I spoke to you, and a door to the world opened.
<<<>>>
The taxi deposited Aimée on the sidewalk in front of a large two-story home. Aimée simply looked at it for a while.
The dark grey exterior went well with the pretty white trim, but it was a tiffany blue door that captivated Aimée. A peculiar color, it stood out from the rest of the home, or the neighborhood for that matter, but it was very appealing nonetheless. It was definitely a pretty home and many might have assumed that a large family lived there, but Aimée knew better.
Aimée suddenly felt nervous. She wiped her clammy hands onto her skirt, reminding herself in irritation how inappropriately she had dressed for the grey Seattle weather. She didn’t think it would be this cold.
Taking a deep breath, Aimée reached into her coat pocket to pull out her phone. Hitting speed dial, she counted how many times the call had to ring.
After two and a half rings, he answered.
“Bonjour,” Christophe answered sweetly, his voice slightly gruff in the morning air.
“Hello Christophe,” Aimée replied, her already lilting voice an octave or two higher than usual. “Do you happen to be at your home?”
“Yeah, I just got up actually,” Christophe said, laughing easily. “Did you want to talk before lunch?”
Aimée took another deep breath. She noticed how she was probably going to have to do a lot of deep breathing in the days to come. “Christophe, I won’t be eating at this hour,” she replied softly.
“But it’s six in the morning here,” Christophe began, confused. “So it must be three in Paris. You usually eat late in the afternoon, so you should’ve had lunch by now.”
Doubt engulfed Aimée. The wind blustered down the street and Aimée braced her body against the cold, clenching her skirt down in attempts to stay decent. Distracted and nervous as she was, she momentarily forgot that she was still on the phone.
“Aimée? You haven’t stopped eating or anything, right? Because if you need me to tell you how perfect you are just the way you are—“
Hearing the rising panic in Christophe’s voice, Aimée rushed to answer. “Oh Christophe, no, it is nothing like that,” she assured him. “I am just not in the right place to eat lunch.” With yet another deep breath, Aimée began the trek from the sidewalk to the front porch.
As Aimée mounted the steps, she heard Christophe say, “Oh, well, where are you then?”
Aimée glanced back at the street. “Ivy Street,” she whispered.
“What?”
Aimée cleared her throat. “I am on a new street I have never been on before called Ivy Street,” she said, louder.
“Hey, that’s my street’s name,” Christophe said, the grin evident in his voice. “But then again, Paris is really big. There’s bound to be other streets with the same names as others.”
“But Christophe,” Aimée struggled out.
“Yeah?”
“The street I’m on is…it is in the same city as yours,” Aimée stammered out. She was finding it more difficult to speak with each breath she took, as they brought in shorter and shorter increments of air.
“What? But—yeah, right,” Christophe snorted.
“Christophe, I am telling you the truth,” Aimée murmured.
YOU ARE READING
Right At Your Door
Short Story"Nothing ever changes here." To Christophe, this is a curse. To Aimée, this is an invitation. All she knows is change. Tired of the life of travel, Aimée decides to make one final move. She would leave Paris. She would leave Europe. She would meet C...
