All The Summers Between Us | TSITP

Exit Row.

When the ding released everyone from their chairs-prisoners-of-war pose, Lydia asked for water and tried to sleep. Her body did the jittery twitch of a person whose adrenaline hadn't gotten the memo yet. She scrolled through the in-flight map (green dotted line arcing over an ocean she had just argued with), put on a movie she didn't watch, and finally knocked out for an hour with her mouth open and a napkin stuck to her cheek.

————

She woke to the pink stripe of dawn stretched across a foreign sky. The cabin lights were low; the world was small—the edge of her tray table, a stranger's elbow, the low hum of people going places they'd convince themselves they were meant to be.

Touchdown. A round of applause from somewhere in row 28 because hope springs eternal. Passport control, the slow river of roll-aboards, the first whiff of Paris: coffee and warm sugar and the polite impatience of a city that was beautiful long before you arrived.

Outside the terminal, taxis lined up like yellow punctuation marks. Lydia slid into the back of one, suitcase thumping in after her.

"Bonjour," the driver said, peering at her in the mirror. "Où allez-vous?"

"Bonjour," Lydia said, and pointed at her vocabulary like it had to work out. "Un... hôtel. Any hotel, near here? A nice one that won't judge me."

He smiled. "Ah. First time in Paris?"

"Technically, my first time anywhere after leaving my own wedding," she said before her filter could wake up.

The driver's eyebrows did theatre. "Fèlicitations? Or... mes condoléances?"

"Maybe both?" Lydia leaned back, exhausted courage turning into motor-mouth. "Okay, so, I was supposed to get married yesterday. Well, technically today, but time zones are weird. And I walked down the aisle and then I realised I couldn't breathe, and then I realised it was because I didn't want to marry the person at the end of the aisle, and then I realised the person I did want was standing next to the person at the end of the aisle, which is a niche problem, and then I said 'I can't," and everyone gasped like we were in a Victorian play, and then I ran. I ripped the dress off like it owed me money. I packed my clothes and my passport, and here I am. Bonjour."

The driver blinked twice, impressed. "You have had... a morning."

"An era," Lydia said. "I've had an era."

He signalled, merging with the calm confidence of a Parisian who has seen things. "The one at the end of the aisle," he ventured, conversationally. "Nice?"

"Very," Lydia said. "Good. Kind. Stable. The kind of man who would label Tupperware and remember your mom's birthday and always, always check if you're warm enough."

"And the other one," the driver said, because he'd committed.

Lydia stared out at a city that had decided to be cinematic on purpose. "The other one is... an ocean that learned how to walk around as a person. Which is a terrible thing to fall in love with if you like standing on solid ground."

The driver made a French noise that could mean everything from ah to I once ruined my own life in Marseilles too. "I prefer rivers," he said. "They are at least going in one direction."

"Good point," Lydia said. "I'll keep that in mind while I have an existential crisis near a croissant."

He chuckled. "You will need café, not existential crisis."

"Can I have both?"

"In Paris, yes."

The taxi slid through streets that were all butter stone and iron balconies. They stopped in front of a hotel with awnings that looked like they knew what they were doing. The driver put the car in park and turned, gentle now. "It will be okay," he said, in a tone that suggested both experience and superstition. "Maybe not today. But okay."

Lydia's throat pinched. "Merci," she said, and meant it.

He helped with the suitcase. She paid, added more than she should, and he waved it off, then accepted anyway with the theatrical reluctance of a man who respected a narrative. "Bienvenue à Paris," he said, tipping an invisible hat.

"Merci," she said again, and took her life in one hand and her carry-on in the other and walked into a lobby that smelled like lilies and expensive good decisions.

————

"Bonjour," the receptionist smiled. "Checking in?"

"Oui," Lydia said, surprising herself. "Lydia Conklin. I don't have a reservation, but I have—" she lifted the passport and the credit card like talismans "—improvisational skills."

"Mais bien sûr." A few clicks, a nod, a rate that made Lydia promise future-her would become wildly successful. "We have a room. Fifth floor. Courtyard view. Breakfast until eleven."

"A miracle," Lydia said. "Thank you."

————

Elevator. Hallway. Key card light flash green. The door opened into white duvet, a little bistro chair by the window, a basket of impossibly folded towels.

Lydia rolled her suitcase in, shut the door with her hip, and stood there for a second like a person who had outrun something and wasn't sure if it had stopped chasing her.

She toed off her shoes, dropped her bag, and face-planted into the bed.

The mattress caught her like a friend she hadn't seen in years. She made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh and wasn't quite a cry. The room hummed softly. Outside, Paris carried on, blissfully uninterested in the American girl who had just relocated her breakdown to a more stylish time zone.

Lydia turned her face to the pillow and let herself go limp, just for a minute, just long enough to forget what time it was anywhere else. The sheets smelled like starch and lemons and a clean slate.

Tomorrow, she could decide what to do with her life.

For now, she closed her eyes and let a city she didn't know yet hold her up.