Dear Friend,

chapter 2

Lennox, April 2015

Paris, France

"No, no, I'm good Evie seriously" I pushed the bottle of wine out of reach holding my glass away from her as we giggled to each other.

We had spent our day off from school at the beach and were now a couple of glasses in, sitting in the garden outside of the home of the host family that we were staying with while we've been studying abroad.

"C'mon babes, just a little bit more? There's barely any left in the bottle."

"I think that's a pretty clear indication that we've had enough already Eves."

"You can't just let a good bottle of 1982 go to waste Lenn, we can share the last bit and then head inside" She gave me a nudge with her elbow and poured the last of the rouge into my glass as we continue our fit of giggles.

We made our way out of the garden and back inside, stumbling up the stairs of the home, trying to keep our laughter and commotion as quiet as possible, hoping that everyone would be asleep at this hour of the day.

"Bonsoir Lenn, I'll see you in the morning." Evie pulled me in for a hug and kissed the top of my head - a signature act of love that she's been doing for as long as I remember.

"Bonsoir Eve, je t'aime." I pulled away from the hug and made my way down the hall to my room. "Take some Advil and drink some water. I'll see you in the morning."

Since we have been here for a few months we have started to pick up quite well on the French Language. We try to use it as often as possible when we are speaking to our host family and the locals, but we tend to disregard it when it's just the two of us speaking unless we are saying 'I love you'.

It started as a simple joke between us, after watching a movie when we were younger, but we made the promise that we would travel to France together, and years later we finally are.

It all feels surreal that we were actually able to travel together after years of dreaming of it.

I crawled into my bed, looking out over the heath. As I was getting under my blankets, I realized I really did have a few too many glasses while we were sitting out there, and I'll be paying for it in the morning.

I pulled my curtains closed, a simple favor that will make my headache in the morning just a little bit lighter.

Before going to plug in my phone I stopped to lay back in bed, and I started to scroll through my photos. Although I've scrolled through my photos app and Snapchat memories dozens of times, it's still one of my favorite pass times. A way to look at all of my stories over the past few years.

I made my way backward, seeing the most recent pictures of me and Evie at the typical tourist spots that we've gone to in our last few months abroad. Just above those, there was my ungodly amount of concert videos from when Evie and I went to see our favorite artist. Continuously scrolling and scrolling, feeling more and more nostalgic about seeing however many years of memories are kept on the little device.

I keep slowly scrolling through the album, stopping on the rows of pictures from the going away party that was thrown right before Evie and I left for Paris.

I click on one of the squares marked with a small heart in the left-hand bottom corner. The picture enlarged and I immediately break out into a sad smile.

Harry and I are sitting next to each other on the couch, my arm draped across his lap, and my back against his chest. There are genuine smiles adorning our faces as we laugh at something I can't even remember, but at the moment was one of the funniest things we had heard. It may have been the few too many drinks that I downed that night, or that I was scared of leaving everyone behind, but I stuck close to Harry all night, holding him close.