My heart pounds in my chest. I don’t have to respond to him. I can be here, sitting at a terrace, drinking a glass of wine. But somethingin his tone—something slimy and pervasive—makes me look in his direction.
“You were standing right there.” He points at the other side of the sidewalk. “You looked lost.” I let out a sigh, almost relieved. He doesn’t know anything. “Are you lost?”
I’m not. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Where I have every right to be. The man is still waiting for my answer. I hate that I feel the need to give him one, to comply with what society—let’s be honest, men—expect of me. Be spoken to and you shall reply. That’s what Good Taylor does.Did.
“I’m fine,” I say, but my voice is croaked, and I probably sound the exact opposite of fine.
The man takes a sip of his beer, then slowly refocuses his gaze on me. His forehead creases over his glasses, his thin eyebrows shooting up. “I noticed you.”
“What are you saying?” The words spill out of my mouth before I even realize it.
The server comes back with a glass and a bottle of wine, which he pours so slowly I almost reach for it to speed up the process. He leaves a small bowl of popcorn on the table, and I’m equally eager for and dreading what will come next.
After the server leaves, the man smiles, content to have my full attention again. “A beautiful woman like you. Anyone would notice you.”
My shaking breath empties me of everything I had, the shreds of normalcy I’ve been hanging on to all day. I get up quickly, knocking the table and spilling the wine everywhere as I do. My first thought is that I should clean it up—Good Taylor always cleans up!—but I have to get out of here more. Grabbing onto the shopping bags, I squeeze through the few other people on the terrace, mumbling apologies as I bump against them. Heat burns through my body, shame and fear all tangled up.
And then, without another look behind me, I start to run.
Chapter 5
Cassie
Now
Paris is not made for walking. Those cobblestones looked pretty in the pictures, but they’re vicious in real life. My high-heeled sandals keep getting stuck in the crevices, on top of murdering my toes with every wobbly step. These shoes make my legs look extra-long and I love them, but right now I can barely put one foot in front of the other.
“Should we take a taxi there?” I say, trying to catch up to Olivier.
Turns out this place is not literally “around the corner.” You’d think he could have told me that when he saw what I was wearing. Twice, I asked him to slow down and wait for me. He did, but only for a few minutes before speeding ahead, leaving me stuck behind elderly couples walking their overly groomed poodles.
He stops, letting me reach him once again. “We don’t really take taxis in Paris.”
He sounds like I should know this already. Like I’m so dumb to even ask. I hate that he succeeds, that Idofeel dumb when he speaks to me like this. There’s so much about this world I don’t know, me, the country bumpkin.
“I can’t walk in these,” I say, my irritation covering up my shame.
When Olivier and I were in the city, I insisted we take Ubers everywhere. He didn’t complain then, just complied. He would have done anything for me.
“We’re almost there,” Olivier says with a shrug.
I glance down at my feet, letting out a big sigh in case I’m not being obvious enough. I dressed up for our first outing in Paris—a real husband would appreciate that.
“Trust me, okay?” he adds as he takes my hand. His grasp is so firm it makes the big diamond on my engagement ring twist and dig into my skin.
I’ve already received a few comments asking me to spill all about the surprise, so what choice do I have? We turn the corner onto a square with even more uneven cobblestones, and Olivier guides me through every treacherous gap. We’re walking so slowly that I catch a few people staring—laughing?—at us. I sneak envious glances at the clothing stores lining the square and debate going into one to buy a pair of sneakers.
Eventually, we make it to Les Deux Magots, a fancy café with stark gold lettering—like it meansmoney—a lush green awning, and penguin-clad servers moving around the tables with such choreographed gestures it feels like they’re doing a TikTok dance.
Olivier’s face falls when he notices how busy it is. Every table on the terrace is taken. While he heads over to the blasé-looking hostess, I whip out my phone. Even if we don’t get a table, I can still post about this place.
But first, there’s a text waiting for me:
So whats the surprise? Spill!
It’s from Brianna, one of my besties from high school. Of course she’d ask. Brianna spent her honeymoon at a cabin in Vermont. For a total of three days. She kept saying they were saving for a bigger adventure in a year or two, but then those conversations stopped and she started talking about starting to “try.”Try for what?I’d asked. The rest of our group hadglanced at me funnily. It’s like, as we approached our thirties, everyone suddenly wanted to get married and have babies. I felt so behind, suddenly. And then I wasn’t.
I take a snap of the bustling terrace, the glossy people with their sunglasses, cigarettes neatly tucked between their fingers and outfits straight out of an influencer’s feed.
