Chapter 8
Ethan texted that night to ask if I wanted to check out a pop-up gallery near the canal. I almost said no because my brain was already crowded, but I had promised myself I would say yes to new things, even when my hands shook a little.
We met at the metro, and he grinned like I had walked into a clear day after rain. He talked about a professor who kept dropping names of old philosophers as if they were mutual friends, and I laughed because it made the lecture in my head feel lighter.
At the gallery, we leaned close to grainy portraits of people riding bicycles through puddles. The frames were crooked—the kind of crooked that makes you love a place more.
He asked if I had found a favorite corner of the city.
I told him about a bench by the river where the light broke into coins on the water around three in the afternoon.
He said he wanted to see it.
I said he could, but not with a camera, because some places are for eyes only.
He nodded like he understood that rule without me having to explain it twice.
Over the next weeks, I built a rhythm I could trust. Mornings with lectures and note-taking that felt like stitching lines through cloth. Afternoons with interviews for my feature. Evenings with readings and cheap soup and a phone call to my mom on Sundays.
I listened to people say their first sentences in a language they loved but didn’t yet own, and I recorded their pauses along with their words because sometimes the pause held more than the sentence that followed.
It felt like learning to hear new music.
On a cold day with white clouds that looked like chalk dust, I met a dancer who had come from a coastal town she missed so badly she could taste salt in her mouth when it rained.
She said, “Paris is a mirror I hold up to myself. Some days the mirror is kind, and some days it isn’t. But at least I’ve stopped letting other people hold it.”
I wrote that line down exactly as she said it.
Later, I stared at it for a long time.
Stop letting other people hold it.
On the back of my notebook, I wrote the same sentence with my name in front of it, as if that would trick it into becoming part of me.
The first sign that Terry had arrived came the way most modern hauntings do—through a notification.
Not from him, because I still had his number blocked, but from an old mutual friend who had apparently decided to love drama more than peace.
Your boy landed.
As if he had been my boy for months.
Another message followed.
He posted a story by the river.
With a skyline I knew by heart.
I put my phone face down and finished washing the dishes. The bowl slipped once, and I caught it just before it hit the sink.
When I finally picked up my phone again, I deleted both messages and the whole thread.
A clean surface feels better in your hands.
Three days later, I left class and walked into the courtyard to find him standing under the plane trees.
For a second, I didn’t even recognize him.