Light Blue

Part xxiv- Bang, Crash, Love

24

Delilah’s POV

Later in the day Amelia and I head off for an early dinner and we hurry out of the hotel lobby wondering where we’re going to go. After climbing the Sacre-Coeur, Amelia wanted nothing more than to go back to the hotel and crash. I just followed but I spent the few hours we stayed in our room sitting on out balcony with a cup of instant coffee in my hand, almost spilling it whenever I thought I had heard or seen something move on the balcony above.

But he was never there.

“I am starving for some Chinese,” Amelia says, rubbing her stomach.

I reply, “Amelia! We are in France. Let’s try and stick to French food.” The sky is perfectly blue like calm Mediterranean waters smiling serenely down at us.

But Amelia doesn’t say anything. Instead, she stops right in her tracks and she extends her left arm out trying to grab me frantically. I step forwards to join her.

“What is it- Oh.” A few metres away, Oscar is sitting on a bollard grinning at us. The last time I had seen him, he was walking away, winking. Before we had nearly kissed.

“Go! Go!” Amelia hisses at me and she pushes me forward.

“Hello, we should stop meeting in random places.”

“Yes, I agree. It is getting quite tiresome isn’t it?”

“But I was waiting for you,” he says sheepishly, running a hand through his hair.

My eyes widen. “Oh. Oh right.”

“Yeah-“

“Where’s Emily?”

I could hear Amelia wince and I wince slightly too.

 “She’s gone somewhere again. I really don’t know where. Maybe more shopping,” he says doubtfully. He hasn’t noticed. “She said that I could go back to the hotel and we’d meet there later to go for dinner.” He doesn’t look at all enthusiastic. But then he beams again. “I was hoping that I would catch you. I want to take you somewhere.”

 “What if I hadn’t come out just now?”

He pauses but the he says, “I would have waited until you did.”

Out of the corner of my eye I can see Amelia fanning herself with her hand. She waves her other hand at me in a gesture that obviously says ‘go!’. I shrug, a blush rising on my cheeks. His also look a bit red.

“Okay.”

**

As we walk out by the Seine, grey clouds had already rolled over Paris and look down menacingly at us, the sky resembling rough seas. The air has become thick and humid. The slight change in the weather makes me nervous. There is something in the air that seems scary and foreboding and I shiver as a breeze whistles past. What is going on?

 But Oscar ignores it and he takes me by the hand, his fingers curling protectively around it.

“Here, I want to show you this bridge.”

He stops by the entrance of the bridge and my mouth falls open. On either side of the bridge, the metal railings are adorned with thousands of locks stretching all the way down to the other side. Several benches line up straight down the middle, but I only stare at the locks.

“The Pont des Arts. Couples come here every day to lock a love lock on the railing and throw the key into the Seine. It’s a romantic gesture to show committed love.”