An Opened Door

Chapter 10: French, Swooning, and Realization

Once John and Alexander are both gone from the dorm and off to breakfast, Adrienne climbs up and sits down on Hamilton's bed, clearly avoiding mine.

"Adrienne, mon amour—please." I beg her. She takes a deep, shaky breath.

"Gilbert." She mutters.

"Yes?" I answer, hoping that she'll keep the conversation in English. I'd rather bare the wrath of Adrienne's limited English obscenities than her French ones.

"3 years. We have been dating for 3 years. Your aunt loves me and my family, and my family loves you. I cannot understand why you would do something like this—packing your bags and leaving without any warning." She deadpans, purposefully draining her voice of any emotions. I know that, when Adrienne does this, it's because she's feeling too much. I want to wrap her in a hug and apologize in every language on the earth, tell her that I just had to do this.

"Adrienne, I know this seems bad. And it is, yes, it is, but I needed to, do you understand? My parents have always longed to see the world, travel and experience the different places and educations, and—they wanted this for me. They left money for me to pay for this. I had to come here. I should have told you—I wish I'd have told you, but I was afraid you wouldn't understand and try to leave me, Adrienne. I did not come here so that I could leave you. Adrienne," I grab her hands, "my heart only needs you. You're all I have, mon amour, and I hate that... I hate that I've ruined this." I press my forehead to her hands, still trying to explain something inexplicable.

Her face softens, and she pulls her hands out from under mine to run them through my hair.

"You did not ruin us, Gilbert. I don't believe that anything could ruin us. I just wish that you'd told me beforehand. You made me believe that... I had done something wrong. I felt so desperate on the flight here, like you had gone to America to get rid of me and I'm the girlfriend who cannot move on and chases you to a different continent." She laments, letting her hands rest on the back of my neck. She puts her head down, and a tear falls from her eye.

"My Adrienne, plese don't cry. I would never leave you. I just had to go. I had to—it was the dying wish of my parents. I didn't expect you to understand and I couldn't think of a better option at the time. I'm sorry, Adrienne. I beg your forgiveness a million times." I put my hands on her thighs, and she takes them.

"I could not stay mad with you. I love you, my Gil." She says, nudging my chin up to kiss me. As our lips meet, I feel more tears fall from her eyes.

-

-

"Star Wars or Star Trek?" Alexander is almost bouncing up and down as he braces his arms on the table between us. I smile and laugh, putting my head down and covering my mouth.

"What?" he asks, laughing at me.

"We're at breakfast and the best question you can come up with is 'Star Wars or Star Trek'? Here I was, thinking you were Alexander: Man of Interesting Conversations." I sip from my coffee mug, which is weighed down by a lot of cream and sugar. Alexander drinks from his, which is, I notice, black with espresso shots in it. How this kid isn't seeing colors and hearing shapes is unbeknownst to me.

"Okay, then. Why did you ask me out to breakfast?" he asks me, the tips of his fingers beginning to drum onto the table. I ignore it and tilt my head a bit.

"I... didn't ask you..." I stumble, confused as to whether or not I'd gotten the details of last night wrong. Had I seriously asked Alexander out on a... date? He smiles and nods his head.

"I know you didn't. How could I not know? I mean, it was pretty late, but, no I remember very clearly me being the one asking you to breakfast? Do they have French Toast here? You know, I've only had French toast once in my life. It was my second week in the States, and I found this little bakery—La Boulangerie—that served breakfast and made French toast. I don't think they normally did it, though. I think Hercules had some connections and convinced them to show me what it was. I'd had no idea before. Oh, do you know Hercules? Great guy, great—" Alexander's going on and on and eventually I cut him off.

"Alexander?" I ask him, laughing. He makes eye contact with me again, takes a sip of his coffee, and puts down the mug.

"Yeah? What's up. Shit—was I talking too loud? Sometimes I get overexcited, shoot off at the mouth. I've never had too many friends before." He seems dejected, and I take his hand, against literally every voice that screams at me not to, just because I should not.

"You weren't too loud, just, I have a question." I ask him, my voice faltering. He doesn't respond, just looks at our hands from over his coffee mug. "Why'd you ask me here?" I ask him, basically turning his own question around. He puts down his mug and smiles, mostly with his eyes. His eyes...

"Because I'd be hungry if I didn't get breakfast." He states, clearly purposefully avoiding something. I raise an eyebrows.

"Yes, but..." I trail off, hoping he'd get the gist of what I was saying. He does.

"But I didn't have to ask you to come with me. I know. I guess it's a little weird. We only met, like, 24 hours ago and somehow I've already taken a shower in your house and slept in your bed and also in your lap. I don't know. I just kinda wanted to get to know you better." His face flushes for the first time I've met him and I find it overwhelming, the way color slowly rises to his chin, then his cheeks, then his forehead, and then he realizes it and presses the palms of his hands onto his face to cool it down.

"We did get to know each other, though." I say, thinking back to the conversations we'd had last evening. He sighs through his nose.

"Yeah, well, I know that you have four siblings and your dad's a—nevermind, but, uh, I know that your favorite color is green and your favorite animal's a turtle and that you're super smart and apparently work well under stress because you major in psychology and double major in art history and linguistics and I honestly don't understand how you can manage to get all that done so it must mean you're a pretty organized person, so you really have your shit together, but only when it comes to school because you don't care too much about organization but you want things to look presentable for other people, that's why you straightened up the apartment when Lafayette was coming but not for me because the apartment was still bare. You clearly like to draw and are pretty good at it—you didn't tell me, but I noticed your signature on a lot of paintings that you put up, so you painted them and some of them are pretty amazing. And somehow you also manage to play football—where am I going with this?" he stops his almost rhythmic ranting and searches for his original train of thought. "Oh yeah, I know these things because you told me, but the actual inferences I made about your personality were assumptions. I don't only want to know about you, John Laurens, I wish to also know you."

-

-

Breakfast, my swooning over John aside, went overall pretty well and no one's in the dorms when I get back, which allows me space to think things over.

"Alright," I say decidedly, ten minutes later, "Fuck, I have a crush on John Laurens."