“There may be a quiet, normal life out there for me somewhere, but this is not your choice to make. I don’t want that life. I don’t want any life you’re not a part of. My choice was made long ago. I chose you, Frances. I am still choosing you.”

It flutters in my chest, this familiar feeling. A feeling that’s been stuck between my teeth since I was thirteen years old and Oliver came to our apartment in a fancy new tweed suit and something in me went oh.

“All right, then.”

“All right?”

“I choose you back, you know I do.”

The corners of his mouth tug, revealing his dimples. I reach up and poke one. He laughs quietly.

“That’s good,” he whispers, and even on the crowded banks of the Seine, it is just the two of us.

“Good,” I agree.

I’ve kissed Oliver before. In daylight, and in the darkest hours past midnight, and for the first time, in the glowing evening light of the Haxahaven solarium. It was last February, the day before my birthday. He’d come up to celebrate and brought a chocolate cake covered in pink icing from a bakery we used to visit together when we were young. We ate the cake straight out of the box with forks stolen from the kitchen, and I know now that Maxine bribed the little girls to leave us alone for one hour. They each got ten cents out of it.

I couldn’t stop staring at his lips. We were sitting on the floor and I don’t remember why now, maybe I thought it would be romantic. But the winter sun streamed in through the glass roof in golden beams. Oliver’s green eyes considered me and I could tell he was thinking hard about something. His gaze was careful. Oliver is a careful sort of person, especially with me.

I wasn’t thinking about anything other than how much I wanted him to lean in. I’m not a careful sort of person at all.

The carpet was itchy under the heel of my hand as I set down my fork and I waited for him to make up his mind.

“Will you stand up?” he whispered.

I nodded and he helped me to my feet.

He was so nervous then, I remember his hands shaking as he ran a thumb over my rib cage.

“Hi,” he whispered.

“Hi,” I breathed back.

I laughed against his mouth as he finally leaned in. It was such an inevitable thing, that kiss. His mouth tasted like pink icing.

Now, he dips his head and his lips meet mine. I sigh into the kiss and it is a relief. There’s hot breath and a hand at my waist and a sound coming from the back of my throat.