Chapter 7
“I accept your apology,” I said. “But Rachel, we can’t be friends. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But I hope you find what you’re looking for here in Paris.”
She smiled faintly. “Thank you. That’s all I can ask for.”
She turned to leave, then stopped.
“Oh, Ava. Terry’s coming here next semester. He got accepted into the business program.”
My heart skipped a beat.
Terry in Paris.
For a long time after Rachel walked out of the bookstore, I stood between two narrow shelves with a paperback pressed to my ribs and the smell of old paper in my nose. The clerk said something in French that I almost understood, and I nodded and paid for a book I had not meant to buy.
I walked back to my apartment along a street I usually loved because the flower stand spilled color onto the pavement. But that afternoon, every petal looked like a signal I could not read.
Terry in Paris.
The words kept circling and circling, like a metro line that never stopped.
That night, I lay awake and listened to a scooter buzz, then a lull, then a burst of laughter under my window. I pulled my duvet over my head and tried to breathe evenly. I told myself none of it mattered. I had already chosen. I had crossed an ocean for that choice.
Still, my mind kept finding him in old corners.
The library table where we shared a pack of almonds during finals week. The bus stop where he stood with his hands in his pockets, pretending he wasn’t waiting for me, even though he always was.
I reminded myself of the other scenes too.
His face tipped toward Rachel in the hallway.
The group chat. The little shadow line.
Memory isn’t fair, but I would have to make it honest.
When morning came, I made strong coffee on the tiny stove that coughed whenever I turned the knob too fast. I drank it by the window and watched a man in a blue jacket sweep the sidewalk with a long broom. Then I opened my calendar and listed what I could control.
Midterm articles due.
A pitch meeting for the student paper.
A photography club assignment.
A promise to myself to climb the big hill at the park every other sunrise, no matter how much my legs shook.
I wrote them down in English, then made myself copy them in French.
One line at a time.
Keep moving.
At the paper, the editor asked for features that felt local yet universal. The word stuck to me like lint.
I pitched a series about the feeling of starting over in a city that holds its own ideas of who you should be.
She liked it.
She liked the simple angle most of all.
“Find people in their first six months in Paris,” she said. “A baker’s apprentice, a nanny, a nursing student, a violinist who plays for coins by the river when the wind isn’t too fierce. Ask them what they left and what they are building. Don’t overcomplicate it. Let their words carry it.”
I went home with a list of names and a deadline that made my spine sit up.