Maybe outside wasn’t an escape from awkward conversations about us. Because wherever we go, there we are.
Zaid grabs my hand and pulls me toward a tiny floral shop, a riot of colorful blooms bursting out its doorway and into buckets on the sidewalk. He chooses a small bouquet of deep red flowers that look almost like roses. He hands the florist ten euro. She smiles and tucks the money into her pocketed green apron. “Renoncules,” she says, pointing to the flowers.
Zaid looks up at me through his long bangs, flipping them to the side with one hand and handing me the ranunculus with the other. His deep brown eyes look tired, but still shine through the jet lag. I sink my nose into the flowers. They don’t have a particularly sweet scent, but they are quite stunning, and I’m quite stunned. I need a moment to recover from this swoon-worthy moment. This is basically epic-level romance for Zaid—the boy who had to be reminded to get me flowers for prom and then forgot them in his car.
I turn back toward the street and the crowd of people, but Zaid draws me toward him, wrapping an arm around my waist. I forget the flowers and the people around us. At first, my mind hesitates, but my body pulls me into a kiss. This kiss tastes like home—and I surrender to the nostalgia, the memory of what Zaid and I once were to each other. I’m drawn to him like a moth to the flame in one of my mom’s beloved Urdu ghazals.
A loud, long whistle yanks me away from Zaid.
I turn my head and catch a glimpse of a scruffy guy with messy dirty-blond hair who slows down his scooter to yell, “Elle est bonne, ta meuf!” Zaid laughs and gives the guy a thumbs-up as he roars away. I smack down his arm.
“Ow!” Zaid winces. “What did you do that for? That guy said you were pretty, right?”
“Um, no. He said, ‘Your girlfriend is good.’ But that good means . . . well, it has implications.”
Zaid looks down at the cobblestones, half-embarrassed, half-smirk.
“Don’t be so pleased with yourself,” I say.
“What? He’s basically saying I have good taste. Which, obviously, I do.”
“Oh my God, Zaid. Have you ever considered that maybe everything isn’t actually about you?” As the words tumble out of my mouth, I realize this is something I’ve known all along. It’s so simple, so obvious, but maybe because I’m in a different country, because of the distance between us, I finally have some perspective.
It’s Zaid’s world, and he wants the rest of us to live in it. The truth is, he’s never even lied about that—never pretended to be someone he’s not. He is who he is. He’s not going to change. More importantly, he doesn’t want to. And that kiss we shared? The one that took me back to that moment under the rumble of the Brown Line ‘L’? The feeling of home in his arms . . . well, maybe we’re both guilty of operating under the soft, filtered focus of nostalgia. But I can’t let sentimentality cloud my judgment. I’m not going to let myself be a paragraph buried in Zaid’s story—even if it is epic.
I walk absentmindedly down the street. Zaid rushes to catch up and takes me by the elbow. “Hey, what happened? Was it that guy? I’m sor—”
“I’m fine. My mind wandered for a minute,” I say.
“I’ve heard my kisses can have that effect,” Zaid says, a twinkle in his eye.
“Please. Get over yourself.” I shake my head. This is Zaid. This is the goofy, solipsistic guy I fell for, eyes wide open. “You do know it’s possible for the world to revolve around someone other than you?” I nudge him with my elbow. “I was actually thinking about the Delacroix. I discovered a new—”
“You mean the painting from your Art Institute essay? Is that still bothering you? Here we are on this beautiful day in Paris, together, and you’re obsessing on a little academic mess-up? It’s not like it was for a grade.”
I squeeze the stems of the flowers in my hand. “There was nothing little about