All The Summers Between Us | TSITP

The Part That Isn't Quiet.

The room was dim and warm, stripes of Paris light cutting across the ceiling from the street lamps below.

Lydia lay sprawled diagonally on the bed, skin cooling under the sheet, her cheek resting on Ethan's chest. His breathing was slow; his hand moved absently through her hair, fingertips tracing the crown like he was memorising the shape. The radiator ticked once.

Somewhere outside, a scooter buzzed past, then silence again. For three whole minutes, she floated. The city sounded far away; her own pulse had settled. There was a sweet emptiness where panic used to live.

And then it arrived—the thought, the name, the gravity well she had been trying to orbit around.

Conrad.

It didn't show up as a picture. It arrived as a feeling; the pressure behind her ribs at the sound of his voice; the ache when she remembered his mouth at her forehead; the way the word don't had shaken when he said it—Don't be with him. Don't marry him. Be with me. A heat, then a cold. A flood, then nothing. She tightened her fingers in the sheet.

You did this, she told herself. You chose motion instead of stillness. You chose noise when what you needed was quiet.

Ethan's hand slowed. "You okay?" he asked softly, not moving beneath her.

She closed her eyes. The answer would have been so easy if it belonged to another life. "I don't know," she whispered. "I... I thought I would be, and then—"

"Then what?"

She pushed herself up, sitting back on her heels, sheet gathered against her like a shield. The room swam a little. Ethan propped himself on an elbow, not reaching for her, waiting.

"I can't do this," she said, the words landing heavy between them. "I'm sorry. This... shouldn't have happened."

His face shifted, not offended—concerned. "Hey. It's okay. We can—we don't have to define anything right now."

She shook her head, breath hitching. "It's not that. It's—" she swallowed. If she said the name, the room would fill with another person's shadow. "There's someone else. I mean—there has been. It's complicated and it's awful and it's the reason I left and—" she scrubbed at her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I can't pretend I'm not still inside that story just because I got on a plane."

He was quiet for a beat. Then, gently: "The man from the wedding?"

She nodded, looking down. "Not the one at the end of the aisle," she said, voice ragged. "The one beside him."

"Right," he said softly.

"I came here to... stop repeating myself," she went on, words gathering speed now that they'd found a track. "To not make another mess over the last one. To breathe. And this—" she made a small, helpless gesture between them "—this isn't breathing. It's... it's hiding. And that's not fair to you. Or me. Or to anyone."

Ethan exhaled, sat up fully, sheet slipping to his waist. He reached—then stopped, letting his hand fall to the mattress instead. "Thank you for telling me," he said. It wasn't performative. It sounded like relief at not being lied to.

"I'm sorry," she said, the apology collapsing as it left her. "You were kind. You didn't deserve to get pulled into any of this."

He tried a smile. "I did walk into your coffee, to be fair."

A watery laugh escaped her despite everything. "True."

He glanced around the room like it could offer him a script. "Do you want me to go?" he asked, straightforward, no drama in it.

She nodded, throat tight. "I think I need to be alone."

"Okay." He slipped off the bed, moving quietly, collecting his sweater from the chair, his watch from the nightstand. The little domestic sounds of leaving—belt buckle, zipper, the soft thump of a shoe—turned into a metronome for the ache in her chest.

He paused at the bathroom mirror, ran a hand through his hair, then turned back. "For what it's worth," he said, meeting her eyes. "I don't think today was a mistake. I think it was two people trying to be okay. Sometimes that looks messy."

She swallowed. "You're too nice."

"Occupational hazard." He smiled, but it didn't reach all the way. At the door, he hesitated again. "You'll be alright."

"I don't know," she admitted.

"You will," he said, like a fact. "Maybe not tonight. But you will."

He opened the door, then looked back one last time. "Sleep, Lydia. Drink water. And... find a boulangerie in the morning. Sugar helps."

She huffed a tearful laugh. "Textbook wisdom."

"The best kind," he said, and slipped out. The latch clicked. Footsteps retreated down the hall.

The room swelled with quiet. The city's hum seeped under the window, indifferent and kind.

Lydia stared at the space he'd just left, at the dent on the other side of the bed, at the stripe of light across the floor that hadn't moved since evening.

Then she folded.

No dramatic collapse, no cinematic slide down the wall—just a slow curl onto her side, knees drawing up, palms under her cheek like a child trying to keep herself from falling apart. The first sob was small, like her body testing whether it could still do it. The second was longer. By the third, the dam had learned its lesson and gave away.

Tears soaked the pillow. Her breath came in stuttered pulls. She tried to keep quiet—ridiculous instinct, as if anyone in Paris could hear her and be burdened by the sound. She let herself cry for the dress she'd torn, the aisle she'd fled, the man she'd hurt, the boy on a beach who'd asked her to not go, the girl who thought she could outrun her own heart at 30,000 feet.

When the storm loosened its grip, she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. The while light from the street made a soft rectangle there, like an invitation. She pressed a hand to her ribcage, feeling the echo of her pulse—proof that the machinery kept working even when the instructions failed.

"I came here to heal," she whispered to the empty room. "So start."

The radiator ticked again, like agreement.

She reached for the glass on the nightstand, drank, set it back. The city kept breathing.

Eventually, so did she. She pulled the sheet up to her chin, turned her face toward the window, and left the soft, indifferent glow of Paris hold the edges of her grief until exhaustion—blessedly ordinary—carried her under.