by Raine Miller
N'oublie jamais.
Je ne t'oublierai jamais, Gage.
Mon amour.
~pour vous en anglais~
Walking away from him was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. But I saw his face, and he could not say whatever he does feel for me.
If Gage does love me, he can say it to me. I deserve that.
Even when there is so much inside of him to give, he is still afraid.
My beautiful surfing man just does not yet know the depths of what he could give if only he would allow the love to break through the hurt that lived in his heart.
Never forget.
I will never forget you, Gage.
My love.
10
Four days later.
“You holding up okay?"
I frowned as I lolled back onto my bed, closing my eyes. Although Gray's call was our first talk since our meal at Jazz Street a little over a month ago, I could guess that Reid had filled him in on all the Giselle details he'd pried out of me since her departure.
Couldn't have even one week to myself to process things before my friends came crowding in. Nope. Reid had shown up unannounced the very next day after Giselle left, and seeing my dejected state, had point-blank guessed the whole thing.
Clearing my dry throat, I lied, "I'm okay, Gray."
"Good. At least it was only a month."
"Yeah," I echoed hollowly.
A month, I reminded myself. Only a month. Not long enough to truly know anyone…or to fall in love with them. Whatever I'd felt for Giselle was just lust in its purest form.
You keep telling yourself that, asshole.
It was common knowledge that those spur-of-the- moment, love-at-first-sight Vegas weddings never worked out. Not for rich and famous celebrities, and definitely not for us regular people. No matter how strongly I believed I cared for Giselle, all it could be was simple head-over-heels lust.
Liar. Just keep on lying to yourself, motherfucker.
"How are things with you?" I asked. My attempt at being a decent friend, before I indulged in bad manners crying about my life without asking about his.
"Really great, actually." His sorry tone set my teeth on edge. "Reese is getting impatient for the baby to be born. She's cranky and uncomfortable and in need of constant reassurance that she'll be a good mom, and that I'll still love her if she weighs a few pounds more than she did before. Shit like that. And it's just…great…"
I tuned Gray out as I pretend-listened to him tell me how "great" it was to be with the one you love and living through the milestones of life I'd probably never experience. I started rifling through the contents of my bedside drawer as a distraction. It was a catchall for pencils, receipts and random notes, so when my hand made contact with something unfamiliar, I pulled it out.
A piece of drawing paper from Elysium.
"Gage?" Gray asked.
I turned the paper over and saw words written in a familiar hand.
"Yeah?" I answered on autopilot.
"Reid's dating this new girl. She's Brazilian and so tall she has to—"
I stopped listening to whatever the fuck he was saying because…I was reading the poem in my hand.
love
is not just a word with you
love
is your sweet kiss at the small of my back
love
is a new smile in your eyes on our third hour mark
love
is our dirty socks entwined in the hamper
love
is just you
I read it again and again. The answer to a question I hadn't even asked her started strumming through my veins.
"Sorry, Gray," I told him, "Just realized something. Talk to you later, brother."
I lifted the paper to my lips, pressed and held it there. My eyes closed, and I breathed deeply in and out.
It was obvious now. What my body had known, but my mind had taken too fucking long to figure out.
I loved Giselle, and she loved me too. Thank God she had the courage to say it.
I didn't know what in hell that would mean for me now, except that by letting her go, I'd made the biggest mistake of my life.
So now, the only thing for me to do was to set it right.
Later that evening.
The flight to Paris was one level beyond unbearable.
Unable to secure anything in business class, my last-minute seat assignment had me wedged between a tired mother, her cranky toddler, and a very large man on the aisle in a flop sweat. With the toddler shrieking and the man's prolific sweaty rolls angling for me, it seemed like they were in an unofficial competition as to who could make the flight more awful.
I slapped headphones on and cranked up the music…and thought about how Giselle would make this hideous experience somehow laughable—something funny to reflect upon at a later time. My French beach fairy possessed special skills like that.
When my seat mate fell asleep and began snoring (and sweating) on my shoulder, no matter how many times I prodded him off, he won.
Seven-hours and twenty minutes of claustrophobic hell later, it all came to a welcome end when I stepped out into the early morning Paris sunshine. I hadn't been to Paris in years, but I soon began to align myself with the layout of the city. My chest still had the ache firmly in place, but maybe it was eased somewhat in knowing I was on the same continent as Giselle again.
The taxi line out of the airport wasn't exactly a quick affair, and the trip into the city took a while, but I knew where I was headed. Although calling it a "lead" was being generous.
"I just cannot get enough of drawing at the Tuileries Garden," she said. "My favorite spot is under those perfect rows of trees, in the shade." A wistful smile came over her face as she remembered. "Before I left, it had gotten to the point where I had named all of the trees and learned the names of some of the regulars. There was Maurice, the little old man who talked to himself and even to me too if I bothered him enough. There was Hillary, the middle-aged woman with the long winding yellow scarf, who came at twelve o'clock for one hour precisely each and every day. There was Winston the squirrel, who would stop by every so often to nibble at my sunflower seeds."
So, to the Tuileries I went.
Unlike my expectations, most people I asked for directions knew English and were very polite to use it with me. Although I'd been to Paris before, I'd never gone to the Tuileries. So, I followed their instructions and sure enough, when my squint stopped on green that extended as far as I could see, I knew I was golden. A quick walk through the gardens found them far bigger than I expected.
But I was fatigued to nearly collapsing-level proportions, so I stopped in at a nearby express grocery store to deal with the basics. After loading up with several incomprehensible but still clearly ham packages, Doritos, some oranges, and a container of strawberries, I hit up the bathroom.
There, after washing the strawberries in the sink, I popped one in my mouth.
“I just love strawberries.” she'd said amidst the sunflowers. It had only been a month ago, but it seemed like a different era entirely.
Quit fucking crying about it and get your sorry ass moving, fool.
Determined not to waste another second, I strode outside and into the park. There, I began my search, which also doubled as sight-seeing. Now I could see it through her eyes just as she'd sketched it for me in my mind.
I meandered past several giddily spurting fountains, brigades of expertly crafted statues, a ton of painstakingly tended gardens with flowers every shade of the rainbow, and an infinite number of trees.
After an exhaustive search, peering around every shrub and oak, examining every vaguely Giselle-resembling girl who passed me by, there was nothing left to do but camp out by the long rows of trees Giselle had told me about. The shade was where I slouched for my wait.
Here I would sit, and here I would stay. This was the best—the only—chance I really had for running into Giselle. This will w
ork. She'll come.
A few hours later, down to my last chewy ham slice with the sun nosing down the horizon, I wasn't so sure. I'd been sitting on this uncomfortable patch of grass for what had to be four hours now. Despite the vigilant and borderline insane way I'd been staring holes and occasionally following any woman that even passably resembled Giselle, I hadn't seen her. So far, the police hadn't showed up to ask me to leave, so I counted my blessings, even though it wasn't much.
Although I'd had ample time to imagine what Giselle might be doing while I sat waiting in the Tuileries hoping to find her. No matter what odd charming situations I half-pictured in my mind's eye, they always came back to the same image of her eating strawberry pancakes in her flat while looking out over Paris. Yep, that was the only other "lead" I had on her. Giselle lived in the city and apparently loved it.
So, all I had to do was search out every twenty-four-year-old artist living in downtown Paris… What an easy fucking task that'll be. I prayed it wouldn't come to that. The Tuileries was my best chance.
Scowling, I swatted away a fly descending on what was left of my half-eaten strawberries. The ants, flies, and the occasional bumblebee had long since discovered my presence and had banded together to drive me insane.
"M. vous doivez partir." A man decked out like a swanky mall cop leaned over to give me the brunt of his judgy well-mustached frown.
In response to my blank face, he let out an impatient sigh.
"The park is closed," he said in a heavily accented voice, stabbing his finger out to drive the point home. "You must leave."
The next morning, I was up early, wolfing down my croissant as I barreled down the stairs two at a time. Surprisingly rested after sleeping so well in my room at Hôtel Juliana, I decided it was because I was now in the same city where she was.
Outside, speed walking was essential, since the sidewalks were already flocked with people.
About twenty minutes later, I was back at my spot. Parked in the very same indentation in the grass where my ass had been situated less than twelve hours prior. Flanked by my sentinel of perfect tree lines and a grasping, increasingly diminishing hope.
And so the hours slowly crept along as I leaned on the tree and a parade of not-hers passed by. Most looked to be tourists. Fascinated timeworn men, bored adolescent girls.
Seeing a lilac-haired one stride past without so much as lifting her eyes off the screen made pain scrape through me. Giselle and I had talked about that, one night—people barely living because they were so concentrated on their phones—after I'd nonchalantly mentioned never seeing her on her own Motorola.
"The whole phone thing, it is like a screen for the present moment," she said. "To face the world head-on, to give it one instant or iota of their full attention, is something most people today cannot bear. So, they glaze it away. Glue their gaze and minds to the screen. Scrolling, scrolling to infinity. Maybe a picture, a few texts saying nothing in response to less. When you think about it, it is nothing more than a smart, sad strategy. Always being halfway in this world and halfway in that, so there is no room."
"Room for what?" I asked.
A shadow passed over her face. "For the thoughts they cannot bear creeping in."
As I stared glumly ahead, the thoughts I hadn't wanted to face hit me square in the gut. Cassidy had been right about me. That in the end, even when I'd met a girl I really did care for, or love, I'd messed it up.
Maybe I was doomed to be alone.
And Giselle? I'd never found out what had driven her to Charleston so impulsively. Why hadn't I pushed until she'd told me? We’d spoken about many things, but had we ever truly gone beneath the surface? Had she wanted me to?
Something in me ached with recognition. Regret over what could've saved everything. Maybe if we'd bonded over her intimate secret, maybe she would've stayed. Maybe I would've realized sooner what she meant to me.
The sun seesawing from one horizon to the other was my indication of time passing and marching forward. When the shining orb began its inevitable descent, so too did my last dregs of hope. This was it, then.
She isn't coming.
I'd been wrong. Maybe Giselle was staying with some friends on the opposite side of town. Maybe she wasn't even here in Paris. She'd once told me that her father lived on a farm in the countryside and had started a second family with his new young wife after her mother died. Maybe she'd gone to visit them. After all that had happened with her, the only thing I could admit to myself with complete certainty was that I didn't know her as well as I should've.
When my eyes stopped on the seventh Giselle look-alike of the day, I tossed my last slice of orange in my mouth. The moment seemed ironically symbolic, watching the wind ruffle the golden waves of her long hair as she paced down the aisle of trees, toward me. My last bite of orange, the last sight of a Giselle look-alike. It was time to go; I could see that now. I'd have to try to find her another way.
I rose, and the Giselle look-alike stopped.
"It is you," she breathed.
I gaped at her. At her green dress fluttering in the breeze. Her parted lips that couldn't seem to settle on the smile her eyes were shining with. Those eyes, that weren't brown as I remembered them. Now, surrounded by so much green, they were too. Dark green shining emeralds.
"Gi." I rasped out her name. I did not believe it was her at first. Couldn't fucking believe it. I'd seen too many girls with the same hair dancing in the wind. I'd seen too many girls with bohemian style and an unhurried step. Too many girls who were not her.
“Gage, what are you doing here?"
Giving you my heart.
Still, her face couldn't decide whether to be surprised, happy, or both. She looked a little shocked.
Taking both her hands into mine, I said, "I'm here for you."
11
“What are you saying?" she asked quietly.
Under the view of those candid, expectant eyes, there was only room for one thing. The truth.
"I'm saying that I'm not fine with leaving things as they were." I held her gaze. "Or ending things—ending us. I don't know how, but I do know who. For me, it's you, Gi. As soon as you left and I found your poem, I understood that I don't want to live without you for even one more day—"
She stopped my words in their tracks with two fingers to my lips.
The wind had stopped blowing. All was still as though we needed the calm to speak.
"There is still so much you do not know about me, Gage." She was guarded, but truthful. I could live with truth, though. The truth would get us to where we needed to go together.
I raised her hand that was still clasped in mine to my lips and kissed it, breathing in the sweet scent of her skin, knowing relief for the first time in days. "But I've got time." I winked and gave her a grin hoping she remembered.
She bit on her bottom lip as a pretty smile bloomed on her face. "I think you've used that same line with me before."
"It's a good one…and if it works…well, then I'm using it on you, Frenchy."
She laughed softly. "Would mon beau surfeur like to come to my flat?"
"Oui." He would very much like to come to your flat. He would very much like for you to come in your flat, too.
Her Parisian flat was close to how I'd imagined it. From the old limestone walls to the eclectic interior. A bed with tie-dye sheets of teal-blues, lime-greens and canary-yellow, and presiding in the center of the room, her easel.
I'd never been in her room in Charleston, now that I thought of it. It'd never really crossed my mind because when I wasn’t working—and God, had I become an excellent delegator—we'd spent nearly all our time together at the beach house or on the actual beach. Her sketching while I surfed. But being here, in the place where she lived, seemed far more intimate than I could've asked for.
She flopped down on her bed and gestured for me to sit.
I sat beside her.
The silence in the room was keen. Giselle clasped and unclasped
her hands, wrestling with something painful within herself.
Every atom in me burned to say something, to console her. To tell her whatever she had to say was safe with me. I was safe. That the strength of my love for her wasn't something that some dark new revelation would extinguish. Even if I wanted to feel differently about her, I couldn't. I understood that now.
One glance of her wretched face indicated that right now my part was to stay silent. This was Giselle's choice, and her fight to fight, her story to tell.
Finally, she spoke.
"I went to Charleston to get away."
She drew her fingers through her hair, and when they caught a snag she ripped them free, shaking her head in frustration. She let out a tortured sigh, as if finally accepting the imperfect narrative she needed to tell.
"Henri and I met when I was sixteen, at a time when my mother was dying of cancer, and I was angry at having to lose her. A few months was all it took for us to form a bubble between the rest of the world and ourselves. I moved out, I dropped out of school. We had the most insane lives, like in a storybook."
A bitter smile I wanted to kiss away until she was back to her usual carefree happiness marred her beautiful face, but she had so much more to say. And…more importantly, for her, I had time to listen.
"Dancing and partying and drinking all night. It was all such brilliant fun that I almost didn't notice what was happening. How my friends were dropping away. My life. My art." She shook her head. "He started stealing to support us, and he got pretty good at it, I guess. The years blurred together, and our bubble shrank and shrank and shrank. Until there was nothing left for me but him. Until our lives were so stifled and limited that we had no choice but to hate each other. He became irritable and tyrannical, blowing up at any wrong thing I said." She closed her eyes, her lower lip trembling as if she were experiencing it in this very moment. "The first few years, I tried to leave. That was the saddest part of all. Wherever I went, whoever I stayed with…he would somehow find out. He would know. Every time he showed up with his grim apologetic smile, familiar kind eyes, and I figured it was a sign. That someone who fought so hard for me could not possibly be wrong."
