Page 59 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
Someday maybe I’ll want to.
I think of all my paintings. I guess you can take the mad wife out of the attic but you can’t take the madness out of the wife.
I’ve locked myself back in the attic so to speak. But I am trying.
When Luke and I leave the restaurant, I’m still carrying the roses, and I carry them in the hand closest to his so that there is no attempted hand-holding. If he notices this, he doesn’t let on. He talks while we walk, and I’m overcome by that same sensation of being watched again.
I look over my shoulder, and I don’t see anything. My heart starts to beat faster, and the one thing that begins to frighten me is I don’t know that I’ve ever had a great instinct for whether or not I’m being watched. But what I have always been in tune with is Dragos. The way that he looks at me, the way that it feels when he’s near me.
No. I refuse to believe that I maintain any sort of mystical connection to that man. I refuse to believe that I’m having intuition. I’m being paranoid.
We arrive at the front of my apartment. “Thank you again. For the roses. For dinner.”
“Can we do this again?”
“Yes. But I really don’t want to disappoint you. I… I really just got my heart broken. And when I tell you it was an extremely dysfunctional relationship…”
“Is he who you’re afraid of?”
It’s a logical question, and in some ways the answer is yes. But… The truth of it is I’m more afraid of myself.
“It was very intense,” I say. “And he is very controlling.”
Luke looks angry. “No man has any right to control a woman.”
“I appreciate that. But I’m just trying to give context for…me.”
“I like you, Cassie. But I’m okay going slow. I won’t lie to you and say that I don’t feel something. But it’s okay if it only ends up being friendship. We’re two Americans in Paris. We might as well see, right?”
“Yeah.”
Though I don’t need to see. I know.
“Good night,” he says, and I’m grateful that he doesn’t make a move toward me, or wait for me to walk away. I stand there for a moment, until that strange sensation creeps up on me again. After that I go back inside quickly. Very quickly.
I make my way up the stairs and lock myself in the apartment, then put a chair in front of the door for good measure.
And here I am, left alone, surrounded by paintings of Dragos.
I sigh heavily, and pour myself another glass of wine, and I sit in front of my nearly finished painting. I take out my sketchbook, and I start to draw. I don’t intend for the drawing to be pornographic, but it is. Dragos, over me, his hand gripping my chin as he enters me from behind.
I won’t paint that.
I’m startled out of my guilty artistic fantasies by the sound of tires squealing on the street below, a strange thick whisking sound and a shout.
I run to the window and look out at the street below. There, bathed in the light of the streetlamps, I see a man dressed all in black lying on the sidewalk, with a pool of blood spreading around him.
And I freeze. Because all I can think of is the story Dragos told me about his father.
Dragos.
I run to get my phone, but I can’t remember where I put my purse. My hands are shaking. It’s not Dragos. But someone is hurt. Maybe they’ve been hit by a car? I have no idea what just happened.
But they need help. I need to call the emergency line. But I can’t find my stupid purse. I can’t find my stupid phone. The apartment is too small for it to be this difficult.
Finally, I find it, and I run back to the window with it in hand. But the man is gone. If it wasn’t for the red smudge on the sidewalk I would believe that I made the entire thing up.
And then I hear a large thump against my door.
