Adela was leaving for good, after only one year of her two-year DEA program. “That’s it,” she said. “I can’t stand this city. Stupid stuck-up professors who think they know better than their students. Stupid stuck-up French who think they have the best city in the world. They don’t even dress right.” She sniffed, pure Seville. She would not be coming back after the summer. One of her professors had not appreciated Adela’s mouthing off to her during her oral exam, and another had given an incredulous look at her final paper, provoking a heated argument with Adela, who “was only flesh and blood,” in her own words. “I can’t put up with that kind of thing.” In any case, with the choice between doing the year over here or going to school in Spain, she was choosing Spain.

I watched Adela finish packing, feeling that lurching feeling you get just before you jump off a cliff—something I’d done quite a few times before in my paragliding efforts and actually found a lot easier. My paragliding instructor had insisted I shouldn’t call it “jumping off” but “taking off,” though. On the other hand, he always landed smoothly in the middle of a green field, and I always slammed full-body into the trees in the neighboring woods.

I went upstairs to find Philippe zipping up his last suitcase, only his toiletries and last-minute things lingering in his room. I walked down the hall to find Kam taping up her next-to-last box. Everyone was leaving. One after the other, within days, farewell party after farewell party. I was packing, too, but I wasn’t going far. My time at the Maison du Canada was up. I had at last had to make an economical decision and sublet for half price from someone in another house, someone who was leaving only for the summer and wanted to keep her place. The Maison du Canada was right next door, but it would be filled with a flock of summer undergraduates here for their study abroad. They had already started filling the picnic tables in our courtyard, to the deep displeasure of those of us who remained. We graduates who had filled the courtyard all year clung to one table, the last remnants clinging to our last vestiges of our year in Paris. I had two more weeks here, and then I would be out in the cold. I could poke my head through the hedge, but I wouldn’t see anyone I knew. Even my study abroad program was closing for most of the summer, Valérie and Giulia heading to Brittany and Rome for vacation. I had no job now to occupy my days and no friends left. I would be alone in Paris. I would have no one but Sébastien.