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Before I know it, I'm standing in front of Giselle's small apartment a few miles away from my place, closer to downtown Paris. This place is small. I pay them more than enough to find a bigger place, but they claim this is the place they fell in love. They plan on staying here until they have no other choice but to move. I raise my hand to knock, but the door swings open.
"Look who came back to the world of the living." Giselle opens the door all the way before spinning on her heels and heading deeper inside.
The place looks almost the same as when they moved in, except for the pictures and paintings changing or rotating their places on the wall. I head directly for my favorite chair, nestled in the corner near the window next to a bookshelf. I plop down, turning my attention to the people passing by below the window: couples holding hands, families on their way to a grand adventure, everyone going about their daily lives as if mine isn't crumbling down around me.
"Tea?" she questions.
I chuckle darkly. "I need something stronger than tea at the moment."
Giselle gives me a sympathetic smile. "I have just the thing."
She heads into the other room. The sound of cabinets opening and closing, along with the clank of glasses, reaches my ears before she reappears with a half-full bottle of single malt whiskey and two glasses.
"You hate whiskey." I hold my hand toward her, gripping one glass in my hand and waiting for her to pour me a healthy amount.
Without hesitation, I throw the glass back, drinking down all its contents before holding my glass out for another.
"I think I can make an exception this time." Giselle pours me another glass before filling hers and placing the bottle on the table beside me."What happened?"
She places a hand on my shoulder, giving it a small squeeze before striding toward the chair across from me and taking a seat.
"I asked her to marry me." My voice scratches against my throat from all the emotions clogging it.
"She said no?"
I shake my head, unable to form the words. My heart feels like it’s been ripped out of my chest, and it's only been a short amount of time. I won't survive if Charlotte returns home and banishes me to a bleak existence of living without her.
"She didn't say anything." I take a large gulp from my glass, welcoming the burn as it slides down my throat and warms me from the inside out. "She's unsure."
"Unsure of you?"
"Of everything. Her family owns a small mom-and-pop restaurant, and they expect her to come back and work in the kitchen now that she's graduated.”
"If she's as good as you've been saying, her talents will be wasted in a place like that."
I haven't been able to stop singing Charlotte's praises to anyone who will listen. She has a natural talent in the kitchen that many chefs would kill for. But the fear of disappointing the people she cares about keeps her on course with no chance of wavering.
"What did her parents say?"
"She hasn't said anything to them." I finish my second glass and pour another one, hoping to dull the pain if only for a little while. "She’s terrified of disappointing them by choosing something different for her life."
"I highly doubt her parents want anything other than her happiness. If she’d just tell them…"
I slam my glass down on the table, the amber liquid splashing on my hands. "I wish I could make it all go away. She won't ask me to come with her, even though I'd do it in a heartbeat, and she's too afraid to say what she truly wants."
"You'd do that?" Giselle takes a sip from her glass. "You'd give up everything you've worked for all your life for a twenty something year old girl you only met a few weeks ago?"
"Yes," I respond immediately. "Remember when you told me you were getting married?"
Her cheeks flush as she throws back the last bit of whiskey in her glass. "That was different."
"How?" I raise my eyebrow, remembering all those years ago when Giselle proclaimed that she was running off to marry Gabriel and when they came back, he would be my lawyer."You'd known each other for two weeks."
At the time, I couldn't understand why Giselle, my levelheaded publicist, was ready to do something so complete out of character. And then I met Charlotte. I finally understand the need to immerse yourself completely into someone else's life. Wanting to spend every waking moment making each other happy. How it was physically painful for them to be away from each other.
"Neither of us could rub two pennies together,” she says.
This wouldn't be the first time a woman tried to get close to me for money, but Charlotte wants none of it. I've tried to shower her with presents, even offered to build her a restaurant so she won't have to fight tooth and nail to make a name for herself. But she’s refused, repeating each time that the only thing she wants is me. That I’m enough.
