The alley behind 5th and Market is one of my favorite shooting spots—graffiti walls layered with years of color and chaos, broken light in all the right places. A band I work with wants “urban grit” for their promo shoot, so I’m here early, camera in hand, scanning angles.


I’m mid-frame when a voice behind me says, “You still squint through the lens like that?”


I turn—and for a split second, I don’t recognize her.


Diamond.


All long legs, sharp cheekbones, glossy curls that bounce like they cost rent money. She’s wrapped in a designer coat that probably has a waiting list and heels too clean for this part of town. Still, there’s something familiar in the tilt of her head. The smirk. The confidence that used to annoy our math teacher.


“Diamond?” I blink. “Damn. You look…”


“Expensive?” she grins. “It’s the brand.”


We laugh and hug awkwardly, like we’re not sure how much history to bring into it.


“I didn’t know you were in town,” I say.


“I’m not. Just passing through—meeting a client at the W, figured I’d walk for the vibe.”


“Client?”


She tosses a perfectly manicured hand toward the sky. “Hollywood. Red carpet season. I’m styling two actresses and a director who thinks mixing corduroy and lace is visionary.”


I laugh, but it stings a little. Hollywood. Red carpet. Client. She’s out here styling stars and I’m hustling free coffee and reshooting earrings.


She sees it. The flicker.


“You still shoot full-time?”


“Yeah. Mostly. Freelance stuff. Bands, brands, broke art kids who think they’re Banksy.”


“You always had the eye,” she says genuinely. “I used to study your Instagram back in the day like it was gospel.”


That catches me off guard. “Seriously?”


She shrugs like it’s nothing. “You had angles I never saw. Still do, probably.”


We end up at a corner café. Diamond insists on paying, even though I protest. We sit by the window and fall into an easy rhythm—talking about high school, the art teacher who believed in both of us, the dumb fights, the dreams we whispered back when no one was listening.


“I started StyledByDiamond during my second year at Parsons,” she tells me between sips. “My dad backed it. I was lucky.”


“Luck and talent,” I say. “You always knew what worked.”


She smiles. “So did you.”


I don’t respond to that. I just swirl my coffee and wonder what I’m doing with my life.


We exchange contacts before she gets pulled into a call with someone from her team. Her ringtone is a Beyoncé song. Of course.


“Let’s not let it be another six years,” she says as she stands. “I’ve got something coming up. Maybe you shoot the behind-the-scenes? I’ll text.”


“You sure?”


She nods. “You’re still one of the real ones, Zara. We need more of that.”


Then she’s gone—heels clicking like punctuation behind her.



Diamond’s heels click away like she’s still walking runways, even when the pavement’s cracked and grimy.


I watch her disappear into a waiting black SUV, probably headed toward a hotel lobby dripping in marble and money. The kind of world she fits into now. Effortlessly.


I stare at the street for a long time after she disappears, wondering how two girls from the same classroom ended up in such different stories.


And for a second, I’m not in this café anymore. I’m seventeen again, sitting cross-legged on the floor of my room with Diamond next to me, both of us in pajamas, flipping through fashion magazines and sketching dress designs we had no business thinking we could afford.


Back then, she was the only person who knew about my mom leaving. The only one I trusted with that cracked piece of my life. She didn’t try to fix it—just stayed.


We were inseparable.


Until she left.


Her dad got a job offer overseas the summer after junior year, and just like that, she was gone—new school, new city, new country. We promised to keep in touch, but life had a way of making those promises feel like fiction.


While I was figuring out how to survive senior year with a checked-out dad and too many shifts at the diner, Diamond was already laying the foundation for her empire. She went to fashion school in Paris.


Opened her first studio at twenty-one. Styled her first celebrity before twenty-three. I followed her growth from a distance, mostly through social media posts that felt like postcards from another galaxy.


Now here she is—successful, glowing, offering me work like no time has passed.


And part of me wants to believe it could be easy again.


But most of me knows better.



Well I left the cafe after a while and went back to what brought me in the first place,I took my photos and headed back to the photography agency where I worked.


I hated the office a lot because of how my boss treated me,I get to pour my heart and soul into my work but I end up getting pennies. Out of every photographer in the agency, I get the most awkward and hard to deal with clients. Others get to photograph celebrities as paparazzi or even attend big events where the elites meet up.


But I was the one that was fit for horrible gigs and rude clients. I have a one star rating on my company website because I was returning the energy received from my clients,I guess that's why I'm stuck with such clients and gigs.


I had to stay and edit the photos because they were due the next day, putting me under pressure and stress. I had to work overtime so I could send the photos to my boss, who'll send them to the client.


I always get caught up in fast deadline gigs because my boss enjoyed seeing me stress each day. After editing the photos I finally headed home.


I finally got home by 10:00 pm and met a note on my door which read “pay up your rent or part of it in seven days or you'll be evacuated” . My landlord has been patient with me concerning my rent,with a letter like this I know he's dead serious.