Unsurprisingly, I failed a math and chemistry exam and underperformed on an English paper the following week under the heavy fog of my daydreams. At the same time, he aced them all and passed me to finish the semester top of the class again.
AHad fun. Let me know if I can tutor you next semester, Peachestext sat on my phone for a good few days before I sent back a clever “Fuck you” response.
He was too with it in math to haveactuallyfailed those quizzes. And the consequence of my services couldn’t have been a coincidence. He knew I’d fall prey to his charms.
The blare of a car horn blankets all other sounds around us. “Besides, he could have made a move multiple times and took advantage of the situations in different ways instead. It’s more likely he’s playing the long game like he always does, lulling me into this weird state of comfort before pouncing and shattering my heart.”
Much more likely, actually . . .
“Or, every time he gets close, something happens, and now he’s traumatized.” She brings her palm to her chest, feigning a swoon. I swear she’s a theatrical Southern belle sometimes.
“Your helpless romantic is showing. He was the Devil.”
“And yet, here you are with him as your faux beau,” Maria says as the walk signal turns and we cross the street toward the Seine.
“Yes, and that’s all he’s going to be. Stop trying to fill my head with your delusions on love.” I grump as we descend the stairs near Pont St. Michel to start our stroll along the Seine.
It’s the dreaming part that’s dangerous.
Collecting myself in the mid-afternoon sun, I breathe in the river air as light dances off the wake of passing boats full of tourists and attempt to ignore the severe side-eye Maria is sending.
“Any chance there’s a bigger reason behind your reluctance to admit I could be right?” She smirks.
“No,” I say, exasperated about being psychoanalyzed on my way to work. “There’s no logical way thinking he’s sending me postcards or has feelings for me ends well.”
“Look, I love you, and all I’m saying is I’ve seen more life in you the past few weeks than the past few years, and I don’t think it’d be terrible if you let yourself fall a bit. It might shake things up, shed new light on some old, weathered perspectives,” her overly romantic self says, sending googly eyes at a couple showcasing some serious PDA on a bench. I fashion a similar loving gaze toward Pont Neuf coming into focus in the distance, where the affections of my stone-cold heart lie—old architecture with thousands of stories to tell. “Seriously, when was the last time you opened yourself up to the possibility of falling in love?”
Sometimes, I wish Maria and I were surface-level friends.
Because she’s honestly the worst.
And so is that question.
The simple answer is—I haven’t been open. Not here in Paris, anyway. Not even with my boyfriend Michel during my first year here. Ironic considering it’s the city of love. But the truth is, I let the hopeless romantic in me die a while back.
I’d love to pretend I built up a wall after the debutante fiasco or some other negative experience turned me away, but it didn’t. I was still a wide-eyed optimist up until the end.
The end.
What a pathetically depressive term I’ve given it.
My diagnosis. The line of demarcation where my past life ended and a new one began.
One where I let love die without noticing it.
Without properly mourning it.
Until now.
I never have time to notice anything.
But if I learned anything with Michel, it’s that it’s not worth the time and effort to get emotionally intimate with someone when I know the physical intimacy is going to hurt like heck and ruin everything anyway.
I raise my eyes, letting them roam around the overhang, steadying my breaths. The urge to push Maria into the Seine for digging up all these buried wounds strengthens.
“It’s not that simple,” I say softly. “I’m already so tired, and my endo will complicate things.”
“What do you mean?”
