Page 100 of From Maybe to Baby

"It's for research."

"For what?How to Break Your Own Heart in the City of Light?"

I throw a Goldfish at the screen. "I hate you."

"No, you hate that I'm right." She takes another bite of ice cream. "You know what else I hate? Your recent articles. They're terrible."

"They are not?—"

"Paris offers sophisticated travelers a chance to escape family-friendly drudgery. Really? That's your lead? I fell asleep reading it."

"It's technically true."

"It's technically boring. You're not writing about Paris—you're writing about what you're running from. Badly."

Ugh.

“Every article draft reads like a love letter to what you left. Every "romantic spot" is a place the kids would love,” she scolds.

"I made a choice," I remind her. And myself.

"Yeah, well, how’s that going for ya? You're miserable. Your writing's miserable. Even your outfit is miserable—is that one of Jace's hair clips? And when was the last time you washed your hair?"

I touch my hair automatically. It is getting kind of gross.

"A ghost is haunting your Instagram," she continues, merciless. "Three posts about family-friendly Paris spots this week. Two articles about traveling with kids. One very drunk tweet about how French children don't eat dinosaur-shaped food."

"I was jet-lagged."

"You were homesick,” she sing-songs.

A text pings—Ryan wondering where my latest piece is. Then, another asking why my latest submission reads like a "divorced dad's guide to Paris."

"I'm just... adjusting."

"You're just hiding. In an expensive apartment. Writing crap. Missing your family."

"They're not?—"

"If you say 'they're not my family' one more time, I'm hanging up and calling Jonas myself."

I throw another Goldfish at her pixelated face.

Outside, Paris glitters with all the romance and sophistication it’s famous for. Couples stroll hand in hand, and people sit outside at cafes no matter the weather. Everything is exactly as glamorous as I dreamed.

And something about it is freakishly... unsatisfying. Not what I expected. Not at all.

"You know what's funny?" Lucy asks, softening the edge in her voice. "You finally got everything you wanted."

I look around my perfect Paris apartment. My dream job. My sophisticated life.

I step on a Goldfish that falls off my desk and stare at the little pile of orange crumbs.

"Yeah," I say. "Funny, isn’t it?"

Lucy slurps down the last of her ice cream, fixing me with a look that says this intervention isn't over. "You know what's not funny? How many times you've ‘liked’ the San Francisco Aftershocks’s Instagram posts."

"Are you stalking my social media use? And by the way, I haven't?—"

---