Page 92 of You + Me – Against the World

“Yes, but I’m sorry, too. For you. For all this.”

“Don’t be. It just proved to me how much I love you, Alma.”

I cry even harder, in the arms of this wonderful guy, whom I feel I don’t deserve.

“You know, one day I’ll be the happiest girl in the world when they give us a positive result.”

He smiles and kisses my neck. “When the time comes, I plan to give you two or three…”

32

The new year finally begins. By some miracle, Vadim is excused from his community service group until the end of the break. We have a whole week just for the two of us. I’ve been dreaming of this.

But my happiness isn’t complete, because my mother has decided to return to France for a few days, on a whim. She’s seemed distracted lately. Occasionally sad. Of course, it’s understandable. My father is as absent as he is distant, she misses her French friends, and she’s dealing with her own mother’s declining health—she has every reason to feel low. Lily insisted on going with her, eager to see the grandmother she adores again, as well as the group of friends she left behind last summer.

I dream of seeing Paris again, too. The night falling early in January, the store windows lit up in the dark, the crowded shops and icy streets, the hurried passersby, and the macarons you buy one at a time because they are so expensive but so good. Wearing gloves and a warm hat, hearing French spoken all around me, along with impatient sighs from behind because I’m not walking fast enough. Stepping into a café blazing with warmth, sitting by the window, and watching people drift by. I’d like to do all that again.

If Vadim came with me, he would invent tragic or fantastical lives for them, and I’d laugh. I’d try to teach him a few words of French, which he’d butcher, and we’d laugh again.

What if it were possible…?

“Mom? What are you doing?”

I flop onto her bed while she wrestles with two stubborn hangers at the entrance of her massive walk-in closet.

“I’m starting to pack. We’re leaving tomorrow night.”

“Actually, I was wondering…”

“What, you want to come too? Couldn’t you have said so earlier?” Kneeling in front of two large, still-empty Louis Vuitton suitcases, she presses her index fingers to her temples.

The timing seems bad, but it’s now or never.

“I was thinking that maybe… Well, if you’d let me… I could come… and, um…”

“Alma, honey, did you hit your head or something?”

“And perhaps I could invite a friend to come, too…”

“A friend? Which friend?”

“Vadim?” I whisper, feeling all my courage slip away.

“Excuse me?” She opens her eyes so wide that her mascara nearly touches her eyebrows.

“It’s his dream to see France, Mom. I know you and Dad don’t particularly like him, but… you could get to know him. And it would be great for our short film project! To be able to film there…”

“I don’t know, Alma. This is all a bit last minute.”

“Yeah, sorry, forget it,” I say, coming to sit next to her. “Besides, Dad would never agree.”

“He doesn’t have to know. He’s never here anyway!” she replies bitterly.

If my mother is keeping secrets from my father, things must be serious. But it’s also my best card to play.

“We could tell him we’re going on a girls’ trip, just the three of us,” I suggest, folding one of her cashmere turtlenecks.

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt Basile to spend some alone time with his father. They’ve drifted apart lately.”