Page 39 of French Kiss

16

Meet Cuter

July 11 - Afternoon

Eiffel Tower, Paris

“Josh,”I called, happy to see my friend and glad to find a familiar face in Paris but confused about why he was there.

He turned to face me, and his expression did not match my excitement. He held something in his hand. He waved with his other hand, and his face broke into a reluctant smile.

“What are you doing here? Did you come with Maddox?”

He didn’t answer right away, again looking awkward and uncomfortable. Then it dawned on me. Maddox wasn’t coming. Of course he wasn’t.

“Oh shit. I’m such an idiot,” I said, a wave of shame washing over me. In front of one of my closest friends, I was showing myself to be a lovesick Maddox groupie, something Josh was probably already aware of. But my mortification was made worse by the fact that I’d traveled three hours under the stupid assumption that he’d be here, as excited to kiss me in Paris as I felt thinking about him.

“No. You’re not. He’s… an asshole,” Josh said. I immediately felt horrible for him, sent to Paris to deliver this news. “Anyway, he wrote you this letter. I was supposed to give it to you when you got to Germany, but I thought you’d want it… sooner.” He held out a folded envelope that was a little worse for the wear after being stuffed in his pocket.

“A letter? Who writes letters?”

“He wanted to explain.”

“Then why not call me like a stand-up guy?” I said. “Oh, wait. He’s not a stand-up guy.” Josh was still standing there holding out the wrinkled folded envelope, looking intensely uncomfortable while I continued to rant about Maddox. “I don’t want his fucking letter. You can just give it back to him if you ever see him again. Is he staying with you in Germany?”

“He was… then he left Germany… it’s just…”

“Oh my God. He met someone? Seriously? He bailed on me to have crazy hot sex with some girl he just met?”

Josh’s silence told me I was right. I was so angry, and at the same time I couldn’t believe what an idiot I’d been, leaving my friends behind in Amsterdam to come to Paris for a guy. After all the work I’d done to be a self-sufficient empowered female, I really let myself down. I knew better. I knew Maddox. We had three years of seeing each other practically every day. If we were supposed to be together, it shouldn’t be this protracted and hard. I’d graduated with top honors from college and done well in medical school. I knew there was intelligence in my brain somewhere. Yet I’d deluded myself into believing I could come to Paris and Maddox would be so swept away by the idea of a Paris hookup and true love that he’d drop everything and meet me. What kind of moron believes something like that?

“Oh, I am so pissed at him, I can’t even see straight.”

Again, Josh extended his hand with the letter. “I think he wrote you an explanation. Or an apology. Anyway…”

But I didn’t take the letter from him.

“I don’t want that. What kind of person thinks it’s okay to just bail out on plans… in Paris? This isn’t him flaking on getting coffee after rounds—no big deal, I can just head home. This is another country. You don’t just… not show up.” I could feel the tears welling up, and I choked them back, not wanting Josh to see me cry over Maddox. I wanted to preserve what shred of self-respect I still had left.

Josh looked at the ground like he didn’t want me to see the pity in his eyes. He reached a tentative hand out and put it on my shoulder, reassuring. “Look, it’s Maddox. You had to know he might do this…”

“Did he show you the letter? Do you know what it says? Did he say he met some other girl and just… sorry?”

“I mean, yeah, basically…” Josh looked uncomfortable.

I didn’t want to make things even more awkward, but I couldn’t just nod and thank him for delivering the message. I was so angry. “I had to get up before it was even light out to make the train at eight. He could have called. Or texted. Instead, I’m here, looking like a complete idiot. He made this so much worse than it had to be.”

Over the years, my opinion of Maddox had waffled between thinking he was egocentric and pathetic to deciding he was just clueless and kind of charming. But never had I thought he was outright mean. In that moment, I understood that he was not a good person.

“Not that I’m defending him or anything, but he probably thought you were in Paris already. He didn’t know you were making the trip down from Amsterdam.”

“It doesn’t excuse him, not at all,” I said, but that information made me even more grateful for Josh, whom I’d texted about my plans few days earlier, not even knowing if he’d surface from the Bavarian no-cell zone long enough to see it.

Josh hadn’t texted me back or written a stupid letter. He’d come in person.

I looked at Josh, always the errand boy, always there to help us out of our messes, yet again ready to pick up the pieces after I lost my shit one more time. He had to be questioning why his fate always put him in this role.

“So he made you come here to tell me he was bailing? Seriously? He made you come all the way from Germany?” I was past the shame and disappointment of not seeing Maddox because I’d always known on some level that I was kidding myself in thinking he’d show. But to do this to Josh… now I was pissed.

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