The locals were in the brasserie eating mussels from the shell, so she was left alone, nodded at a few times by the maître d’, who seemed to enjoy catching her eye, and once even pointed over his shoulder toward her. Stupid Americans and their obsessions, she thought she heard, but he was smiling, and perhaps she heard wrong, or he was talking about a family outside the walls with their bright white sneakers and expensive cameras slung around their skinny necks.

She took a sip of champagne—she had to have at least one drink with Montparnasse’s ghosts—and went back to admiring the room. She liked it here. It was very quiet, the only real noises the clinking of dishes, the swish of the kitchen door, and the muted voices of the staff as they hurried from dining room to kitchen and back, their footsteps occasionally squeaking on the tiled floor. The floor itself was a masterpiece; she had to stifle the urge to lie down on it and watch the ceiling fan spin round and round in lazy circles. Incongruously, the soft French jazz on the radio ended and a favorite song came on, Jason Mraz, and a strum of ukulele got stuck in her brain. I’m yours...

Ethan.

Shit. Shit. Merde, damn, hell. It was their song. And now Ethan was here with her.

She hid a small sob in her champagne. He would have loved it here. She’d spent three hours writing in his hero’s space and Ethan would be crushed if he had any idea where she was right now, what she was doing.

They were supposed to take this trip together.

They were supposed to do a lot of things together.

She realized her notebook was covered in drips from her tears. She blotted the words with a napkin, finished her champagne, and left. There were no more reasons to torture herself with ghosts from the past, recent or otherwise.

The rain had stopped. She turned left when she exited and walked toward the Jardin du Luxembourg. She wanted to take her buzz and her tears and sit in the grass and try, try to forget. Forget Ethan. Dashiell. Her life. Her past.

But how? How was she going to do this? How was she going to pull off forgetting him? Their lives for the past year had been marked by such horror and sadness, it was overwhelming in its grief. She couldn’t imagine them ever being able to repair the damage. The things he’d said, the things she’d said... No, there was no going back. He’d never forgive her, and she couldn’t bear the idea of forgiving him. The fire of remembrance lit her from within and she pushed her scarf from her neck impatiently, feeling like it was choking her.

Look around. Observe. Forget.