Page 65 of I Love You in French

The video keeps playing as I hand Lily the phone, tears falling down my face. I pushed away the one man I needed and didn’t even know he was everything I wanted. Because he’s beyond what I could’ve imagined. And fear kept me from telling him the truth. He wanted to give me love. The full kind of love. And I let him leave.

“What are you going to do?” Lily is beside me, hugging me.

And I can’t move. My limbs feel like they’re not my own. I can barely even compute that this is real life. She releases me, and I mumble something about taking over the store for me for a bit. I walk toward the sounds of the river, ignoring people in my peripheral vision that I’ve known my whole life. I don’t think I could focus on them if I wanted to. Rafe is French. And while that doesn’t affect the way I love him, it does affect how I see everything that has happened between us.

∞∞∞

I’ve walked all around town, and now I’m running, my ballet flats catching at the bottom of one of the grooves in the cobblestones. I pass my apartment and run toward one of the oak trees across from the gazebo and lean my back against it. My chest is heaving, and my ribcage doesn’t feel like it could hold what’s trying to break out of me.

He’s French. All this time, he’s been beside me, around me. He kissed me, the earth moved, and I felt light move throughout my spine. And I pretended he didn’t matter to me as much as I matter to him, and the shame that creeps through my bones rattles me.

He didn’t tell me. He heard my announcement to the world ... twice. And he didn’t sway me. In his mind, all it would’ve taken for me to fall in love with him was for him to tell me who he really is. And he didn’t. He wanted me to love him for him. And isn’t that what he was telling me all along? I must listen better.

I curl my knees up to my chest and turn inward, letting my tears soak through my skirt and the apron I’m still wearing, leaving an uncomfortable feeling on my face. My father always told me that I would know when I found my person. And the truth is, I did know—I just wouldn’t let myself love him.

The emotion is too much, and all of a sudden, the heat of rage crawls through my limbs. I stand to my feet and start to pace.

He didn’t tell me.

Why didn’t he tell me?

He knew what I was waiting for. What I wanted. And he pretended like he wasn’t the person who would fit the bill. He acted like who he was would never matter to me. Not like it should. And suddenly, I’m sunk. Like the “fallen soufflés,” my stomach falls as the truth comes through.

The conversations. The memories. And I walk it back ...

The moments he told me his family only wants him for what he can do for them.

The times he said that he left LA so he wouldn’t have to become someone he didn’t want to be.

The sweet way he would smile and try to remind me that it’s not the qualifications that make up the person; it’s who they are when no one expects anything of them. And who is he? He’s wonderful.

I’m still mad that he didn’t tell me, but my anger starts to dissipate and turn into an ugly knot that is hard to unwind in my gut. Because if I were him, I wouldn’t have told me either. If he had come into my bakery and declared that he would never date anyone who made croissants (not the same, but close), I would’ve hidden my history too. To see if I was worth the risk. To see if he could persuade me that I was. To prove to him that I was worth more than whatever stipulations he put on himself and his heart.

And he told me so many times.

I walk it back again, and the memories seem to imprint in new ways within my mind, rewriting themselves as they really were. The way he seemed to understand all the pastries we sell. The way he cringed when he tried to mimic a really bad French accent. The way he held his breath when I mentioned Histoire. The way his eyes lit up any time I said anything in French. His sense of style. The fact that he lived in Paris. Seeking out my bakery his first day in town. And when I saw him, the feeling that something I had lost had suddenly been found.

I used to catch him furrowing his brow when he heard someone speaking in French, and he had such angst toward Jacques. And every so often, I would catch a shift in his accent when he was tired from staying up late writing songs or helping me in the kitchen.

It was right there all along, all in front of me. And I missed it. Or maybe I was too scared to see it.

Because what do you do when the thing you’ve wanted is also the thing you need? How can one handle such happiness?

The sun is almost set when I manage to climb up to my apartment. Earlier, Lily sent a text to tell me that she took care of everything in the store, and Anna was going to help close. I couldn’t even manage to feel bad about abandoning the store at that moment. My whole world has collapsed.

I’ve been sitting on my couch, still in my work clothes (including the apron). My eyes are red and swollen. I’ve watched the YouTube video at least a dozen times. If I didn’t love him so much, I almost wouldn’t believe it. His voice changes when he speaks French. It’s deeper, and there’s more grit in it. When he speaks English, it’s seamless, and he speaks in a bit of a higher tone. It’s managed so well, but French is where it’s rapid and fast, and a grin breaks through his face with almost every word he speaks.

If English is the lyrics, French is his melody. It’s him strumming his guitar without looking. It’s him eating a croissant and closing his eyes to savor it. It’s him pulling me close and dancing with me in the middle of an empty bakery.

I pick up my phone a handful of times before I finally get the courage to write something. My fingers hover. Waiting. I’ve been waiting my whole life.

I start to type and then quit. I agonize over what to say. And when I’m exhausted, I finally get the courage to write.

Sparrow: I know.

Then I turn my phone on focus mode and carry myself to the bedroom, where sleep will be out of my grasp. When I hit my bed, I let out a sob—one that I’ve been holding in since before I met him. It’s the one that’s been waiting at the door of my soul, knocking to let it out.

And so I do. I cry until I’m almost coughing, and my pillow is soaked through. I cry like I’ve lost the love of my life. Because I have.

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