AFTER GRACE| F I R E | ONE

16| Fire

Today, the Paris trip only takes us up the Eiffel Tower. To my surprise, it's not as great as I hoped. The lift up was stuffed with people, making it hard to breath, and the tourguide woman had to shout amid the noise. We almost even lost them, and had to push through a whole bunch of people. I did snap some cool pictures though, the champ de mars looked amazing from the top of Eiffel Tower, the water from the fountain twinkling from the sun on the clear sky.

After the tour, we followed them into the bus and now were back at the house. My mom already disappeared into her room and probably crashed, but I'm still walking down the hall to my room.  I keep going down the hall and take what I think is the right turn and continue to walk. Four doors down, right?

Opening my bedroom's door, I walk inside and look around. Shit, wrong room. I don't leave straight away though, because my eyes set on  the big, black piano beside the window.

Before I know it, I'm walking over to the piano and stroking the fall board with my fingers. I don't know how to play the piano to save my life,  but the look of it is so beautiful. I look back at the door, making sure that no one is in sight, and slowly sit down on the bench beside. With a little struggle, I open the board to see the keys. While I'm still holding it, I hear a creak of a door.

I jump up in fright, dropping the fall board and banging my hand off the side of the piano.

"Fuck!" I exclaim, holding onto the back of my palm. I realise then that someone has entered the room, so I look up, and who I see is Dashiel.

"What the hell are you doing here?" He looks at me, dumbfounded, one of his eyebrows raised up.

"Sorry, I got lost and I just stum-"

"No, I mean- what in the world are you doing here, in my family home? In Paris? In fucking France?" He says, his eyes widened and confused. He's holding onto a Louis Vuitton duffle bag, and is merely wearing a light-grey sweater and tracksuit bottoms.

"Oh. Did Damia not tell you? I'm staying for a week in Paris, so she,um, well she offered us a place to stay here," I explain, scratching the back of my neck.  He nods slowly and then lets out a long sigh, walking into the room and dropping his duffle bag onto the floor.

So this is Dashiel's room, huh?

The room is quite bare since there's nothing here except a bed, a few shelves, a desk and a wardrobe beside a door to the bathroom. Like a hotel suite. On the shelves above the desk, I spot several trophies. Some of them look golden, shaped like a piano. Others, are just shaped like rectangles with words I can't read from here.  I look back at the piano and then up at the trophies again.

"You play?" I ask as he sits down at his desk and opens his laptop. Flummoxed, he looks up and realizes I am talking about the piano and then frowns. "No," He replies bluntly.

"Well, you seem to have a whole load of awards there," I point at the shelves. He looks at the ground for a moment, inhales and then looks up again.

"I...used to play," He mutters while typing something on the laptop.

"Oh," I murmur, walking slowly to the door mainly because I actually want to stay and have a conversation with him. "Hey, shouldn't you be at a Gala, or something?"

"That's why I'm here, to avoid it. Damia and her friend that thinks I'm in love with her or something is in town, and they were on the way to my hotel room when I packed my things and came here," He explains.

"Is it Nabi? I met her earlier today. She didn't seem very nice. But then again, you're not nice either. Looks like you're perfect for one another," I joke. He lets out a short, effortless laugh.