𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚞𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜 ➯ 𝚐. 𝚛𝚞𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚕 // 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚞𝚕𝚊 𝚘𝚗𝚎

𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚛 - 𝚍𝚎𝚕𝚊𝚢𝚎𝚍 𝚛𝚎𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜

24 december 2018

christmas eve was one of the only days that the russell home was eerily silent. everyone was doing their gift preparations, which usually meant they weren't home or were locked up in their own rooms, to keep everything a surprise.

rhea had gotten out of bed early (for once) and by 8am, was out on her bike - with rolls of undeveloped film - to her alma mater. why to school, you ask? it was the home of her first (and favourite) dark room, and it was near home as well.

stepping into the eerily quiet school hallways, she walked to the far end of the campus, where the dark room awaited her.

she worked silently on her own, concentrating on getting everything perfect. she seldom used the dark room, and was slightly rusty. it didn't help that george wasn't in the room with her like he usually was (for moral support only because he would mess up), the silence almost suffocating her.

just then, the door creaked open, revealing mr langdon, her photography teacher who had mentored her until she graduated. he left the dark room open for any students who wanted to come back for the holidays, and even though she had previously graduated, she was still a regular visitor.

"last minute christmas gifts?" he raised an eyebrow, barely visible in the low lighting.

"and you know it. these rolls have been sitting for almost a year now, had to get them developed at some point, didn't i?" she laughed, the noise filling the empty quiet.

"i mean, i come to expect it since you give then the same thing basically every year..."

"stoppp i feel so attackedddd. don't judge me for my lame presents they take a whole year to create. george is probably just buying me film again, as usual." she rolled her eyes, but giggled. george always gave her film because it was "practical".

she continued in silence, with him helping her. they were used to working together since he mentored her, him correcting her when she made a mistake, because even though she was one of his best students, she wasn't perfect, especially when it came to this.

eventually she had developed all the film, and ended up with piles of photographs. i mean, that's what she got for developing that many rolls of film at once. placing it all carefully into her bag before placing it into the basket of the bike, she eventually made her way home.

heading back to her room, she took out her notebooks. calligraphing each family member's name onto the cover, together with the subtitle '2018 memories', she selected photographs, which she then arranged within the notebook like a collage journal.

she had plenty of photos of her friends, but most of the photos were actually of them on track. getty sport had asked her to photograph f2 last year to evaluate her abilities before promoting her up to f1, and she had plenty of photos of her friends from around the race track.