A cobblestoned side street wound its way along the side of a 16th century church, the wrought-iron fencing separating Saturday strollers from the sunlit garden.

The sound of chatter began to build from around the corner, where terraces faced off for two kinds of brunch—baguette inspired, and wannabe Brooklyn.

On the street side that was offering up the hipster-approved fare, Neela's friends were busy ogling the dazzling diamond that now adorned her finger. As their eyes glazed over in admiration the waiter arrived with the food.

"Okay guys focus!" Neela instructed, pointing at the food. "We'll get back to the other thing later."

With Neela's direction, the congratulatory theme was immediately replaced with hungry eyes and foaming at the mouth, as the waiter set down plates of eggs and bacon, pancakes, home fries, avocado toast...the works.

Neela's best friend Dante was the first to dive into his meal. He was a flashy Mexican who doubled as a deity for volumized hair. Even though he wasn't a shampoo model, he was the perfect fit for the cosmetics and haircare firm that paid him for his graphic design talents.

"Mmm..." he moaned after taking his first bite.

Neela had first met Dante at Paris's only sports and apparel store, a run-in that had happened during the previous summer when jogging in parks had suddenly become the 'see and be seen' activity. While some of the joggers had been serious runners, Neela and Dante were anything but, and when they'd realized this mutual in the mesh-forward athletic apparel section, they'd never looked back.

On this particular Sunday afternoon, Dante was busy re-committing himself to not being a runner, this time by inhaling a two-thousand-calorie brunch.

"Thank goddd Paris got the eggs benny memo," he said sighing. He elbowed their friend Chloe who was sitting next to him. "Aren't you glad Paris brunch is has gotten better?"

Chloe was short and slight in frame, with blonde hair and expressive eyes that broke through the stereotype of French women being aloof. She still refused to talk above a whisper in a metro—a common French trait of treating public places like libraries—and still considered classical French cuisine to be the height of the culinary arts, but the stereotypical tendencies ended there.

Chloe was also one of the first people Neela had met in Paris, during an English and French quiz night at a bar. It was a place where expats and French nationals would come together to improve their language skills. For Neela and Chloe, it had been a place to come together to get buzzed and make fun of the way-too-serious quiz nerds.

Despite her lack of stereotypical traits, Chloe could definitely get annoyed when someone elbowed her unexpectedly. She frowned. "Dante do you mind? I'm eating."

"Oh believe me," Dante said, shaking his head, "we've noticed."

Chloe immediately blushed.

"By the way," Dante added, "Interpol's gonna lock you up for eating pancakes instead of crêpes."

He wasn't wrong about Chloe breaking her classical French code, but Neela had always assumed it only applied to dinners.

"Maybe she's just worldly when it comes to brunch," offered Neela. "So maybe we should applaud her for venturing out of her comfort zone to try these cakey discs from a foreign land." Neela squeezed Chloe's arm in solidarity. "Next time I visit home I'm gonna bring you back some Fluff." Chloe frowned in confusion. "It's marshmallow cream," Neela added. "I mean not really a cream per se, it's actually more of a spread type product."

As Neela continued to extol the virtues of the strange North American spread-type product, Tiff sat quietly across from Dante, with just a hint of a smirk on her face. It was a smirk that was somehow glam, because everything about her Beyoncé-Cali vibe was a wonder to behold.

Tiff didn't grace them with reactionary words just yet, because she didn't have to. Her measured words and mysterious stripped-down thoughts had always been a little bit out of reach, and a little less American than the norm. It wasn't only Neela who couldn't access Tiff's mystique, but pretty much every person who had spent any period of time in Tiff's presence. Something in Tiff's eyes said she'd seen the good and the bad, but beyond the typical shitty ex-boyfriend tale, the unabridged version of the story of her life remained a few emotional barriers away.

Neela and Tiff would've never intersected based on their everyday lives, but since Tiff and Dante were co-workers she'd been lucky enough to make her acquaintance. Their friendship was one of fascination on Neela's part, and of offering up frigid advice on the opposite end. It wasn't that Neela didn't need the advice, it was just that she usually preferred to avoid the real talk, and something told her today might be one of those days.

Neela watched as Chloe absorbed the latest of Dante's pancake-related jabs. "Okay!" she cried out, exasperated now. "I like pancakes! So call Interpol or whatever!" She composed herself and pointed her fork at Neela. "On the topic of being worldly, you are coming with me next time to try the brunch place that serves foie gras."

Neela scrunched her nose. "Foie gras as in...when they force-feed ducks to juice up their livers?" She shuddered. "Is that still legal?"

Chloe didn't hear her, her eyes too busy turning into heart-shaped irises at the thought of the French delicacy. "I cannot wait to try their foie gras on toast with eggs." She smiled. "Even better than pancakes."

"Am I invited?" Dante said, licking his lips. "Because I'll try anything once."

Neela shook her head in disgust. "Only you would turn duck liver into something sexual."

He laughed. "Hey, I'm not the problem, it's you who aren't letting your sexual energy flow as freely as it should." He sighed. "Honestly everyone wants to pretend that gay guys on TV are these exaggerated horn-dog unicorn stereotypes that don't even exist in real life, but bitch, we are here; welcome to reality."

Chloe seemed confused. "What is a horn-dog unicorn?"

Neela burst into laughter, and as she wiped her eyes, all the other eyes at the table turned their focus back on the ring.

"Alright," Dante said. "I've eaten enough to curb my insatiable appetite; time to get back to your story."

"Yes!" Chloe exclaimed. "Tell us more about his proposal at my favourite restaurant; how did it feel?"

"I mean..." Neela was suddenly at a loss for words. "It was the typical romantic stuff," she added flatly. "The champagne, the violin...it was like..." she plastered on a smile, "the romantic grand gesture every girl dreams about!"

"But is that what you'd always dreamed about?" Tiff said, choosing to speak at the exact moment that needed a harsh dose of reality.

Sure!" Neela insisted, as everyone saw through the lie. "Or...I mean that might've been my dream, if my imagination had chosen it for me. I just hadn't thought of it before. Like I'd never pictured a guy doing something so fancy and grand just for me. And in public." It was clear that the last part wasn't exactly a good thing.

"So what had you actually pictured?" Tiff asked.

Neela frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what had your imagination always dreamed of?"

"Well..."

A smile found its way onto Neela's face, as she started to recall the daydream that had passed her by. "Last summer, when Chloe and I were hiking in Lauterbrunnen, I kept thinking how beautiful and isolated it was, especially the higher up we got. Finally, we got to this lookout point where there was a single wooden bench." She sighed. "Just this lone bench on top of the world, with the Swiss Alps all around us." She glanced at Chloe. "Do you remember what I said?"

Chloe smiled. "You said: if I ever get married, I hope a guy proposes to me here, where there's no one else around so we can feel like the only people on the planet."

Dante let out a sigh. "Damn, kiss that dream goodbye."

Neela punched him in the arm. "It was just a daydream! And obviously I don't expect Luc or any guy to be able to read my mind!" She smiled. "It was just this thing that I'd imagined once, and it's fine because what Luc actually did was incredibly thoughtful and romantic. And perfect."

"Okay cool," Dante said. "Perfect proposal. Got it. So how was the engagement sex after?"

"I would like an answer to this too," Chloe said with a sly smile.

"It was great!" Neela said. They all stared at her. She frowned. "What?"

"Something went wrong with his penis," Dante declared. "It's okay," he added in a whisper, "you can tell us."

"No really!" She insisted. "It was fine in the end!"

"Fine?" Tiff said.

Neela let out a heavy sigh. "Okay. So the thing is..." Neela wasn't even sure how to say it. "It was going great, and I was in the zone." She glanced around at the tribunal. "That part is definitely true."

"But?" Tiff urged.

"Well...somewhere along the way I started staring at the ring, which was...distracting I guess." She turned her gaze towards the ring. "At the time I thought I was like...blinded by the light..."

"Mmhmm," Dante said dreamily. "Excellent diamond clarity."

Neela smiled. "Damn right. Anyway..." She was suddenly uncomfortable again. "When I think back on it now, it wasn't just the ring that got me out of the zone. It was actually something that happened." All of a sudden Neela's breath got shallow. "But maybe it was nothing," she added, sort of talking to herself now as she worked it all out. She chuckled. "Maybe I just made the whole thing up..."

As she started muttering like she'd done on the métro platform in her epic conversation with her split personalities, Dante grabbed her by the shoulders to pull her out of her haze. "Neela, what happened?"