Finding Paris

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Finding Paris

Chapter Four: A Series of Unfortunate Events

 

"Are you freaking kidding me?!" I exclaimed.

The magic was broken, the truce ended. Peace was over. Jared and I were back to the War Zone again.

"Nope, the train left some ten minutes ago," he replied calmly.

"We could get another train to Paris, right?" I said, my panic subsiding. The answer was simple after all. Get another ticket and get to Paris.

"Well, I'm kind of banned from the train station, now." 

"How can you be so calm about this?!" I asked in a panic.

"Would you stop shrieking so I could think?" he snapped, back to his arrogant demeanor, but I just could not. All my anger from earlier had come back full force.

"This is all your fault!" I accused.

"Oh yeah?" he challenged.

"If you hadn't left the train in the first place, we would have been safely on our way to Paris already!"

"Who told you to follow me, anyway? What is it with you and your stalker tendencies? I could have gone back to the train after s- uhm, coffee!"

"Why did you have to take your things with you? I panicked, so I went to find you! I thought you already got off! What was I supposed to do?!"

"You could have trusted that I wouldn't ditch you on a train?" he suggested, "I was afraid someone would take my stuff or steal things while I was away so I took them with me!" 

He did have a point there.

"How can I trust someone I barely know?" I answered, "What would you think if you'd woken up to an empty compartment? Huh?" 

"Actually, it's your fault!" he suddenly accused, superiority on his face, "If you hadn't stomped off like a five-year-old, Blondie's boyfriend wouldn't have looked in the direction of the cafe, and he wouldn't have punched me, and I wouldn't retaliate or get thrown out, and we'd both be back on a train right now!" 

I opened my mouth and closed it again, simply speechless. I sputtered and grappled with my vocabulary. What a far-fetched accusation! 

"Okay, fine! It doesn't matter whose fault it is, anyway!" I said, relenting to this stubborn jerk,"Now what are we going to do?"

"We need to get to Paris."

Gee. You don't say!

"No duh!" 

He glared at me. I rolled my eyes haughtily.

Jared started to get up. I followed so I wouldn't get wet. Not that I'm already! We huddled under his umbrella with our luggages bumping and crowding and ran across the street. I didn't know how we did it. There was this fruit shop place with a striped canopy above it and we huddled under it, waiting for the rain to stop, or at least calm down to a drizzle.

Jared tried speaking to the woman at the shop to no avail. He had minimal knowledge of the language of love, too. I watched him turn on the charm, despite our situation. He gestured and spoke slowly in one syllable words. The woman didn't understand him, but gave him two apples instead, and pointed to me. He sighed, muttered his thanks, and went back to stand beside me. 

He handed me an apple without looking at me. I couldn't tell if he was still pissed off at me. We didn't eat the apples. I stuffed mine into my bag while he tossed his up in the air and caught it repeatedly. We were both quite exhausted as we stood there watching the rain fall as the sun began to set. I snuck looks at Jared in my peripheral vision.