Marked By Fire

by Meg Ripley

  I text Claire, even though I don’t think there’s any way that I’ll get a hold of her at the odd hour it will be back in the States.

  She texts back immediately. If you need somewhere to crash for a while, you can definitely stay here, she says, in response to my long, rambling message regarding what I’ve just learned.

  I look at my credit cards and think about what I’m doing. Part of me wants to confront Jacques, and another part of me just wants to run. Living in Rouen has been fairly cheap for me; I’ve paid off my entire line of credit on my cards in three months. I could put a plane ticket on my account fairly easily. But do I really want to go back to the US? I still have nine more months on my visa.

  Do you really want to stay and watch Hélène give birth to your boyfriend’s baby the month before you leave?

  That decides it for me.

  I go online and buy a one-way ticket back to America.

  Chapter FIFTEEN

  Jacques

  “What is this shit?”

  I stare at my phone, shaking my head at the message I’ve just received.

  “What shit?” Yann looks up from his game of Halo.

  “Nora,” I say. The message she sent me is the most cryptic fucking thing I’ve ever read in my life.

  I’m going back to America. I don’t know when I’ll be back, or if I’ll be back. I wish you the best of luck with Hélène.

  “What the fuck?” Yann gets up from the floor and reads the text message to confirm it. “What does she mean, ‘best of luck with Hélène’?”

  “I have no idea, man,” I tell him. “Hélène apparently made friends with her last night, but I don’t know why that would be an issue.”

  “Maybe Hélène told her something about you?” Yann shrugs. “I don’t know what she’d be able to say, though.”

  “I’ve never had anything to do with that crazy bitch, and you know that, Yann.”

  “Sam has had more to do with her than you have, and even he actively avoids her,” Yann agrees. “The freak probably made some shit up about you flirting with Julienne or something.”

  “But if it was something as stupid as that, wouldn’t Nora have confronted me? Why would she go all the way back to America? It makes no sense.”

  “She said she got a call from her family last night, right?”

  I nod.

  “Maybe there was something to do with that, and she heard something from Hélène, and between the two of those things, she just doesn’t know when she’ll be back in the country,” Yann suggests.

  “I need to find her,” I say. “I can’t let her leave the country without at least talking about this.”

  I send Nora a quick message.

  I have no idea what you’re talking about? Can you please call me and tell me what’s going on?

  If I can get her to tell me what happened, maybe I can convince her not to leave. At the very least, I could convince her to come back as soon as possible.

  I really don’t want to talk to you, Jacques. I need to get away for a while. I don’t know if I’ll want to see you again.

  I show the message to Yann.

  “Something definitely happened,” he says. “And it has to do with Hélène. We need to find out what she said, and figure out what it will take to get her to change her mind.”

  “Why are you so interested in this?” I can appreciate that Yann is being helpful, but considering that he’s been complaining for the last month about how I stole his chance with an American girl, I can’t believe how eager he is to help me get her back.

  “She promised to introduce me to some of her friends,” Yann says with a grin. “If she goes back to America, that’s never going to happen.”

  “Seriously, dude?” I shake my head, but I guess it’s as good a reason as any.

  I don’t even know if Nora has left for the airport yet, but Yann and I decide to go to Hélène’s place. He walked her home when she got too drunk at one of our shows—once, early on, before we knew she was so goddamn crazy—so he knows where she lives.

  When we get there, he decides to take the lead on the situation. He buzzes up to Hélène’s apartment and we both pray that she’s home, and that we can get the truth out of her.

  “Yes?”

  Yann looks at me when she answers and his eyes widen. “Um, hey, sweetheart, can I come up?” he asks.

  “Of course!”

  She buzzes us into the building and I follow Yann to the elevator. My heart’s pounding in my chest and I want to shake Hélène as soon as I see her. I want to find out what she said to make Nora run away. I take a deep breath and get into the elevator, closing my eyes to focus on the matter at hand. If I can find out what is going on with Nora, I might be able to keep her from going back to the US.

  If my timing is right.

  If she hasn’t already left.

  But I have to find out what Hélène said to her first.

  We get to Hélène’s apartment, and when she answers the door at Yann’s knock, she sees me. “Oh! You’re here too?” she looks so pleased, and in that moment, I feel a vein in my neck throbbing so forcefully, I can almost hear it.

  “Nora told me just a little while ago that there was something wrong and she doesn’t want to see me again. Do you know anything about that, Hélène?” I cross my arms over my chest, clenching my jaw as I stare her down.

  “I have no idea what you mean,” Hélène says, flashing the fakest smile I’ve ever seen. “Look, she’s an American. They’re known for being flaky.”

  “She told me she wished me the best of luck with you,” I tell her flatly. “And that you were suddenly so interested in making friends with her last night.”

  “I may have told her a few things she doesn’t know about you, but if I did, then it’s your fault for not being upfront with her in the first place,” Hélène says.

  “Hélène, what did you tell her?”

  Yann matches my flat, uninterested expression, crossing his arms over his chest as well. Hélène tries to close the door, but Yann puts his foot in the way.

  “What did you tell her, Hélène?”

  I know we’re going to be wasting precious time—time that I could be using to drive to Paris, to get to the airport and hopefully catch up to Nora, but if I don’t know what Hélène did to sabotage me, then there’s no way for me to fix things with the woman I’ve come to love.

  “Let us into the apartment right now,” I tell her. “I promise we won’t harm you, but I there’s no fucking way in hell I’m leaving until you tell me what you did, and I don’t think you want everyone in the building knowing what sort of person you are.”

  Chapter SIXTEEN

  Nora

  I look at the screens showing the arrivals and departures, and see that my flight—a bargain fare from Norwegian Airlines—is scheduled to leave in a little over an hour and a half. I take a deep breath as I head in the direction of security, telling myself that in spite of the lateness of the train, and the hectic Metro ride from Gare Saint-Lazare to the airport, I still have plenty of time to get to my gate and get on my flight.

  You should have at least given Jacques a chance to explain himself, I think, shifting the straps of my backpack a little higher up on my shoulders. I wasn’t able to pack everything up, so I’ll eventually have to come back to France and take care of all my bills and details here. But right now, all I can think of is how I need to get as far away from Jacques as possible.

  “Miss Nora Nolan, please report to Norwegian Guest Services. Nora Nolan, please report to Norwegian Guest services.”

  I blink at that; is there something wrong with my ticket? But I can’t go through security until I’ve figured out whatever is going on with my flight or my ticket.

  If they oversold it and are bumping me, they had better put me on the next flight out of here and get me some food and drink vouchers. I turn around and head back in the direction of the check-in desk, hoping against hope that whatever the problem is, it’ll b
e resolved quickly, and that I can get on my plane in time.

  As I’m walking through the terminal, it occurs to me to wonder why whatever was wrong didn’t come up when I was checking in fifteen minutes ago. It’s probably just something minor. They’ll figure it out, and you can get into the security line, and you can get on the plane. I take a deep breath.

  I get to the desk, skipping the line. I think I’m possibly entitled to that, since they asked for me to report directly there, and ignore the baleful looks people are casting in my direction.

  “Yes,” I say, taking a few moments to collect my thoughts in French. “I just heard I need to report here?”

  “Yes, Miss Nolan,” the woman says in English, and I wonder just how much my French has actually improved since I got here. “There’s someone who urgently needs to speak with you.”

  I frown at that; who could possibly need to talk to me? It dawns on me a moment later, and I’m about to tell the woman at the desk in the Norwegian Airlines uniform that if I’m late for my flight because of this, I will hold the airline itself accountable, when I feel a hand on my shoulder.

  “Jacques, don’t even—” I say, and I’m not even sure in the moment if I’m speaking English or French. I turn around and Jacques is standing there, with Yann at his side.

  “Please, just hear me out,” Jacques says. “If you still want to get on your flight and go back to America when we’re done, Yann can get you in the express lane to go through security.”

  I look at Yann and my heart is pounding in my chest, but I have to admit, there’s part of me that was almost wishing for something like this to happen. What woman doesn’t want the grand romantic gesture?

  “Look,” I say. “I just don’t think we should see each other anymore...at least for a while.”

  “Because you think that I knocked up Hélène?”

  I stare at Jacques.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’ll admit that the fact you didn’t even see fit to tell me you were having sex with her…while calling her ‘Crazy Hélène’ and telling me to stay away from her—”

  “I have never had sex with her in my entire life,” Jacques tells me, and my heart sinks. If he had at least admitted it, I might be able to see past it; after all, we hadn’t been official, at least as far as I know, when he would have gotten Hélène pregnant.

  “She told me she’s pregnant,” I say.

  “And you trust her?” Yann snorts. “You do remember we call her ‘Crazy Hélène’, right?”

  “Yann, shut up,” Jacques says. “If I could prove to you that Hélène was lying—about everything—would you feel differently?”

  “How would you prove it?” I look at him in shock that he would even suggest something like that.

  “Would you believe it if it was her voice on a recording saying that she made it up?”

  “You could have forced her,” I counter.

  “No force,” Jacques insists. “I know that I’m a big guy, but trust me, I’d never lay a hand on a woman. Listen to this. Please, Nora.”

  “Maybe,” I say, after thinking about it for a moment. He takes out his phone, and pulls up a recording.

  “I made this while Yann and I spoke to Hélène,” Jacques says. “We knew that it had to have been something she said to you.”

  I listen to it, not all that inclined to believe that Jacques is telling me anything near the truth. But the recording seems genuine; the time stamp marks it as being from three hours ago, right around the time that I told Jacques that I was leaving the country. There’s no indication in the recording that Jacques or Yann are threatening anything other than that they won’t leave until Hélène comes clean.

  “Fine, fine,” Hélène says, close to the end of the recording. “I told your girlfriend that you and I had sex six weeks ago, and that I’m pregnant.”

  “I know for a fact that you’ve never had sex with me, and if you’re pregnant you definitely aren’t pregnant by me,” Jacques says. The three of them are talking fast, I have to keep re-listening to parts to make sure I’m catching everything, but they at least speak mostly clearly.

  “I’m not pregnant,” Hélène says irritably. “I gave up a night of drinking to make that story more believable.”

  I listen to the rest of the recording, and I don’t know what to think. I want to believe that Jacques is telling me the truth, but I don’t know if I can trust him; not after Ethan. Not after spending three years loving someone and thinking that someone was faithful to me, and then having everything thrown in my face.

  Chapter SEVENTEEN

  Jacques

  “Why wouldn’t you just ask me about it?” I press, once Nora hands me my phone and headphones.

  She leads me outside, and I have to hope that she’s decided to skip getting on the plane. “I need to explain something,” she says slowly. “I don’t really know all the words, so I want you to be patient.”

  “Of course, of course,” I say. “Yann, maybe you should go visit Starbucks.”

  Yann leaves and I turn my full attention to Nora.

  “I never told you why I came to France,” she says.

  “Yes, you did,” I counter. “You wanted to study art on your own for a while.”

  “That isn’t the real reason,” Nora says. She looks down at the ground. “Before I came here, I was dating someone. I was going to become engaged; soon, even.” She looks up. “I’d met him when I first started college, and I thought…” she sighs.

  “What happened?” I reach out for her hands and she doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t meet my gaze, either; I think she’s about to tell me that the real problem is that she is committed to this guy back in the US.

  “I discovered, about a week before final exams, that he had been cheating on me for years.” She starts to look up and I can see tears in her eyes. “It was for that reason I decided not to date anyone seriously for a while. When...when Hélène said that you’d gotten her pregnant, I thought I was just repeating the same mistakes.”

  “But you know now that I didn’t cheat on you, don’t you?” I ask. “Please—please, Nora. You have to know that I would never do that. Not to anyone, and definitely not to you.” Her hands are trembling in mine.

  “I want to believe you,” she says. “I really do.” Her grip tightens on my hands. “But you have to understand why that is hard for me.”

  “What can I do to prove it to you?” I ask her. “Anything—anything in the entire world, ask for it, and I will make it happen.” I think about the wager that I made with Julienne, and smile a little bit to myself. “What if I get a tattoo of your design on my body?”

  “What?” Nora looks up at me and her eyes are wide, still half-full of tears. “You would...what?”

  “I will get a tattoo of your design on my body,” I tell her. “We can go back to Rouen, and go straight to the shop, and I will get Christophe to do it today, if you’ll just agree to trust me.”

  “Where would you get it?” I press my lips together.

  “Right here,” I say, releasing one of her hands to press it to the center of my chest; one of the few spots still available. “Whatever design you want. You could write, ‘Property of Nora Nolan’ and I will have that tattooed.” Nora laughs and acting on instinct, I lean in and kiss her. “You believe me?” I say it in English, hoping against hope that she’ll agree.

  “Fine, yes,” she says. “I believe you.” I hold her tightly and kiss her again, thinking that Julienne is going to get her forfeit early. But I am definitely going to wait until later to explain to Nora the significance of it beyond proving myself to her. For right now, all I’m concerned about is making sure that Nora believes me when I promise to never, ever betray her.

  And when I tell her that I’m in love with her.

  “You’d better call ahead and tell Christophe to get ready for you,” Nora says. “I am spending the whole trip back to Rouen designing something worthy of marking you as mine for the rest of your life.”
/>   I grin at her and barely even notice that Yann has come back.

  “She’s marking you? Whoa. You drive a hard bargain, Nora.”

  I laugh at Yann’s comment; he doesn’t know about my wager with Julienne either. I’ll fill him in later.

  “Are you willing to come back with me?”

  “I need to find out how to get my luggage back first,” Nora says. She sighs. “I feel like I might have overreacted.”

  “No,” I tell her. “Knowing what I now know about you, I should have worked harder to make sure that you know that I would never do anything like that.” I give her a final kiss and wrap my arm around her waist, letting my hand rest on the spot where I tattooed her a few months before.

  It’s only fair, I think; I marked her—she should get to mark me. Maybe I can even convince Christophe to let her hold the needle for a few seconds.

  EPILOGUE

  jacques

  6 Months Later

  It’s the final night of our current tour and the crowd at Hipster Cafe erupts into a loud cheer, clapping as I strum the final chord of “Love Song” by The Cure on my Telecaster. I step back from the microphone, take a quick bow and motion for the crowd to applaud for the rest of the guys in The Four Pistols.

  I’ve gotta say, I’m in awe of how far we’ve come as a band—and with how amazing my life has become since Nora came into my life. Staring wide-eyed in disbelief out into the crowd, my mind begins to pour over the events of the last few months and my heart fills with a sense gratitude that consumes me; so much, it feels like it could fucking explode right out of my chest.

  Less than a month after Nora and I made things official, we started to realize that living directly across the alley from each other was getting to be ridiculous. What began as shacking up together only on the weekends quickly evolved into the two of us spending every night together.