We danced; we danced and it was the new year, and there was Champagne, and Champagne, and dancing. “Tu peux m’inviter chez toi,” I said, so he did, and in the new year we walked hand-in-hand.

In the new year, phone calls were made all around town, and everyone decided to stay in bed. There was Nutella in bed, after all, and tea, and lemon yoghurt. Later, a nap later, two naps later, there were the fairy lights of rue Mouffetard, and Paris Paris Paris from the upstairs balcony. Slate roofs stretched left to right while a fine rain started to fall.



Still just a whisper into the new year, the sky was blue, and we were a good-looking group in black and red, Maud and me and Jeanne and Vio and Tom and Gregory, looking for a lunch by the Canal Saint-Martin.

Tom drove us around the city’s traffic jams, even through the Louvre a little, before we settled into Café Marly for fresh mint teas. We found a galette des rois in some boulangerie on the boulevard Saint-Germain, and—I don’t know how—managed to carry it home whole, the puff pastry and the almond and the sugared crust, without leaning in and taking a bite out of the crisp sweetness. Later, after the sun had set, up the curling staircase at Tom’s, a bed under a slanting skylight, while outside rue de la Huchette continued in non-stop lights and bustle.



The mornings and the afternoons and the nights seemed like one long beautiful day; we slept so little, and each moment melted one into the other. In that last hour before the train, Gab knew something was wrong, and Maud knew what it was. For someone who travels as much as I do, I sure haven’t gotten used to leaving.