I caught every third word—enough to follow the question, not enough to answer it cleanly. I’d been allowed to learn French as a child, but never encouraged to keep it. My father had alwaysinsisted we were American first.Speak English, he’d say, like the language itself was a line you crossed and never came back from.
“Sorry,” I said, switching languages anyway, my accent soft but serviceable. “I’m not here for a show. My sister … she used to come here.”
Recognition flickered. “Ah. Many people come,” the woman replied, her accent thick. “Good performances.”
I hesitated, then showed her the tickets. “She kept these.”
The woman studied them, then smiled faintly. “Romantic play. Very popular.”
Romantic.
Of course.
I thanked her and stepped back, letting the door close behind her.
Rose had sat here. Maybe with him. Laughing, crying, holding someone’s hand in the dark while actors pretended at love and heartbreak on stage.
The thought didn’t hurt the way it might have yesterday.
Instead, something warmer settled in my chest.
Hope.
Which was absurd, really. My sister was dead. I was alone in a foreign city, picking through the remnants of her secrets. And yet, walking back toward the metro, I felt strangely open.
Like something was waiting.
My mind drifted toward the idea of desire—real desire. Not the polite intimacy Hank and I had fallen into, predictable and careful. But something messier. Hungrier. The kind of attraction that made your body wake up before your brain caught up.
Had Rose found that?
I flushed, remembering the rare nights I’d caught glimpses of that feeling in strangers’ eyes across crowded bars. The subtle heat low in my stomach, the pulse of interest quickly dismissed as impractical.
Safe choices didn’t include reckless attraction.
Maybe that was the problem.
Maybe Rose had found someone who made her feel alive. Desired. Seen. Maybe she’d stepped outside the lines because something—or someone—had called to parts of her she’d kept quiet too long.
The thought was intriguing, to say the least.
Maybe, somehow, she was leading me here.
Toward something better.
I paused on the sidewalk, watching sunlight flash off passing cars, and let the idea settle.
Grief and hope, side by side. Strange companions, but both undeniably real.
“Okay,” I murmured, to the city or my sister or myself. “I’m paying attention.”
Paris didn’t answer.
But for whatever reason, I felt like I was moving toward something instead of away from it.
And that felt dangerously close to excitement.
I didn’t go back to the apartment right away.
