“Your extremely hot friend who you want to have sex with?”
“Yes, that one,” I replied. “Oh, I want to show you something. I can’t believe I forgot.”
I took out my phone and scrolled to the photo Mum had sent. “Here. This was at my fifteenth birthday party.” I handed Lou the phone and looked at the photo from side-on—for about the fifth time that day.
Jean-Luc and I were standing with our arms around each other’s shoulders, grinning at the camera. He’d had a growth spurt the month before and was a couple of inches taller than me, and he had the same longish hair he had as a man—only back then it had overwhelmed his face and only one of his green eyes peeked out from under his fringe. He was wearing a boxy dress shirt and jeans—the height of 90s fashion. He was adorable.
My hairstyle back then was “the Rachel” like millions of other females around the world who loved FRIENDS. I was wearing a strappy floral dress, not dissimilar to what I’d wear today, with a white baby T-shirt underneath, something I would never wear today. Why did we do that? My lips were a matte burnt orange—and why did we love matte lipstick so much? Although my look was quintessential late-90s and rather dated from my current vantage point, I was adorable too.
We were both adorable.
“Oh my gosh, you two are adorable.”
I chuckled. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
“But you don’t want a relationship with him?”
“With anyone.”
“Why?”
I trotted out my stock response. “Because, I’m happily single.” It was mostly true. The whole truth was that there was no way I would ever put myself through another devastating break-up like the one with Scott. And the best way to avoid a break-up was to steer clear of relationships.
Lou’s eyes narrowed, just slightly, but I forged ahead on my previous trajectory, hoping to distract her from probing further. “Lou, I cannot tell you how hot I am for him. I mean, the other night when we were at the bar in Montmartre, sometimes I didn’t hear what he said, because I couldn’t stop thinking about sleeping with him. I really want to sleep with him.”
“Yes, you’ve mentioned that.”
“So, I’m torn. Is this just two old friends reconnecting, or should I sleep with him and have what I am guessing will be the best sex of my life, then call it good?”
“Why would you want to have the best sex of your life and call it good?”
“Well, you know what I mean.”
“Nope. I don’t. I don’t get the whole thing. You’re going to have to explain it to me.” Bollocks, she’d stomped right into my (literal) no-man’s land. I was going to have to say it out loud.
“I don’t do relationships.”
“Ever?”
“Ever. I do friendship and I do sex, but not the middle.”
“The middle?”
“Yes. Love. Well, I did—once—but that was aeons ago.”
“Like, how long? When were you last in a relationship?”
The ghost of boyfriend past did a fly-by and I felt my stomach tighten. Ten years on and just thinking about the break-up could still blindside me. “Ten years ago,” I replied, my voice tight. Lou didn’t seem to notice.
“Oh, wow. And how old are you? Thirty-five?”
“Yes.” Why won’t she stop asking me about this?
“That’s … well, you were young back then.”
I decided to give her the truth; maybe it would appease her, and we could talk about something else—anything else. “I was young, yes—we both were—but it was also a long relationship. Five years, actually. Then he cheated. We also wanted different things, which is probably why he cheated. Not an excuse, just the reason.” I omitted the truly gory details, like how I had wanted to live across the world, and how Scott had wanted life to be staid and normal and boring.
“It hit you hard,” she said, simply, and I suddenly found it difficult to swallow.
I’d thought I could just give her an abridged version of the truth and she’d be satisfied, but I had forgotten who I was talking to.
“Oh, Lou …” My voice cracked, and I let the rest of my words dissolve into the air. Do not cry, do not cry.
I blinked back the tears and swallowed. When I finally spoke, my voice was steady, resolved. “I lost myself. I was a shell, a human shell. Maybe, if we’d just broken up like normal couples do sometimes, it would have been all right, but he cheated. He didn’t love me enough not to do that. I wasn’t enough.” She reached over and squeezed my hand. I hadn’t expressed it quite like that before—to anyone, not even Sarah. I was proud of myself.
“Even so, you survived it and you’re a whole woman now. You’re no longer that girl riddled with self-doubt. But, you’re also still you. The teenager who was best friends with Jean-Luc is still in there. That’s why you two connected so quickly the other night.”
I nodded as I chewed on my bottom lip.
“Hey, did your mum send the letter?” she asked.
I felt the weight of her scrutiny lift from my shoulders as she shifted conversational gears. “Not yet. I hope I get it before tomorrow night, though. I just want that glimpse, you know, of the younger Jean-Luc.”
“Sure.”
I stared down at the photo. We were adorable, but were we adorable together?
The rest of the drive was quiet, Lou leaving me to my contemplative funk. She was a wise woman—I’d decided that about her almost as soon as I met her—and she was right. I was still me.
But I wasn’t going to fall in love with Jean-Luc. Or anyone.
***
An hour later, we arrived at the Florence campsite—well, a campsite in the hills outside Florence; I was seeing a pattern—Ventureseek tended to fudge the location of their campsites a little.
Dani and Jaelee had filled in the rooming sheet, and we were all pleasantly surprised to discover that the cabins were a huge step up from Paris and a big step up from Antibes. Each pair got a room and there was a shared bathroom in the middle. I could barely contain my excitement at not having to traverse the campsite to go for a wee!
The excitement was short-lived, however. We only had fifteen minutes to get changed and get back on the coach for our drive into Florence. “Right, it’s supposed to be quite warm this evening, so I’m going with a dress,” I said.
“Remember, shoulders and knees,” said Lou as she pulled clothes out of her case with the abandon of a traveller in a time crunch.
“Oh, that’s right.” We wanted to observe church dress for the Duomo—and any other church we might want to visit.
“I need to brush my teeth too. The gelato was incredible, but they’re furry,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s way too much information.”
“Sorry.”
On the way back to the coach, we told Dani and Jaelee our plan for the whirlwind tour of Florence and invited them along. Neither seemed enthused.
“I think I’ll do the tour with the group,” said Dani.
“You mean with Jason,” said Jae.
“Well, yeah, he’s in the group. Hello.”
“I’m going shopping,” said Jae.