Page 7 of City of Love

Bullet dodged. For now, at least.

***

The trip is long. Really, really long.

The lady sitting next to me for the first leg of the journey isn’t a talker, sadly, and she spends most of the flight doing crossword puzzles and sleeping. Personally I think if I tried to look at a crossword puzzle while flying, I would throw up. I don’t do well reading or writing in cars or on planes. I wish I did, because it would be a way to pass the time, but alas.

The second leg of the trip I’m seated next to a quiet girl from my French class—my former French class, I guess I should say—and we make some small talk before just doing our own thing. The third leg of the trip I end up getting some businessman who smells like too much cologne.

I also end up getting my period.

It’s gross, but I’m just going to say it: all women have to play the game I like to callPeriod or Not?The female body does a lot of stuff down there, what with preparing for the evolutionary process of babymaking, and a lot of that “stuff” feels like a period. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.

This time it is. Thankfully I get that taken care of before anything embarrassing happens, and I find myself praying that I won’t have to change tampons while we’re still on the plane. The very air in airplane bathrooms always feels unsanitary to me, and I’d rather not expose my lady bits to all that if I don’t have to. Plus I worry I’ll forget I’m not supposed to flush it, and I’ll flush it anyway and bring the plane down or something.

The rest of the flight is uneventful, with no feminine hygiene mishaps. I keep thinking I’m going to run into Marcus—I don’t know how, exactly, because it’s not like he’s going to kick the guy next to me out of his seat—but I don’t. I force myself to breathe through my frustration—frustration that I’m worrying about him when I should just be excited.

Sixteen hours and a billion layovers later—okay, just two, but layovers are the worst, so it feels like more—my butt hurts, and my legs are restless. I’ve dozed on and off throughout the trip, trying to convince myself that airplane seats are more comfortable than they really are.

When I finally exit the plane, making my way up the ramp and into the Paris airport, a strange sort of surrealness washes over me. I’ve never been out of the States before—aside from Niagara Falls, I guess, but does Canada even count? I don’t think so. It’s certainly nothing like Paris. It’s silly, but I can’t help taking a deep breath to see if the air in Paris is different from the air in Wyoming.

And I don’t know about the air, but the airportis certainly different from any I’ve ever seen. This place is huge. I just stare as I follow the herd of my French class through the terminal. There’s some red carpet and a bunch of shops, and the early evening crowd is bustling.

Stone Springs, Wyoming, suddenly seems very small.

We go through customs and get our luggage, and then we gather around Mlle Hilliard. She outlines the plan for us—in English, thankfully. My French is decent—it was one of my best subjects in high school—but I’d rather not miss any important details just because I couldn’t keep up. She tells us we’ll take a shuttle from the airport to a railway station, and from there we’ll get to our sister school in the sixteenth arrondissement, where our host families will pick us up. I feel a sense of relief at knowing I’m not going to have to get around by myself.

I’m directionally challenged in Stone Springs. I can only imagine it would be much, much worse in Paris.

The shuttle ride to the railway station passes in a sort of exhausted haze. I let my head rest on the back of my seat, but I don’t close my eyes, in case Marcus approaches. He doesn’t, thank goodness, but it’s only a matter of time; I can feel his eyes on me. I never used to think that was an actual thing—how can youfeelthat someone is watching you?—but I have since learned that I was wrong. Because Marcus’s eyes on me give me a distinctly dirty feeling, like I need to shower.

I pull my phone out of my backpack to check the time, trying to give myself something to do while the people in front of me are exiting the shuttle, but my phone is dead. I shove it in my shorts pocket and just wait my turn instead.

When we get in the station, I’m reminded that I’m on my period. I excuse myself and leave my luggage with Mlle Hilliard, who points to the restrooms and tells me to hurry. I rush in the direction she pointed, but the women’s room is closed for cleaning, so I have to go further to find another. When I finally find one, I finish my business quickly before starting back. I’m beginning to get crampy, and I find myself wishing I had some aspirin.

Or just a bed to lie down in and sleep for a good eight hours. I’m tired.

I’m leaving the restroom, covering a yawn as I walk, when I bump into someone who’s appeared out of nowhere.

“Whoa. Sorry,” I say automatically, leaning over to grab my purse, which has fallen. Then, correcting myself as I stand back up, I say, “Désolée.”

“Not a problem, beautiful.”

Marcus’s voice makes me freeze for a second before I straighten up again and pull the strap of my purse over my shoulder.

In another life, with a completely different personality, he might be handsome. Blond hair, blue eyes, muscles—he’s the whole all-American thing going on. But those blue eyes are cold, and his smile is always more of a sneer.

I don’t say anything to him. I don’t even meet his eye. Being around him always fills me with a mixture of fear and anger, and I’m too tired to deal with either of those. So I just try to brush past him, because I’m going to miss the train if I don’t go now.

But Marcus doesn’t let me pass. He grabs my elbow and pulls me back, and though I hate it, my heart stutters with fear.

“Have you been avoiding me?” he says. His voice is friendly and casual, which makes me even angrier, because it’s so deceptive. This is the guy who sent me pictures of things I didn’t want to see, even after I told him to stop. The guy who kept asking me out despite my many rejections. The guy whose constant pick-up lines were incredibly crass and sexual. He’s neither friendly nor casual, and I hate that he sounds like he is.

“Let me past, Marcus,” I say. My voice is steady, but my pulse is not. I just want to get out of here.

Of course, Marcus doesn’t listen. He gives a little tug on my arm, and I stumble into his chest. “Don’t be silly, Lydia,” he says, his voice still doing a passable imitation of pleasant. “You should really try to give me a chance. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together here.”

That’s definitely false; we’re spending most of the next month with our respective host families, save for a few group outings. I certainly am not going to be calling Marcus up to chat over coffee and baked goods.

---