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The first time he sees her, well, thinks he’s seen her a camera hides her face. He’s in a hurry to get to the metro but he does a double take at hair the colour of wine. She has her back to him with her camera up still. Her hair is longer than he remembers but it’s been a couple years. The wind picks up and he swears he smells her shampoo. The smell that he almost memorized while in high school. But a crowd comes through, she’s gone, and he’s late for work.
The next time, he swears she’s haunting him. He only gets a brief glance at her face before she’s walking off the train. He makes a move to follow but the doors close and he can’t find her on the platform anymore.
Weeks pass and he hasn’t seen her anywhere, so he stops looking. But then he passes a bar and sees her smiling to something the person next to her said. He almost runs to the door and rushes in, his heart beating almost out of his chest. The person sitting next to her recognizes him.
“Salut!” They say and wave him over. She turns around and the smile on her face changes to disbelief.
“Lily.” He whispers. Then she’s flinging her arms around his neck and he’s picking her up in a hug.
“I thought I would never see you again.” She’s whispering, in English, in his ear. He just held her tighter. His friend, Emma, cleared her throat and they released each other.
“So you two know each other?” Emma asks.
“Yeah we went to high school together and haven’t seen each other since.” He explains. His hand still rests on the small of Lily’s back.
“Well you two should get caught up then! I’ll see you in class.” Emma says to him and to Lily she says, “It was nice to meet you,” in much simpler French. Lily smiles and nods.
They leave and head back to his apartment. They don’t talk the whole way but Lily has her arm around his with her hand on his bicep. When they get inside there’s a moment of silence as Lily walks over to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. The sun has set and all the lights of the buildings create an orange glow on her face.
“It’s beautiful.” Her English is rough to his ears.
“It is.” His English is rusty from lack of use.
“Comment ça va?” She asks very slowly. Like she’s trying to remember how to form the words.
“My rusty English is better than your French.” He smiles and she does too. “But I’m good. You?” He asks. He stands next to her to look out the window. She shrugs.
“Same as always.” She looks around his apartment as if she’s analyzing it. “No girlfriend.” She states and he shakes his head. This simple statement opens the floodgates for both of them. They talk until three in the morning but he doesn’t mind. Even though he has to get up early. He doesn’t mind when he realizes that she’s fallen asleep on his couch. He just picks her up and places her on his bed. He knows that couch isn’t comfortable to sleep on. And he still doesn’t mind when he wakes up the next morning to her burrowed under the duvet and her hair a mess of red on his pillow. He doesn’t mind her morning breath when she kisses him. He doesn’t mind all of this because he finally has the girl of his dreams.
Three Years Later
It’s a Sunday morning and the sun is streaming through the windows. Lily opened her eyes hoping to see her boyfriend, Asher, but only saw an empty space.
Asher was sitting at the kitchen counter reading the paper when Lily zombie walked from the bedroom rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“Good morning sweetheart.” He said putting an arm around her waist and pulling her against his side. She hummed and sat in his lap. He smiled affectionately at her. He kissed her forehead. “There’s coffee made for you.”
“There are about 75 million words in the English language and I couldn’t string them together in the right order to explain how wonderful you are.” She mumbled.
“Because I made coffee?” He raised an eyebrow. She scowled at him but didn’t respond. She removed herself from his lap at made herself a cup of coffee.
“No, not just because you made coffee. But because of everything.”
“I know sweetie. I was just giving you a hard time.” Asher got up from his seat and stood in front of Lily. She glared at him but the corners of her mouth turned up into a smile. He leaned down, placed a soft kiss on her lips, and wrapped his arms around her. They stood like that, arms around each other without a care in the world, until the coffee grew cold. Asher still couldn't believe how 3 years ago he saw Lily in the square with her hair the colour of wine and how 2 years ago she agreed to stay.