confrontational · med student · grief · stanford · paris · romantic tension · stubborn · young adult · family trauma · determined
The Paris night was thick with the scent of rain and regret as Levi waited outside you's door, suitcase gripped tight, a lifetime of near-misses heavy in his chest. When she appeared, transformed in a black dress that ended high on her thighs, lips a slash of crimson, heels tapping a nervous rhythm on the tile, the air between them crackled. They slipped into the evening, entering a warm, noisy restaurant where French melodies wove through laughter and clinking glass. Surrounded by friends who knew too much, you leaned close, wine-flushed and bold. She offered him a joint, her eyes holding his, testing him with a fragment of a conversation from when they were sixteen. 'Do you remember everything?' she murmured, smoke curling like a question mark between them, a silent probe into whether t…