VERA

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I STILL COULDN'T WRITE.

Sitting at the edge of my seat, the windows to my apartment pushed open to give me breathing space, I tried to think about the sounds of a market bustling to life. I tried to write something, say something, figure out a reason as to why I was stuck—but to no avail did an answer come.

I didn't even know if I wanted to write about a market, not to mention anything close to one. I tried to focus on the sellers. Maybe remembering the sound of that man's voice, the one who sold the fish, would help me start a few sentences on a blank page, but I found myself getting distracted by something else.

By Timothée.

I tried to think about the lady with her herbs, but all I could think about was the way his fingers felt contrasted against my back—a warm print that I could still feel lingering if I thought hard enough. I tried to think about the apple seller, who looked upon our conversation and sighed in satisfaction as he saw the Euro in the jar, but then all I could think about were the hands that held a fruit to his lips, daring me to stop him.

And if anything, it just made it worse.

It wasn't that I couldn't write, it was that I didn't want to. I'd rather let myself fall onto my bed and fall asleep remembering the way I felt in the market.

I had headphones tucked into my ears tightly, playing 60s tunes as I tried to drown out Toni's snores from the room over, and I closed my eyes. Sinking into the back of my chair, I propped my feet up on the desk and got to thinking.

'Everybody plays the fool, sometime,' Cuba Gooding Sr. sang into my ears, his remastered version of 'Everybody Plays The Fool' trickling through the speakers.

I'd laugh at how relevant that sounded in this case—with me wondering whether or not I'm crazy for my inability to stop thinking about a certain boy—but I didn't laugh, because that would mean I was laughing at myself. And I had a fair amount of self-respect to uphold. Just a fair amount.

But then I found myself staring out the window blankly, the orange hues of the sunset streaked onto the walls of the room, and pitching me into a dreamy, gold haze as I pondered whether or not this whole thing was a good idea.

'Your ability to reason is swept away,' Cuba sang, loud and clear into my ears.

Well, that was strangely accurate.

Ignoring the music once more, I slid my feet off the desk to replace them with my elbows instead. From this position I could see the sidewalk across the street from our housing unit; a bar full of people laughing over their conversations, a woman with a rowdy pup that went barking at the lamplights, and a bicyclist yapping into their phone as they turned down the street and into an alleyway.

But what I couldn't take my eyes off was the couple sitting on the sidewalk curb, sharing a half-unwrapped sandwich. They passed it back and forth, murmuring inaudible secrets to each other as they took turns biting into the bread of the meal in their hands. And while I understood it was fairly creepy to be watching strangers, I couldn't help but feel sick looking at them.

Even from this high up, I could see the glimmer in their eyes as they laughed, ignoring the city around them and only focusing on each other. I didn't know their life story, but I didn't need to. It was something I could see.

A love I wish I had.

A love I wish I could write about.

But I can't write about something I've never had the chance to know, because then I'd just be telling a pathetic lie in place of a great novel. I couldn't stand lying. Not when it came to literature, because a good book should be about the hidden truth left for the reader to find on their own. And if I wanted to write about love, I'd have to find it too.

It shouldn't be too hard, should it?

'You're out of touch with reality,' Cuba sang again.

"Okay, that's enough from you," I grunted, ripping the headphones out of my ears and plopping them on top of my phone, "can't even listen to music without feeling ridiculed."

Exhaling a bothered sigh through my nose, I stood up from my chair, closing the window of my quaint apartment in the middle of Paris and leaving the outside world behind.

➢

"Must you eat like a slob, Vera?" Timothée's voice echoed out into the plaza, nearly getting drowned out by the sweltering crowd around us.

I narrowed my eyes at him, making mock offense to his recent outburst. If I really found it offensive, I would have shoved him off of the bench he was sitting on, but I stayed glued to my spot instead.

Much like yesterday, I found myself pleasantly surprised to know that the boy was lingering outside of the bakery again, waiting to take me somewhere else. All of it was under the reasoning that it was for the benefit of my book—but I found myself slipping into the wild thought of: what if he's doing this for a different reason?—it was an impossible question I couldn't answer, unless I asked him myself, and I wasn't feeling brave.

From Bella's, he took me off towards another crowded section of Paris, telling me to list off sensory details I noticed (sounds, sights, touch, you get the jist). Then he bought me a crepe from a street vendor, handing it to me and telling me to finish the whole thing by myself. This is why he's currently perched on a bench, looking up at me as he makes remarks about the way I consume food.

I gave him a pointed glare. "What's it to you?"

"Nothing, really," he grinned, "a man can have his own questions, can't he?"

"And a woman can eat as she pleases," I said, taking another bite.

As my teeth sunk into the fluffy texture of the crepe, smeared with Nutella and Banana, a crumb made its way onto my bottom lip, refusing to budge as I chewed my bite of food. Timothée's eyes flickered after it, a smile tugging on the corner of his lips.

"Puis-je?" He mumbled, jutting his chin out towards my face.

I recognized the phrase from my language booklet, which meant : Can I? From his gesture, I could only assume he was talking about the crumb—which was strange, but I was too busy lost in the taste of the heavenly snack currently making its way to my stomach.

So, I nodded my head.

Chuckling under his breath, Timothée lifted his right hand towards my face, gently pressing his thumb onto my bottom lip and brushing the crumb away. My heart nearly stopped beating at the touch. And nodding to himself in satisfaction, he let his finger hover there for a split second of a moment, before dropping it back onto the top of his knee.

And then he just stared at me, waiting for me to say something.

It was like he was completely unaware of the fact that he just put his hand on my lip, and did something fairly intimate for a pair of mere acquaintances. There should be a line between strangers and friends, and yet it was like Timothée took an eraser and smudged it all away.

"Let's go," he said, noticing my lack of response, "the Arc won't wait for you."

Oh.

Right.

The Arc De Triomphe—a historic landmark in France, Paris specifically, which took almost thirty years to build, and was regarded as one of the most famous monuments in the world—not to mention, the destination Timothée decided he'd take me today.

I hurried after him, my crepe clutched in my hands as we began to stride down the sidewalk shadowed by towering trees. It was a large street, lamplights stuck on either side of the road, leading towards the shadow of a tall building hidden in the fog a few blocks down. I recognized the familiar shape of a rectangle with an arch cut into it immediately (although I feel as if that description is greatly inappropriate when being used to describe something so famous and beautiful).

Timothée had taken it upon himself to look like a model from the cover of French Vogue, wearing a pair of cream slacks, his usual glass ring, and a short-sleeved button down with abstract faces printed onto the fabric—which he then tied the bottom loosely around his waist as if it was a belt. I noticed a silver chain hanging around his neck, but what struck me as unusual was the glass shard that hung off the end. It wasn't cut into a purposeful shape, it seemed ragged and uncouth, the transparent surface glinting off his pale skin.

It matched his ring, and I could only wonder if he had a fascination with glass.

We kept walking down the street, occasionally stopping to chat about the senses, and I had finished my crepe by the time we made it under the Arc De Triomphe. It was fairly crowded with tourists, all of them with their heads hanging back to look up at the curved ceiling, or hanging down over their phones as they tapped in a caption to their latest Instagram story.

I didn't bother to take a picture. It wasn't like I needed it anyways, considering it would just waste away in my camera roll for the rest of my life, and I preferred to let the moment sink in without wondering about what angle would look best on a photo.

"It was commissioned by Napoleon," Timothée said with a shrug, his hands shoved into the pockets of his pants, "in honor of France's victory in Austerlitz."

"It's beautiful," I muttered, gazing up at the ceiling.

Timothée nodded his head, "I know."

He let me snoop around for a while longer, taking in the square carvings in the stone arch, and the depictions and inscriptions on the sides. The sweet taste of the Nutella crepe was still lingering on my tongue, and I murmured an apology to a group of men who were scuttling past me in a hurry. It didn't take long for me to feel well acquainted with the place, and I hurried back towards the waiting boy in the center of the space.

"Any questions?" He murmured, almost sounding bored.

I didn't blame him. He'd probably seen this landmark a thousand times before, and taking a random girl he met in a bakery wasn't going to make it seem any newer to him. But yes...I did have a question.

One that I wasn't feeling brave enough to ask before, but was now.

"Why are you really here?" I asked abruptly, stepping in front of him.

Timothée seemed caught off guard at first, his green eyes flickering with confusion, but then he looked back at me with a sudden interest.

He cocked a brow. "I don't know what you mean."

"You said you wanted to help me write my book," I explained, "but it seems like too much of a hassle to do all this for someone you barely know, so I'm wondering if there was another reason for your decision to bring me around Paris."

Timothée pondered this for a while, the wind brushing through the gapes of the arc and billowing through the thin sleeves of his shirt. The glass necklace swung lazily against his chest like a pendulum. Right, left, right, left...

"Why does there have to be a reason?" He murmured sweetly, tilting his head slightly down to grant me a closer stare.

I snapped my attention back to him. "I just don't believe someone would do all this out of the goodness of their own heart."

"Are you saying I have a good heart, Vera?"

"Answer the question, Timothée."

"What makes you think I have an answer?" He said.

"You always do."

That earned me a low chuckle, and he lifted his left hand to sweep a stray curl out of his face. The moment seemed to become slightly more intense—not because I was pushing boundaries, but because I was hurdling over them like they never existed. I couldn't tell you where this newfound boldness came from, but I could blame it on the way he was standing there like some Greek God's incarnation in the greying sunlight of the Parisian sky.

He laughed again. "You speak like you've known me forever."

"I've known you for long enough," I said in return.

And it was those words that seemed to snap something inside of him.

His jaw clenched slightly, and his eyelashes fluttered over his olive eyes, never changing his gaze even as he took a painfully slow step closer to me. It was like he was looking at me as if I was glass; like he could see straight through me, all my smudges and cracks out for the world to see, but observed them without care. I knew he had a fascination with glass—I saw the ring and the necklace—but I didn't know he could make it feel like he had a fascination with me.

"You don't know what you're getting yourself into by asking all these questions, Vera," he murmured, lowering his voice, "it's like you're looking for an answer to a question already asked."

I glanced away. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that you should know the answer."

"And if I said I didn't?"

"Then I'll tell you."

Grabbing my wrist lightly with the tips of his fingers, he tugged me closer to him, hovering his lips centimeters away from my ear. I could feel his breath tickle the skin of my neck, and I had to hold my own anxiously. The things he did seemed so little, but so big in the moment.

"You've got my attention, Vera," he whispered, "don't let your curiosity take it away."

And then he let go of my wrist, backing away as if what had happened was simple born out of my own imagination. He did it on purpose. The heavy voice, the close contact, the choice of words that sounded just as much as a threat as it did an answer.

"Allons-y," he said curtly, nodding his head towards the busy street outside,
"it's getting late."

And what he was really trying to say was: 'it's better if we leave, so you don't ask anymore questions'.

But what I wanted to say was: 'why can't you stay and answer them'?

Yet as I watched him walk towards the crowded sidewalk outside of the Arc, I realized something that I wished I could suppress. Something I didn't want to admit, because a part of me knew it would mean nothing to everyone else but me. But it wasn't going away. Not even as my eyes were stuck on the back of his curly, brown hair, watching him slip through passerbys in his exit.

He stopped, turning to scan the crowd for me. I hadn't moved yet. In response, he extended a hand, gesturing for me to follow after him.

But all I could think about was how I had somehow let my guard down, and now I was tumbling through a pitch black hole of revelations. Feelings I didn't know existed, until he brought them out for me to feel.

And suddenly I was falling.

For him.