Finding Paris

For No One

What happened the next morning was rich.

“I’m going,” I told Victor as he rolled over the cushion and looked at me groggily. Yes, I ruined his sleep but I got to say good bye because Cecile and Pierre are out for the day and he wouldn’t know where I’d go if I didn’t wake him up.

“Mm-hmmm,” he said in reply.

“I’ll be back before lunch maybe,” I said as I got to the door. He didn’t budge so I assumed he went back to sleep oblivious to where I was going.

Here’s to nothing. Damn Thomas. He could’ve just shown up way after this vacation. Why the hell now? Oh, well. I got to do, what I got to do.

I arrived at the Luxembourg Garden at about thirty minutes past 6 am. Why I told Thomas to meet me that early, I don’t know. Don’t ask me. I just want to get over this as soon as I possibly can and enjoy Paris with the remaining days I have.

After about five minutes, I saw him rushing in his sweats like he’d just rolled out of bed. His coffee brown hair was plastered on his face, his glasses foggy. I can hear him panting heavily as he sat down beside me. It was pretty cold out especially because it was too early. I looked at him shivering in the cold, rubbing his hands together to keep them warm.

I took my jumper off and handed it to him. I can’t let the man freeze to death, can I?

“Are you sure,” he said as he took it.

“Yeah, suit yourself.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you alright? You look like you just rolled out of bed.”

“I woke up late and rushed over here. How’s your mom?”

“She’s over it,” I said as I looked straight ahead at the sun starting to seep its rays through the clouds.

“That’s good to know. Are you?” He asked. I saw him staring at the sky too.

“I guess. Victor keeps my mind off things.”

“Oh. Are you happy?”

“With him? Yeah, all the time.”

“That’s good.”

“Why did you leave me,” I suddenly asked. I felt the tension rushing through my chest. If I wanted to know, I’d have to ask now before I get chicken again.

“I…” He said. I heard silence take over for a long time. Why can’t he tell me?

“I love you,” he said out loud suddenly. I snapped my head to look at him in surprise. What did I just hear?

“I always have. Everything was just so confusing back then. We were too happy and everything felt so perfect and unreal, it scared me.”

“What,” I asked in frustration. What he just said was contradictory, it hurt my head.

“I feel like we were going to break apart sooner or later. It was too good to be true.”

“You broke us apart,” I said. It felt like rocks dropping in my heart. There was silence between us again and everything felt darker and somber. I just don’t understand how a person can break a happy relationship like that just because it felt too perfect. Isn’t that the time where you feel happy and that means you’re meant for each other. Forever?

Suddenly, I heard him sobbing. I looked at him and saw how his face looked a little bit older than before. Time wore him down.

“I’m sorry. I was stupid. Stupid to assume we would end up like my parents,” he said, catching his breath every time he spoke a word.

His parents divorced when he was around 15 years old. I used to come to their house for dinner and see a happy family joking at the dinner table. His parents were my ideal couple right after mine. Their eyes sparkled when they look at each other and when they laugh, you’d know they’d live together for a very long time, maybe even forever. If forever exists.

One night, he came to our house with his eyes swollen. He cried the whole day, he told me. His parents were breaking up. His family was going to be broken. It was probably one of the most painful things I have ever felt, to see him crying and breaking apart. He spent the night at our house. And he didn’t stop crying.

It made sense to me now. We were young. He was too young to understand that there was a possibility that we wouldn’t end up like them, that not all relationships are like his parents’. He broke us apart because he didn’t want us to end up like them. Although, that was exactly what happened to us, I understood. I understood him.

“I love you,” he said in a whisper. He stared at the clouds.

“You loved me,” I said.

“I still do. I never stopped. I never stopped loving you and regretting that day I said goodbye,” he said.

“I stopped,” I said.

“Oh. Do you love him?” He asked. His voice was calm.

“I think so,” I said. “I feel happy with him. I feel…”

“You feel perfect,” he said with a smile as he looked in my eyes and for that moment, I knew he’d always occupy a place in my heart. He’d always be the boy with the glasses who painted the sky with me. I realized that I never hated him after we broke apart. I never hated seeing him in Paris. I realized that I loved him deeply and that continues up to now, but not in a romantic way. I love him as a family.

“Yeah. I feel…everything,” I said.

“And you called me here to say goodbye?” He half-asked said as he looked straight through my eyes.

“Yeah. But I now realized you never will and that I don’t really want to. Let’s just be friends like we used to be before. And get along with Victor. Okay?”

“Okay.”

It felt like Thomas could be my Augustus Waters but I already found my Pierre who’s probably still sleeping at the apartment and I’m happy with that.

We talked a lot after that. He told me of his literary pursuits in Paris, that he’d been writing poems and that he’ll send me a copy once he’d collected about a hundred of them. I told him of mother and of my paintings. I told him of Victor and how we ended up in Paris. And he told me that he felt jealous that time at the champagne shop and that he wanted to punch Victor in the face. But that he also realized that I looked happy with Victor and that he had to stand back. I told him he should find a French girlfriend and he just laughed at that.

“You should get going,” he said.

“Yeah. This was nice,” I said. “Now give me my jumper back.

“Can’t I keep it,” he joked.

“Shut up,” I said.

“Come here.” He hugged me and whispered, “I will always love you. But I’ll try hard to find someone more beautiful and curvy than you.”

I punched him and with that we said goodbye. I was a few steps away from him and he was still sitting at the bench. I looked back and said, “Aren’t you going?”

“I want to watch you and let you go.”

And so I turned my back at him, walked and waved my hand. It was bittersweet.

Author's Note: I have TFiOS hangover and so the TFiOS references. I can't get over it!!! :") Enjoy reading! :)