“Do you want to do some espresso before we crash?” I hadn’t set up the new machine that Frankieinsistedon buying with a pert,It’s for me, not for you. I’m just letting you use it.
Bullshit. But loving bullshit. So I accepted.
“Tempting,” she called back. “But I’m kind of mellow and I like it.”
Me too.
We decided on a movie. We had to watch it on my laptop because I hadn’t decided on a television or much else. But we were delaying crashing. Sleeping meant we would open our eyes to our last day together.
Staying awake only delayed the inevitable, but never let it be said that I wasn’t stubborn. I wanted every damn minute we could squeeze out of this. “Tell you what,” I said when the movie was over. “Pâtisseries in the morning before dawn? We can enjoy the sunrise with coffee and pastries?”
She checked her watch. It was late, if we got up before dawn, we wouldn’t be getting much sleep. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
When we finally went to sleep, we had to share my bed. It was the only one I had, and I refused to let her take the couch until I’d suffered through it first. That was my excuse. She let me have it.
Frankie fired off a few messages to her boys, thumbs flying, then curled onto her side and went out like a light. Just like that. Always able to rest when she decided it was time.
I wasn’t built that way.
I lay awake listening to the soft, steady rhythm of her breathing. I stared at the ceiling and thought about faces I hadn’t met yet. About the strangers who would one day sit in front of my lens and trust me with something honest. About the future I hadn’t yet earned, but was standing at the door anyway, knocking.
I thought about who I’d been in New York. In Texas. In other people’s stories. I thought about who I might become here, in this city that didn’t know me at all.
Tomorrow, Frankie would leave. The goodbye would happen whether I was ready or not. The plane would take her west, and I would stay right here, in this apartment she’d helped build around me like scaffolding, trusting I’d learn how to manage once she was gone.
Tomorrow, I would begin again.
But tonight—tonight was still ours. Still warm. Still unfinished. So I let myself miss her before she left.
And in the dark, with Paris breathing softly beyond the windows, I let the beginning be exactly what it was—uncertain, heavy, and quietly, terrifyingly alive.
From Rachel’s Diary:
Frankie went home.
That’s it. No poetry. No slow-motion exit. One last look, a hug that lasted half a second too long, and then the door shut behind her as she headed down to the car waiting for her at the curb. I watched her go from the window.
Everyone keeps calling this a beginning. Like I should light a candle or do something ceremonial. Instead, I retreated to my kitchen after the car pulled away and stared at the spot where she’d been five minutes earlier and felt stupid for missing her already.
I didn’t kiss her. I didn’t say it. I didn’t wreck anything. Congratulations to me for being responsible and miserable.
This apartment is mine now. My space. My silence. My consequence. I wanted independence so badly I chased it acrossan ocean, and now it’s sitting here with me, daring me to fuck it up.
Paris doesn’t feel romantic. It feels like exposure—harsh light, no shadows, nowhere to hide.
If this is what choosing myself looks like, it’s not soft. It’s not pretty. It’s lonely and sharp and absolutely unforgiving.
Fuck meet-cutes.
Fuck fairytales.
This isn’t that kind of story.
I don’t know what kind of story it is yet, but it’s definitely not one of those.
Chapter
Two
