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The plane took off then, and through the small window, I caught a glimpse of the world shrinking beneath us, the city lights twinkling like distant stars. We were leaving it all behind—at least for now.
For the next couple of hours, we cuddled—and ate—and gave each other a hard time.
And eventually, I was taken to the bedroom in the back where they all took turns fucking me until I passed out.
Best flight ever.
When I woke up, it took me a second to realize that we weren’t in the air anymore. Paxton was asleep next to me, his arm curled around my waist. I pushed out from under him and walked over to the small window, staring outside at…
“Welcome to Paris,” Paxton murmured from bed.
I glanced at him over my shoulder, my eyes wide.
“One day, I’m going to take you to France,” he murmured.
“France?”
“My grandmother was from there. My mother used to talk about going all the time. She never got to.”
“Okay. So we’re going to France. What are we going to do there?” I asked, reluctantly playing along.
“We’re going to walk down the sidewalks, get drunk on good wine, and eat a million baguettes. We’ll make fun of the art we don’t understand. And we’ll stand under the sparkling lights of the Eiffel Tower…and we’ll just be.”
“Just be?”
“We’ll do all of that knowing there’s nothing out there after us. There’s nothing hiding in the shadows down the alleyways. There’s nothing waiting for us when the lights go off. We’ll just be.”
“That sounds like a dream,” I murmured as his thumb traced my lips.
“It’s gonna happen for us, Aurora. I know it is. You just have to keep going…just a little longer…just one step at a time.”
“Okay,” I whispered, the promise sounding right on my lips. I could see his dream. I could see us in Paris. I couldn’t picture yet what it would feel like to not be constantly looking over my shoulder or dreading the next day.
But I wanted to.
“So you’ll come with me to Paris?” he asked, brushing a kiss where his thumb had just touched.
“I’ll come with you to Paris.”
“You kept your promise,” I whispered, tears streaming down my cheeks.
He hopped out of bed, a concerned look on his gorgeous face. “Hey, those better be happy tears,” he soothed, pulling me into his arms. We both stared out the window, to where we could see the Eiffel Tower in the distance. “Are you ready to just be?” he murmured.
“Yes.”
And that’s what we did.
For the next two weeks, we just existed. In the moment.
We ate baguettes, we went to museums, we walked the streets without having to look over our shoulders.
We made love with the sparkling lights of the Eiffel Tower streaming in from the window at night.
And when they took me up to the top of it, and got down on one knee,tellingme I was going to marry them—because Cain could never leave something like that to chance—I sobbed and nodded my head, never imagining I could be that happy.
The world ended for me, then started again in technicolor, on a Tuesday afternoon in fourth grade.
And the week after I graduated from college, the lights of the Eiffel Tower brushing against my skin, I was reborn once again.
