Page 16 of Win Some Love Some
She left, but I couldn’t follow her. The cold chilled my body, but I welcomed it.
“Have a good life, Nora,” I whispered to the fire.
Only the God of Fire must not have been listening.
3
Present Day
Nora
With my very last euros I bought a croissant at the Charles De Gaulle airport. It was better than it needed to be and I felt my fingers twitch with muscle memory.
Grab my phone. Take a video. Say Au Revoir, France and merci. Except for the last three months, you’ve been so good to me.
Only I wasn’t doing that anymore. I no longer went by the handle @AnAmericanInParis. I was no longer making videos of my life for my millions of social media followers. I was no longer…I didn’t even know. Me?
Someone bumped me from behind. A fellow traveler with a giant backpack.
I apologized. He bumped me and I apologized. I couldn’t stop myself.
“Pardon,” I said. He didn’t even notice. I took mybetter than it needed to becroissant and my tea and found an empty seat at my gate. The day was gray and rain pattered listlessly against the giant windows. I wished for sun so I could hide behind my sunglasses. No such luck today. No luck, really. Not for me. Not for months.
You know what happens to an accidental influencer with millions of followers when she goes down in a blaze of world-wide public humiliation?
Middle seat in coach.
Across the aisle a group of teenagers were looking at me and then down at their phones and then back at me. I still had a half hour before my flight boarded. It was only a matter of time before they started filming me. Or worse. Talking to me.
I opened my phone, as if I could delay the inevitable, and read the various texts.
Mom: I can’t wait to see you, honey. Dad will pick you up at the airport. I’ve told him to be calm.
Charlie: You really sold all your shoes? Even the Chanels? Seriously?
Interpol Agent Claudia Dufrais: I will be talking to my counterparts in the FBI. You can expect to hear from them in the next week.
My breath caught and I found myself saying, out loud, to no one in particular.
“I’m sorry.”
Beneath Claudia’s text was the text thread I’d thought a million times about deleting. From a number I’d planned onblocking but never did. My personal revenge was keeping his number under the nickname I knew he hated.
Nicky: Talk. To. Me.
Nicky: Just let me know you’re okay.
Nicky: Freezing me out is bullshit and immature. And you know it. Just tell me you’re okay.
Maybe it was, but it had become a habit I couldn’t break. It had been six years of uncomfortable reunions. Thanksgivings. Roy’s gall bladder surgery when we sat in the waiting room together not saying a word.
That Christmas party three years ago.
So awkward.
Yes, part of me knew it was immature, but the truth was, I couldn’t look at him anymore without remembering the night of my eighteenth birthday.
Without remembering how wrong I’d been about his feelings. My feelings. All of it.
