Her Mysterious Ways

Bonus Chapter (or possibly part of a new book altogether?)

Cole's POV

BEEP BEEP BEEP

My alarm screeched at me until I hit the off button. With a groan I rolled out of bed, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. Making myself a cup of coffee, I sat down to check emails and messages, much like every other morning. It was much of the usual; an inquiry here, bills there. Nothing was out of the ordinary, and that was the problem.

After I moved from Maine to New York, I had worked for my mother's photography company. It was a great company and a wonderful job, but it was much of the same every event I photographed. Clients told me what they wanted, and I delivered. I still had some artistic reign over the product, but not as much as I had wanted.

I wanted to take pictures that would make people think, not just remember. In high school, all I did was take photos that were art, but somewhere into adulthood that changed. Although my passion was in true art, that wasn't going to pay my water bill.

So when I saw an ad in the paper for a job that was unlike anything I had seen before, I pounced on it. With a phone call and an email, I had an interview. My mother was looking to slow down her business anyways, so this was the perfect time for a change. It was time for me to step out of the ordinary and finally pursue something greater than myself.

I slowly got ready, giving myself time to mentally prepare for whatever the interview would entail. It didn't seem like anything that I had ever heard of before, which is what had enticed me even further. From what they told me, it was a trial program in a local hospital set up for troubled or mentally ill teenagers. They were looking for artists of different varieties as well as school teachers in order to link therapy with academics and art forms. The owner and curator of the program would be interviewing me to see if I was "a good fit" for the program, and I was determined to show them I was.

During my teen years, I had used photography as my own form of therapy. When my mother had left my sister and I with my grandmother, I had taken so many photos of anything that vaguely represented what I was going through. The same thing had happened when I moved back in with my mother and left a whole life behind, including a very important girl. After we broke up, the only thing I could bear to do was take pictures. And again, when my grandmother passed away a few years after that, I took more pictures than I ever had.

So there I was, hoping I would be able to pass this form of therapy onto others. The idea to have a whole program based around different types of expressive outlets was genius, and I wanted to be part of it any way I could. I was intrigued to meet the mastermind behind it all. If anything, I knew I would learn something from the person in charge of this interview.

Walking out the door, satchel thrown across my side, I took a deep breath and strode to the hospital.

~

~

"Cole Jankinson? Are you ready?" A woman called out, reading off of a clipboard. I rose out of my chair and nodded, following behind her as she lead me to a small office in a remote wing of the hospital.

 A woman with auburn hair sat at the desk, her back to me as she rummaged through some files behind the desk. The woman who had called my name disappeared back into the hallway, leaving me with who I assumed to be my interviewer.

"Ahem," I cleared my throat, "I'm Cole Jankinson, here for the photography position."

If somebody had told me what would have happened next, I would have laughed in their face. With the millions of people walking around New York every day compared to the billions of people in the world, there was no way things had turned out like this. Never would I have imagined it.

"Cole?" The woman turned around slowly to reveal that she was not just a woman with auburn hair, but the woman with auburn hair who I once knew very well. 

She was the girl I had once kissed in the very city we were in at that moment. The one who had stolen my heart so many years before. We visited each other during breaks from school and made so many promises we didn't keep. And now, here she was, sitting in front of me. All grown up, reminding me of all the reasons I had begged her to stay with me. And she was still so painstakingly gorgeous. Her eyes were still a brilliant blue, and freckles still dotted her cheeks. She was still herself, just without the flannel.

"Rosemary?"