Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know - Samira Ahmed Page 0,82

am ready, upon your word, to arrive with all haste to Paris. Indeed, if you bid me fly to the moon, I would give up all pleasures of this earthly realm and build a ladder to the heavens to live with you amongst the stars. I can think of no more rightful place, for your beauty is celestial; more so, your heart.

You have made your own feelings clear. And of mine, you can be in no doubt. God knows I wish you only happiness and a peace, which I hope comes through time, dripping slowly through the days and hours. I know your heart longs for another. Mourns for he who was cut down so cruelly in front of your tender eyes. Would that I could return him to you, had I but that power.

I write in no true hope to sway your course. Merely to declare, once more, that I am, as ever, in your service. This is no time for mere words. Yet I offer you these verses enclosed here. Though I have kept your identity hidden, I write these words that you and the world may ever know that I was and am yours, freely.

Ever Yrs,

I close the book and look at Alexandre. I want to throw my arms around his neck and squeeze, but I muster all my self-restraint and suppress my feelings. But then a smile sweeps across my face as I library-whisper, “Boom.”

Alexandre invited me to his place to look at a couple other old books that could yield clues. But I said no—not wanting to tempt fate or be tempted. And part of me wonders if it wasn’t an excuse to spend time with me in his library where we shared our first kiss.

I walk home, my mind whirring with things lost and found. It’s overcast, and there’s a slight breeze—a welcome break from the heat that’s been pretty unrelenting all month. Tourists pass by, oblivious to me and the cautionary tale that is my life, in a rush to get to a monument or museum that’s been waiting for them for centuries, to pose for a photo that probably will never exist on paper. Is a JPG even a memory? Or as the French say, a souvenir? I have literally thousands of pictures on my phone, but I barely look at them and definitely don’t remember them all. Byron wrote thousands of letters during his life, and he died when he was thirty-six. And here I am, hundreds of years later, reading them. That is a souvenir.

I sigh. I always grow into Paris when we’re here. Despite the chaos in my life this summer, as I watch windswept tourists pulling along little kids with ice cream melting down their arms, I feel content in my own French skin. Like I belong here. Like it’s okay to have more than one home. That home is a place I can carry with me.

I notice a missed call and a text from my parents, who apparently are having such fun taking the waters in Brittany, they’re staying on a couple more days. I haven’t told them a thing about Zaid, except to say that his big surprise was garbage cookies like I suspected, which is, in part, true. I didn’t tell my mom about the ugly scene in our apartment. I didn’t tell her about how I wished I could’ve given Zaid and me a better ending. Looking back, maybe we were always a bit of a mess together, but sometimes it was a beautiful mess.

Anyway, if I told my mom everything, my parents would be on the next train back. I know she’s been worried about me, more than usual, but there’s nothing she can do about Zaid or Alexandre or my confusion. I wished them a happy second honeymoon and told them I was fine. And honestly, I am okay. There is so much unrequited love and straight-up tragedy in these notes and letters we’ve found that it makes my troubles seem small.

Leila watched while the love of her life was killed. In a way, a part of her died that day, too. Dumas was doing his best to woo her, and even after they were apparently sleeping together, he didn’t have her heart. And Byron, damn, was he pining away—though he probably