The balcony is wide and long, wrought iron railing, white walls lined with two lounge chairs we dragged out here one evening and never brought back in. The Eiffel Tower is lit, glowing gold against a sky that's turned the color of a bruise. Below us, the city hums—scooters, voices, an accordion somewhere that could be real or could be Paris just being aggressively itself.
The summer air is thick and sweet, holding the warmth of the day long after the sun has dropped, and the window boxes on the floor below are heavy with jasmine that perfumes everything when the breeze shifts.
I pour myself another glass and settle into the chair, tucking my legs beneath me. The wine is good. The view is absurd. And for a few minutes I just sit with it, letting the night air move over my skin while the city stretches out beneath me.
Reth would love this balcony. He wouldn't say so. He'd just stand at the railing with that quiet, consuming stillness, cataloguing every angle and sight line while pretending he wasn't also watching the lights. And I'd watch him watching, and the watching would be its own kind of intimacy, the kind we built inthe mountain house out of silence and proximity and the slow, terrifying collapse of every wall between us.
I wonder if he can see the Tower from wherever he is. Probably not. He's probably in some concrete room with no windows, cleaning a blade, holding himself together with structure and ritual because those are the only things left holding him upright. I wonder if he thinks about this city. About the wall he painted for me—the Eiffel Tower rising through a midnight sky beside Takada Castle in full bloom. Two impossible things sharing the same space. He put them on a wall and then he put them on his chest, cracked and broken, because that's how he carries beauty. Like it's already been destroyed and he's just keeping the ruins.
I take a long sip of wine. The Tower glows. The jasmine drifts. And I sit here in the life he built for me, missing the man who built it with an ache so deep it's become part of my posture. Part of my breathing. Part of how I move through every room in this apartment, every street in this city, every hour of every day.
I miss the way he watched me.
God, I miss the way he watched me. Like I was the only real thing left in his world. Like every breath I took was something he had to memorize in case it was taken away. Even when we were fighting, even when I was screaming at him to let me go, his eyes never left me. Heavy. Hungry. Possessive in a way that should have terrified me but only ever made me wet and aching and stupidly, dangerously alive.
Time is supposed to make it easier. But it’s been three months and it’s only getting harder. I don’t even know if I’m allowed to miss him since technically, he kidnapped me. Technically, he lied. Technically, he walked back into hell so I could stay safe.
But God… I miss him anyway.
I miss the way he said my name like it hurt him. I miss the weight of his body on mine, the way he looked at me when he was buried deep inside me—like I was the only real thing he’d ever felt in his entire ruined life.
I miss him so much it feels like a bruise that never stops blooming.
The balcony door slides open, and Ian drops into the other chair and reaches for the bottle.
“You know what I miss?” He pours, swirls, takes a sip with exaggerated suffering. “Beer. Cold, cheap, American beer. The kind that tastes like bad decisions and a gas station at two a.m.”
“You're drinking a forty-euro Bordeaux.”
“I'm aware. It's delicious. I hate it.” He shakes his head. “France has ruined me. I'm gonna go home one day and order a Bud Light and weep.”
I let out a laugh, more of a snort than anything elegant, the kind that makes wine nearly shoot out your nose and leaves your shoulders shaking. Ian's smile slides across his face in response, crinkling the corners of his eyes in that way that makes him look boyish despite everything.
“Oh, there she is,” he drawls, leaning back in his chair, legs stretched out. “The delicate little flower. Jesus, Crazy, that sounded like a dying walrus trying to mate. I’m genuinely impressed. Do it again.”
“Bite me.” I snicker.
“I’m serious, though.” He glances at me. “You should do that more.”
“Do what?”
Green eyes study me with intent, gentle, not mocking. “Laugh. Even if it sounds like a dying animal sometimes.”
“Maybe I don’t laugh more often because you’re just not that funny.” I smirk.
“I'm hilarious. You're just emotionally constipated.”
“Says the man who expresses affection through soup and insults.”
“That's the love language of my people.” He raises his glass. “To laughter, bad beer, and emotional constipation.”
I clink mine against his. “To France ruining us both.”
Silence settles. But it’s not heavy or awkward or the kind that makes you aware of how loudly you’re breathing. It’s just there. It’s just easy. For a long time, we sit there, drink in sync, our glasses rising and falling to some rhythmic metronome. Bottle two appeared at some point, and neither of us commented on it, just poured from it as if we'd been born with the right to drink in this city, above this view.
Eventually, I say, “What were you before all this, Ian?”
“Before is a loaded word.”
