♫ Guess I was just another pit stop
'Til you made up your mind
You just wasted my time ♪
(The Weeknd—Call Out My Name)

With no clock to gauge the time, Coralie wasn't sure how long she stayed cloistered in the bathroom.

She turned on the shower and let the steam rise and coat the mirror so she couldn't see herself crying.

After what felt like ages, staring at the doorknob, waiting for Ryan to hurry in and capture her in his arms and apologize, she shrugged. She deflated, as if he'd pricked her with a pin and all her happiness, all her wonderful memories of Paris were trickling out, pooling at her feet.

The door didn't open, Ryan didn't come after her, Ryan didn't care. So she stripped from her pajamas and sat in the tub, letting the scorching water blend with her salty tears.

You knew better.

The three words kept repeating in her mind. They pounded on the walls of her brain, whispering and screaming until she had to cover her ears to ease the suffering they caused.

Rocking back and forth, her wet curls caking to her temples, her teeth clattering, she whined, holding her knees to her chest.

Whenever her eyes closed, she pictured Ryan lounging behind her. He'd pull her into him, parting her hair to place a soft kiss on her cheek, mumbling sweet nothings to assuage her disappointment.

But that wouldn't happen; not now that he'd clarified his intentions. Not now that he'd shunned her, dismissed her as nothing but a temporary reprieve from the home life.

She was a saucy adventure, the sassy broad he'd always had a crush on, an excuse to play out fantasies Gemma might have refused to indulge. Coralie was a game, a toy, a phase; and her gut had warned her of that weeks and weeks ago, when they'd started having sex via a webcam. She'd chosen to ignore her brain, and alone in the bathtub, drowning in her woes, she recognized how wrong she'd been.

You knew better.

Once her hands were so plummy she could no longer keep them clenched, and her calves red from the scalding water, she heaved herself up and squeezed the faucet shut. She reached for a towel, wrapped it around her, and meandered to the sink.

Wiping down the mirror, she glimpsed herself. Remains of last night's mascara cascaded to her chin. Smeared lipstick she'd had no energy to scrub off remained on her lips. She gawked at the messy eyebrows she hadn't troubled to tame.

"Of course you were temporary." She scoffed, mopping up the moisture beneath her nose. "Look at you. You're a disaster."

She towel-dried her hair, brushed her teeth, and threw all her toiletries into their corresponding satchels, to prepare for her flight later that night.

She hesitated to exit the bathroom. How to confront Ryan now, after marching off and slamming the door in his face like a temper-throwing teenager? Had he heard her crying? Had he paced before the bathroom, wondering whether to interfere, to barge in, to seek forgiveness? Or had he muffled the sound of her distress with his headphones while digging into his work, giving her time to blow off steam?

How to tiptoe out there without commencing another argument? She had no strength to encounter him, to see his perfect pout and his glistening eyes filled with remorse. She had no willpower to resist his charm, his smile, his delicious lips.

When at last she mustered the courage, she wiggled the doorknob. Opening the door, she paused at the threshold.

The bed was made, the window closed but the curtains open, and the once scattered papers on the coffee table were gone. Ryan's bag had disappeared, as had his loafers near the sofa and his oversized water bottle that once rested on the nightstand. The box of macarons sat on the other nightstand, and something was tipped against it.

As Coralie got closer, she realized it was a note from Ryan, scribbled in his hurried but mostly legible handwriting.

Cora,

My driver will pick you up and bring you to the airport. I gave him all the details.
I'm sorry I hurt you.
Take care.

RyRy

As another bout of tears swelled in her eyes, she ripped the letter.

"Mother fucker." She wadded up the paper and tossed it across the room. "'Take care'? That's it? Seriously? You break my heart and take off like a coward without a goodbye?"

Discarding her towel, she slipped on her underwear and bra without breaking down. Each touch of lace reminded her of him; of how he'd slid his fingers under the straps, the waistband, and tugged everything off until she was naked before him.

Sniffling, she grabbed a robe—which she understood was his, as it still smelled like his spicy cologne—and after swaddling herself in it, she settled onto the mattress and turned on the TV. Some sappy daytime soap opera was on.

She seized the pastries he'd left her and stuffed her face until her stomach hurt and her eyes were dry.

***

Four and a half hours before her plane was due for take-off, Ryan's driver arrived, and the front desk buzzed her downstairs.

Her overloaded suitcase was ready, her cheeks clean of tears and sorrow. She marched out of the beautiful hotel room without a second glance. Why would she linger? To peer at the pillows they'd slept on, at the sofa where they'd ate breakfast, at the bathroom where they'd had some of the steamiest sex ever?

"No." She banged the door shut behind her and held her chin up as she wandered to the elevator. "One day I'll look back at this memory and smile. But for now... I'm storing it away."

The sleek black Audi didn't have the same effect on her without Ryan to share the backseat with. The driver didn't ask questions, didn't engage in conversation, leaving her to ruminate—which she was grateful for.

She watched the darkening Parisian sky cloak the city, admired the lights flickering on, and the towering buildings and billboards flashing advertisements.

She would have loved to have seen the Eiffel Tower one last time. If she'd waited to scold Ryan, if she'd held her tongue a few extra hours, he might have taken her there again. She might have been able to say a proper farewell to Paris—because who knew if she'd ever return.

From now on, whenever she thought of the city of love, all she'd imagine was Ryan and how they'd walked hand-in-hand down the Champs-Élysées. How they'd made out at the top of the Eiffel Tower, how they'd laughed like children while gripping the metallic bars in the Metro.

At the Charles de Gaulle Airport, she thanked the driver as he lugged her baggage out of the trunk. When she offered a tip, he promised her Monsieur Bennett had already taken care of it.

"Have a safe flight, miss," he muttered in heavily accented English, bowing his head before scurrying to the vehicle.

She watched him drive off, oblivious to the rush of travelers fluttering past her.

"It'll be safe, but it won't be good."

She surprised herself by sleeping on the plane. No naughty fantasies crept into her mind this time; only nightmares of Ryan blasting her name all over social media, calling her a home-wrecker, a brainless whore who thought he'd leave his wife for her. A few other dreams had him denying he'd ever known her, tossing their friendship down an endless black well as if it had never existed.

She woke sweaty, disoriented, and nearly knocked over the complimentary champagne deposited on her table during her slumber. She offered the beverage to another traveler, unable to guzzle down anything remotely celebratory. What did she have to celebrate? That she'd opened her big mouth and ruined the last day of her trip? Or that she'd gotten Ryan to cough up the truth—that she wasn't that important to him, and he'd only used her for a good time?

I'll never drink champagne again.

The sensible side of her piped in to remind her he wasn't the giant asshole she kept portraying him as. He was a husband, a father, and he'd gotten ahead of himself. He'd become wrapped up in a desire for adventure, a thirst for a second chance with a woman he'd loved twelve years ago, a craving for something exotic and out of the ordinary. And he shouldn't have given in, but he was only human, right?

Could Coralie blame him for straying from his marriage for a few weeks, too curious to ignore the intense link between them?

No, she couldn't; but she blamed herself for allowing it to happen.

"I should have been more careful," she wrote in her phone's notebook, journaling her emotions to use them later for her songwriting. "My conscience yelled at me, and when he got me in the kitchen... I shouldn't have obeyed my heart, or my vagina. I should have listened to my brain."

In another folder, she began typing up other emotions—those deep, poignant ones he'd reanimated in her after years of being dormant. Her libido; her hunger for sex, her lust for skin-on-skin action, her yearning for pleasure. Too many years she'd spent without remembering how it felt to want someone, to feel connected and in sync. Ryan had re-started that fire in her and she worried she wouldn't be able to extinguish it. She also worried she wouldn't be able to ignite it with anyone else.

Oh, shit.

For a haunting second, she remembered the only other person who'd recently caused jolts in her belly and a sprinkling of sweet feelings with a few kisses.

Michael.

He'd contacted her occasionally after she'd arrived in Paris, and though she half-replied to him, Ryan caught her twice and shook his head, smirking at her as he called her out for leading a double-life.

That should have been her red flag. Ryan didn't care that she was seeing someone else. It should have irked her, should have clarified that he either didn't want to be with her, or didn't expect they'd last long.

Did he picture Michael as her back-up? The idea made her gag, and when a flight attendant delivered her meal, she barely scarfed down a few bites before being sick to her stomach, angry that she'd been such a jerk to Michael.

Poor thing. He was the good guy, the one genuinely interested in her, in a relationship. He'd finally come out and said it in one of his messages, while she was thousands of miles away, lying in bed with another man.

She'd stomped all over Michael's heart, and he didn't even know it.

"Hypocritical bitch," she wrote, envisioning it as the title of her next song. "Disgusting and disgusted with herself, liking him but sleeping with somebody else." She smiled at the rhyme, but snickered at how its veracity stung.

When she landed in San Francisco, she sniffed in the air. Already, she missed the Parisian scents, the rushing traffic, the quick, stressful lifestyle. Not that she disliked her town, but she enjoyed stimulation, fast-paced environments; not the laid-back California world that she'd lived in for twelve years.

As she waited for her suitcase, she pulled out her phone and opened the conversation chat with Ryan. He hadn't typed a word, hadn't watched her stories, hadn't shown a single sign of life since the day before, when he left. And why would he? He'd returned to his perfect little family as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't spent several days spoiling Coralie, making love to her as if the world was about to end, cajoling her, kissing her, loving her.

But he doesn't love me; he never confirmed that.

She hesitated to tell him she'd landed safely, that she was sorry for provoking him, and for not stopping their illicit affair before it commenced. Sorry for getting them entwined in this sordid mess that he'd had no trouble disentangling himself from, while she sat in a puddle of sorrow, unable to move forward.

Regaining her senses, recalling the last twenty-four hours, she sneered. He'd abandoned her with a sloppy, handwritten note, and he didn't deserve her I'm home message. He hadn't even bothered to give her one final hug, to kiss her forehead one final time. He hadn't troubled himself to keep their friendship intact, despite their mistakes.

She retrieved her luggage, ordered a Lyft, and covered her tired eyes with voluminous sunglasses, mingling with her habitual California crowd as she slouched in the backseat and pretended to be fine. The driver rattled on and on about this or that event happening that weekend—but she didn't care. All she wanted was to bury herself in her cushions and forget the past week.

She snuck into the apartment, unwilling to bump into Delilah, because she wasn't ready to explain herself. She wasn't ready to detail how the trip went from dreamy and exciting to dreadful and depressing. Or to hear Delilah say I told you so, or to see her dismay and to endure her sympathetic hugs and offers to get drunk to dull the pain.

Thankfully, Delilah wasn't in the apartment. She'd left a scribble on their fridge white-board, "Be home tomorrow, we'll chat, girl! You've got some explaining to do!"

Coralie dropped her bags at the foot of her bed and, without removing her travel clothes, she crept under the sheets and put her sad love songs playlist on shuffle.

She moped, torn betweencrying and yelling at herself, and wishing she had a remote control to turn offher sexual appetite and her unrequited love for Ryan fucking Bennett.

♥♥♥