“It’s out of focus.”

“You’re all wrong,” the professor says. “This photo is technically perfect.”

The class looks confused.

“But,” the professor says, “being technically perfect doesn’t always make a picture successful.”

Oh, great. So basically we can do everything right and end up failing, anyway. Lovely. I say a silent thanks that I didn’t tell my mom this morning that I wanted to be a photography major. No use getting her all worked up for nothing, especially with her already on edge about this whole Drew thing.

“The subject is boring,” Professor Lutkiss says. “We’ve seen picture after picture of couples holding hands. What makes this one special? What makes this one any different from the others? Nothing.”

I look nervously at Kelly. She’s doodling in her notebook and looks bored.

“Hey,” she whispers to me. “You want to go to a party this weekend?”

“A party?” I repeat, still trying not to throw up.

“Yeah. At DK,” she says.

“DK?”

She giggles. “It’s a frat.”

“I’m not sure,” I say, watching Professor Lutkiss as he shuffles through the manila folders he’s holding, looking for his next victim.

“Come on,” Kelly says. “It’ll be fun. You haven’t been to one frat party since you’ve been here. That’s insane.”

“Um, hello? Do they let huge, middle-aged men holding cameras into frat parties?”

“Sure. Why not? James goes out all the time, and he’s in the same situation you are.”

“I guess,” I say reluctantly. I’m having trouble focusing because Professor Lutkiss has opened the manila folder holding my pictures. I can tell it’s mine because I wrote my name on the side in purple pen, and I can see the purple ink from where I’m sitting.

He pulls out the picture of a man playing chess with his son. I saw them in the library that day with Grant, and took their picture because I liked how content they both looked. Professor Lutkiss studies the picture carefully, and I grip the edge of the table until my knuckles turn white. He flips through the rest of my folder. In addition to the picture of the man and his son playing chess, I’ve taken a picture of Simone on the phone with her mom, the look on her face betraying just how much she misses her, a picture of a toddler on a slide with a look of glee on his face, two dogs playing in the quad, and a picture of a mom crying as she watches her son head back to the dorms after dropping him off from a weekend at home.

I had several shots of each, but Drew helped me pick out the final prints.

“Would the person who took this picture,” Professor Lutkiss announces, holding up the print, “please see me after class?”

I’m so fucked.