They arrived in Paris just as the sun was beginning to sink below the skyline, bathing the city in watercolor pinks and fading gold. The air was thick with the scent of summer and cigarette smoke, and the constant hum of life filled every street corner. It was exactly how Talia had imagined it—and nothing like she expected.
She had never traveled this far from home before. Ezra, on the other hand, had visited once as a teenager on a school exchange. But this time was different. This time, it was for them.
Their Airbnb was a tiny flat near Montmartre with creaky wooden floors and a view of the rooftops. The window opened outward, and the breeze carried the distant sound of an accordion somewhere below.
Ezra stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist as she leaned on the window ledge. "So," he whispered, "do we check out the Eiffel Tower first, or just eat our weight in croissants?"
Talia grinned. "Croissants first. Always croissants."
The first few days blurred in soft, golden images.
They wandered through cobbled alleys, dodged tourists near Notre-Dame, and kissed under dim street lamps. Talia tried snails—gagged dramatically—while Ezra read menus like sacred texts. They visited Shakespeare and Company, where Ezra almost cried in the poetry aisle, and Talia left a note in a hidden crack behind the travel guides: Love isn't always loud. Sometimes it's just the sound of someone breathing beside you and meaning it.
On their fourth night, they had dinner on the balcony. It was a simple meal—wine, baguette, cheese, and Ezra's terrible attempt at French music on his phone.
"I don't think I've ever felt this… peaceful," Talia said, her voice soft in the fading light.
Ezra reached for her hand. "Me either."
She looked at him then, the city's glow painting soft shadows across his face. The boy she once thought was too careful for her wildness. The man who proved her wrong with every small, patient moment.
But not everything in Paris was painted in rose.
On the fifth day, they found themselves caught in the unexpected gravity of a memory.
It started when they visited a small medical museum—one of Ezra's picks, filled with vintage surgical tools and handwritten anatomy notes from the 1800s.
Talia wandered through the glass cases, smiling at how nerdy he was for loving this stuff.
And then she saw it.
An old surgical textbook. French. Labeled with a date: March 15, 1902.
The exact date Ezra had ghosted her two years ago after that Monday class. The date she'd kept buried under all the new memories.
Her breath caught. The past cracked open like a scar beneath a bandage.
Ezra noticed the shift in her posture. "Talia?"
She turned to him, jaw tight. "Do you ever think about it?"
He blinked. "Think about what?"
"That week. That Monday. When you disappeared."
Ezra's face shifted. Quiet. Careful.
"I do," he admitted. "A lot."
They sat on a bench outside the museum, the sound of traffic and laughter moving around them like a tide.
"You never explained," she said, eyes fixed on the pavement. "Not really."
Ezra nodded slowly. "I panicked. You were everything I never let myself want. You were messy, and loud, and magnetic. And I was terrified I wasn't enough for you."
Talia turned to him, anger and hurt layered over a deeper ache. "So you left."
"I didn't know how to stay," he said softly. "I'd never had someone like you. Someone who made me feel everything, all at once. It scared the hell out of me."
"And now?"
"Now I know better. I know how to stay. And I want to keep staying. With you."
There was a long silence.
Then, Talia reached out and took his hand. "You're still a dumbass sometimes."
Ezra smiled. "I'm working on it."
That night, they walked through the Latin Quarter. The city was quieter, the crowds thinner. They found a small courtyard lit by paper lanterns and slow jazz drifting from a bar nearby.
Talia leaned against Ezra's shoulder. "You know what I realized today?"
"What?"
"That the past can visit, but it doesn't get to stay."
Ezra kissed her hair. "What about the present?"
"It stays as long as we keep choosing it."
He pulled her close, the promise in his embrace louder than any vow.
And as the night wrapped around them like a familiar song, Talia realized Paris wasn't just a place.
It was a choice.
A chapter.
A moment in their love story written not in perfect French, but in quiet, honest English.
One where the past didn't have the final word.