation vanished in an instant.
His tone softened the moment he answered. “What’s wrong?”
The background was noisy, and Selena’s voice came through the speaker.
“Zion, I think I messed up.” Her voice sounded tearful. “I accidentally knocked your Leica off its stand while taking down the exhibits.”
Zion’s expression darkened. That Leica was his most prized camera. He’d even snapped at me before for merely touching it.
But his first question was not about the camera.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine, but I think I twisted my ankle.”
“Stay right there and don’t move. I’m coming over now.”
He hung up and grabbed his coat off the sofa without so much as a glance my way. “I have to head back to the gallery. Selena dropped the camera and hurt her ankle.”
“Zion.” I called out to stop him. “This morning, I cut my hand on a picture frame nail while moving artwork. I lost quite a bit of blood.”
He paused mid-step as he slipped on his shoes.
That was all.
“Just put a band-aid on it. You’re not a child.” He pushed open the door.
“Selena can’t manage alone over there. I’ll be back late.”
The door slammed shut, leaving the living room dead silent.
I stared down at my right index finger. The cut was deep. Earlier that morning, I’d gone to him for a band-aid, only to find him adjusting lighting for Selena.
“Leave me alone. Find one yourself,” he’d said.
I walked over to the coffee table and opened a drawer. Inside lay a dusty photo album.
I flipped to the first page.
It was a photo from my twentieth birthday. Out of focus, dimly lit, my face blurred into shadows.
He’d said back then, “This is called artistic ambiance.”
Every photo after that was the same. Blurry smiles, eyes closed mid-shot, awkward cropping.
For eight years, he’d framed me as a blurred figure, barely recognizable.
Yet for five years, he’d captured Selena as a radiant goddess beneath the dancing auroras.
I pulled out my phone and opened the email from the Norwegian university. I clicked to confirm my acceptance.
Then I dialed the real estate agent.
“Ms. Chance, I’d like to cancel the deposit on the apartment we reserved as our wedding home.”
The agent sounded surprised. “Ms. Walsh, Mr. Xavier was supposed to sign the final contract next week.”
I stared at my blurred reflection in the old photos.
“We won’t be signing it.”
