Archive of Our Own ^beta

Long ago a young man sits and plays his waiting game
But things are not the same it seems as in such tender dreams

When he held my hand, I wondered if he could feel the way my heart was beating too fast in my veins.

We're over, I wanted to say. I wanted to say it before he could.

"We're over," he said and all the air left my lungs.

"We're over," I said, and I knew that this time that we were never, ever getting back together.

It seems so stupid to say it now, but I didn't see it. I didn't see any of it. I didn't see us break. I didn't see us burn. I didn't see us end.

I didn't, but he did.

Slowly passing sailing ships and Sunday afternoons
Like people on the moon I see are things not meant to be

Six months ago, I turned down an assignment in Paris so I could stay with him. He told me not to, but I was sure he was the one. In every late arrival to my apartment, I thought of ring shopping and weddings and futures and bliss. I didn't think he was avoiding me. I didn't think he was just wasting time. I didn't think he was falling in love with her.

I think of all the girls who gave up Paris for boys they loved: Joey Potter, Lauren Conrad, me. I remember and I regret.

Where do those golden rainbows end?
Why is this song so sad?

I move to Paris. It feels appropriate. The job is still waiting, it's romantic, it's rife with the creative aura of the Lost Generation, and, most of all, he hated it. He hated the cracks of age, the faltering testaments against time. He said they reminded him that if they couldn't win against the erosion of the ages, neither could he.

He liked to remind me that I wouldn't last, either. That whenever I placed my pen against paper, those words would flicker and falter and fade. I stopped writing. It all felt trite, anyway.

But now I write. I write so much that my hand feels empty without a pencil. I find lead rubbed into my skin, feel it sink into my blood. My journals burst with words and pictures and him. Every word makes me think of him. But he never lasts, not on paper and not with me.

Dreaming the dreams I've dreamed my friends
Loving the love I love to—

"What are you writing?"

I look up. You're tall—taller than me—with dark hair and eyes that seem mere seconds away from laughing.

"A poem," I say simply. It's been a long time since I've spoken to someone that wasn't a barista or shop girl. My voice feels like it doesn't belong to me, like it's being pulled out against my will.

You don't seem to be taken aback by my curtness. Instead you sit down across from me. "You're a writer?"

"I write," I correct. "Recreationally."

"Ah. Recreationally." Your accent isn't thick enough that I don't understand you, but it's pronounced enough that I remember why French is the language of love. "But do you wish to do it professionally?"

"I wish to get everything out of my head and out of me," I say. You look at me like I'm going to say more, like you can't wait to hear more. It makes me nervous. "And what do you do?"

You raise an eyebrow. "Recreationally? Or professionally?"

"Either. Both."

You hold up the camera that's been in your hands since you sat down. "I'm a photographer. Recreationally and professionally."

I point to the camera. "And do you have this here recreationally or professionally?"

 "Recreationally. I like to take photos of people I meet who inspire me. You inspire me." I must look as taken aback as I feel, because you quickly add, "I may be taking photos for fun, but I promise you I am all business."

"Are you asking to take my picture?" I ask. It sounds ludicrous when I say it out loud.

"I am indeed." You give me a smile, one that makes me want to smile, even though I don't. "I would be honored to take your picture."

I touch my hair self-consciously. "I'm not sure I'm the best subject."

"You are beautiful," you insist quickly. You pause and the smile slips from your lips. "And sad."

I lightly scoff. "A sad, beautiful girl all alone in a café. How tragic."

You shake your head. "Not tragic. Hopeful. You are sad, beautiful, and hopeful." You put your camera on the table. "That is what I want to capture. Your hope."

I don't know what you're talking about. What hope? I want to see the hope that you see in me. So I nod. I nod and your smile returns.

Love is just a word I've heard when things are being said
Stories my poor head has told me cannot stand the cold

The first time he told me he loved me, I was one slammed door before escaping another one of those hopeless arguments that we never finished having. He told me that I was needy and demanding and other outlandishly accusatory things that basically surmounted to him insisting he was the emotionally sane one between the two of us.

"At least I care!" I shouted, hand quivering on the knob of the door.

"Who the hell said I didn't care?" he shouted back. "I love you, for crying out loud, of course I care!"

Instantly, my hand slipped from the knob and I ran to him, into his arms, and into his heart. I'd spun the whole thing into something wildly romantic: we loved each other so much that we were combustible. Loving him was red-hot with every emotion I'd ever felt: happiness, sadness, anger, defeat. His very touch felt treacherous, like I couldn't trust him or me or anything other than the fact that we connected in ways I'd never thought possible.

Funny thing, trust. It's as easily breakable as a heart.

And in between what might have been and what has come to pass
A misbegotten guess alas and bits of broken glass

You take pictures of me but I keep fidgeting. You ask me to smile and I tell you I'm not sure how.

You laugh. I didn't mean to be funny, but I can tell you think I did. You laugh like you mean it, like how kids rattle with laughter and don't care if they look stupid or sound like a horse. I think of him and how while I can remember the curve of his lips, I can't recall the sound of his laugh. Your laugh, though, courses through me and I don't think I could ever forget how it feels in my chest.

"There," you say, triumphant. You turn the screen to me and there I am. Beautiful and sad, but smiling. I don't see the hope, but I certainly don't seem hopeless, which is more than I can say for myself normally.

"Thank you," you say. "I am glad for your help."

"No, thank you," I say, and I mean it. "You truly have a gift."

You shake your head. "An artist is only as good as his subject." You point to my notepad. "And what is your subject?"

It's him. It's always him. I cover my scrawl with my hand. "Nothing half as beautiful as your subject."

You laugh again and I laugh again and somehow we end up talking for hours. You take off your coat and I take off my armor and by the time the café closes, we're no longer opposite each other, but side-by-side.

As the waitress clears our coffee, you hold my hands in yours. "We should do this again."

I look down at our hands, fingers entwined. I haven't felt something so intimate in such a long time that I'm frozen in shock. "And what is it that we're doing?"

Your smile is so quick that I feel it strike my heart. "We are beginning again," you say.

And I believe you.

Where do your golden rainbows end?
And why is this song I sing so sad?

I still write him postcards sometimes. It's so stupid. He never responds to them and I wouldn't want him to. I just want him to know I'm out here, living my life, surviving without him.

I also don't want him to forget me, but I try not to think about that.

I'm writing a postcard to him when I realize that I'm late for our date. I look at the clock and then the postcard. I'm anxious about meeting you again and it would be so easy to stand you up and forget this whole thing happened. We didn't exchange numbers or even last names. I could stay here and finish my postcard and then spend a day reading by the Seine.  But when I look back at the clock again, I suddenly remember what you said to me: "We are beginning again." Immediately, I drop my pen and grab my purse.

I'm late enough that I take my bike to the café and almost get hit by a car on the way. When I get there, you're already sitting at a table outside. You see me and stand and smile and I feel a spark in my chest that makes me quicken my step. You greet me with kisses to my cheeks and I don't realize until after we've parted that I was holding my breath.

"I have something for you," you say. You rummage in your back pocket for a moment and then hand me a photograph. It's me, mid-laugh.

"Oh, God," I say, wrinkling my nose. "You really do need better models."

"I shall agree to disagree," you say with a smile. "Coffee?"

"Please," I say. You open the door and I feel the spark in my chest grow.

Coffee turns into croissants which turn into a maze of a walk on cobblestone streets. I feel silly dragging my bike around, but you laugh about it and tell me about how your dad has a fleet of bicycles he bought for triathlons he never competed in. I tell you about my brother who is obsessed with football, but after my mom told him it was too dangerous, took up hockey and proceeded to get two concussions within six months. You tell me about your mom, who is American like me, but a reformed Southern Belle who still has a drawl when she speaks French. I open my mouth to tell you about the only person I know with a Southern accent—it's him, I know it's weird that it's him, but it's on topic—when you ask me, "What's your favorite Christmas movie?"

"Why?" I ask.

"Every Christmas Eve, we each pick a movie to watch and the whole family watches them all together for hours, no breaks."

"Not even for the bathroom?"

You laugh. "Well, maybe for the bathroom. But you must be quick!"

I turn my bike around the corner. "And what movie are you picking this year?"

"I'm between It's a Wonderful Life and Die Hard." I laugh and you look at me with mock-seriousness. "Die Hard is my favorite Christmas movie. Plus," you add, "my mother hates it."

"You should get your sisters and dad to pick the other Die Hards," I suggest. "The perfect Christmas Eve: a Die Hard marathon."

You look at me aghast. "My mother will hate me." Your eyes light up. "I love it."

Your stories keep coming and keep fitting into mine like puzzle pieces falling into place. It's like I already know them, but I want to be told them anyway. And despite how boring I find my own stories, you laugh and think they're amazing. You think I'm amazing. And that in itself is amazing.

We've wound up and down the streets and ended up in front of my apartment. I look at you and at my apartment. "This is me," I say.

You follow my gaze and end with your eyes locked on mine. "I had a lovely time."

"I did, too," I say and I mean it.

I'm not moving—I'm finding it hard to move away from you—and so you take my hands into yours. "I would like to see you again," you say.

I nod and swallow. "I would like to see you again, too."

I've built up so many walls and all I want to do right now is tear them down. I want to take a brick and hand it to you and for us to clear away anything in the way of my heart. I just want to know you better, and I want to know you better now.

You lean closer to me and I close my eyes. I'm not ready to be kissed, not yet, and you seem to be able to sense that. Instead, your mouth hovers over mine and I inhale you until my lungs are full and my head is dizzy. "Thank you," I say.

"For what?" you ask.

"For a wonderful date," I say, even though that's not what I want to say. I want to thank you for being fun and funny and unfazed by my habitual moroseness. I want to thank you for giving me a chance, for seeing something special in me that I still can't see in myself.

When I get upstairs, I sit down at my desk. I pick up his postcard and spin it around so I'm staring at the Eiffel Tower. I turn it back and see my own cursive. And then I toss it into the trash.

Dreaming the dreams I dream my friend
Loving the love I love to love to love to love to love

A year ago, I got a package from him. It was all the things I'd left at his place: make-up, change of clothes, toothbrush. In the bottom, wedged between a pair of flats and a mini muffin tin, was James Taylor's Greatest Hits. I bought it for him so he'd be prepared when we saw him in concert—a concert we never went to. The CD was unopened, the plastic still intact. I haven't thought of it or him in months, so I'm surprised when you find it on my bookshelf.

"James Taylor!" You look taken aback. "James Taylor is one of my favorites. How have you not opened this?"

"You know James Taylor?" I ask and you look at me in the least-condescending version of "duh" possible.

"My mother played him all the time when I was a kid," you say. "I own at least three of his albums."

"I own every album, even the live ones." I point at the album in your hands. "Which is why I don't need to open that one."

You smile and take me in your arms. "I've never met anyone else who liked James Taylor as much as I do."

"Well, you were raised in France, so that makes sense," I say and you throw your head back and laugh.

I place my hands on your face and feel the corners of your smile with my thumbs. "You make me happy," I tell you.

You kiss me and instead of feeling treacherous, it feels like something I can trust. "I have a secret to tell you."

I wrap my arms around your neck. "Oh?"

"Yes. But you must promise not to tell."

I touch my forehead to yours. "I promise. Tell me."

You lean in close, so close that if I close my eyes, I might think your lips were already on mine. "I love you."

"I love you, too," I say, and then it's my lips on yours and when I look at you, you're so beautiful. Beautiful and smiling and hopeful. I finally understand what you saw in me when I couldn't see it in myself.

There is so much to be hopeful about.

How sweet it is to be loved by you.