Meet Me in Paris

"Long to reign over us: God save the Queen."

The words fell from her lips halfheartedly as the song echoed throughout the stadium. The rapturous sound of applause surrounded her as her eyes scanned the rows of people dressed in white with red crosses adorning their cheeks. The warm evening air wrapped around her like a blanket, a welcome change from the cold nights back home. England was always three months late when it came to summer and six too long when it came to winter. She felt like there might as well have been two seasons: snow and rain. Although, she had never found herself minding the miserable weather before, as long as he was there to complain about it more than she did.

She felt a nudge in her side and he leant down to say in her ear, "Don't look so happy now." He smiled at her when her gaze met his. "Come on, you just finished uni. Stop being miserable for ninety minutes and enjoy yourself for a change."

Before she could respond to her older brother's teasing, the familiar tune reached her ears, rendering her virtually paralysed.

"Allons enfants de la Patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé."

She fixed her eyes on the sea of blue, white, and red across the way, her heart sinking with every word that had been programmed deep in her subconscious throughout the years, slowly sounding more and more familiar than her own anthem until she felt like it almost was hers. However, now, it felt like nothing more than a cruel reminder of failure and shattered dreams that instantly ruined her day like a bad hangover.

La Marseillaise. Any possibility of happiness drained from her body when, straightaway, like a game of word association that she didn't agree to play, Marseille popped into her head, and he was always the first thing to mind when she thought of that. Before she could stop herself, she was immediately searching the lineup on the pitch, squinting to see from far away who was down there. She knew she needn't squint to know where he was. She could lock onto him like a heat seeking missile from five hundred metres away.

For months, she had found herself desperately trying to occupy her mind with school, burying herself under piles of reading about history, cinema, politics, any subject she could get her hands on. She had to drown in facts and dates, names and outdated French vernacular to keep her mind off of him. It wasn't healthy to fend off heartbreak with books and she knew this, but she'd rather be consumed by knowledge than pain.

However, the reality was beginning to set in. She was here to celebrate finishing her degree. That meant no more nine am lectures she had to be to bed early for as an excuse not to go out, no more sixty page readings to keep her company all night long, no more countless hours spent hauled up in the school library, tearing through books on the French Revolution for something relevant to cite in an essay. Something about the guillotine always overpowered any thought of him that crept into her mind unwelcome. After four years, she was free of uni and she couldn't help but wonder if all she needed was one more year to be finally free of him too.

"Sophie!" She felt a light smack on her arm and looked over to see her brother Gabe staring down at her, slight worry evident on his face at her brief space out.

She turned her attention back to the pitch once the song had finished. "I remember it being so much easier at the World Cup when he was wasn't called up." As she glanced at Gabe again, all worry vanished from his expression, replaced by a look of pure annoyance.

"No, it wasn't," he brushed her off. "He bitched and moaned like the pathetic little French twat he is until Christmas."

She laughed internally, silently appreciating Gabe's instinct as her only brother to protect her from the men in life that will inevitably do their damage. Sometimes, he could certainly grate on her nerves, but she never found it truly irritating. In fact, she found it a little funny that he was still huffing and puffing about bringing a Muslim to Christmas dinner.

Sophie just rolled her eyes at his comment. "He did not."

"He's a loser, Sophie. L-O-S-E-R."

"He's not —"

"Raté," he repeated the word in French, as if insulting him in his native language made it any worse.

She always knew better than to pay mind to Gabe's remarks, brushing them off like the words of a good friend trying to make her feel better after a breakup by telling her the guy wasn't good enough for her anyway. She knew her friends actually did have a point when they said it's not the end of the world, and she even tolerated her mother's insistence that she can find a nice, normal boy now: one she can be with without all the gossip and the cameras around. However, there was one thing Sophie couldn't stand and that was the curse words and things you wouldn't dare say in front of your grandmother thrown his way. Heartbreaker or not, she could never make herself believe he deserved that kind of language directed at him. He made his choices. She didn't understand why everyone couldn't just leave it be already, nearly a year after the fact. How long was she going to have to pretend like she didn't still love him?

"You leave Arsenal, you're a loser," Gabe continued.

"Say that to Thierry Henry," she snapped, sounding harsher than she intended to, but that memory was still a fresh wound to Sophie that she had just stitched shut and didn't want reopened.

Gabe glared at her. "Nasri's no Henry."

The words stabbed at her like a dagger, trying to rip open her stitches. All the nevers had sunk in right away when it happened. In fact, she was getting fairly good at coping with that soul crushing word after her father's death. Nothing seemed quite as bad in comparison to knowing he'd never be at her graduation, he'd never see her get married, he'd never meet his grandchildren. It put the truly unimportant things in perspective.

She knew, and she figured he knew as well, that he was never going to be a legend at the club she has loved since birth thanks to all the not so subtle brainwashing from her father as a child. He always laughed when she referred to it that way, insisting he was just making sure his children supported a proper football team. If he had worked at any other club, she's sure he would have been singing a different tune.

His name would never be amongst the greats like Bergkamp and Adams anymore. No one was ever going to build him a statue. He wasn't going to be remembered for his style of play and the goals he scored. She'd prefer to remember him that way, but all he was now was another trophy chasing, money hungry, ingrate, completely disregarding the ones who stood by him through injury and poor form. By all means, Sophie should have been just as upset as everybody else by his departure, so why is it when the topic arose, she went straight to defending him? It could've been worse, she always insisted. At least he didn't sign for Tottenham.

Gabe was not as forgiving towards him as Sophie was and he made no effort to conceal his aggravation with level-headedness about the situation. What Gabe didn't know, though, was that each and every time she swore she was okay, it nagged at her. It was eating her away from the inside out, until one day, she would inevitably be devoured whole by the empty feeling in her chest that served as a constant reminder that he was gone. That feeling that started just behind her ribcage and pushed down on her lungs every time she came face to face with him was slowly breaking her down. She was so used to being able to run from him. At home, she could turn off the television when he was on, skip right past the photographs she saw of him without a second glance, and even pretend like she had forgotten his name when she had gone a while without hearing it. But that night, he had her cornered, and she had no where to escape to anymore.

She hadn't felt so trapped since April when she was forced to face him for the first time since he left her alone that night to cry herself to sleep in the hotel room in Paris while he did lord knows what. Did he go celebrate with the boys? Busy himself with someone else to prove he didn't need her? She couldn't bear to think about it, lest her imagination run wild with all the scenarios that made her sick to her stomach, like listening to all the chants the moment he stepped on the pitch that cold and grey spring day two months ago. She took in every insult and curse word justifiably thrown his way by the fans who felt betrayed by him, some of those words coming from Gabe sat right next to her. She had to swallow the urge to turn around and scream at every single person in the stands that day that if anyone had any right to be saying such things to him, it was her. He left her with more broken promises than a calculator could add up. If anyone had just reason to stand up and shout abuse into the wind so that it might reach his ears, it was Sophie, but she remained perfectly stoic in her seat, wrapping her scarf tighter around her neck as the wind picked up. She thought she had come to terms with all the nevers in her life, so why did knowing they were never going to be together again hurt more than all the others combined?

She took a deep breath to calm her nerves after kick off and adjusted her posture properly, as if it would somehow let him know that he wasn't going to ruin her if she wasn't going to ruin him.

Mustering up her best brave face, she told Gabe, "Just watch the game," with a forced smile she made seem genuine. "I brought you all the way to Donetsk for this and you're not even paying attention."

"How can I when you're over here chatting my ear off? This is why you can't bring women to football matches."

She scoffed and faked offence, punching Gabe in the arm as he laughed at her. "I'm locking you out of the room tonight. Go fuck yourself. You think you're so funny."

Suddenly, his smile vanished, replaced by a look of pure disdain and disgust. Sophie quickly glanced at the pitch to immediately be drawn to the source of Gabe's mood swing. She watched him position the ball on the grass in front of him, and every thought in her head evaporated when he lined up to take the corner. All she could do was stare at the familiar way he stood, and the way he delivered the ball into the box was permanently etched into her memory as vividly as the sight in front of her. Sophie would always remember his movements, the little tells in how he manoeuvred his body that gave him away to her every time he was playing. She knew him by the way he moved, a strange feeling of comfort in seeing the way he threw himself into the kick, his hips swivelling to curve the ball straight into the mess of white and blue shirts crowding near the goal. Sophie knew him by the way he moved alright, both on and off the pitch.

She hoped Gabe didn't look over to her at that moment as she felt her face flush with thoughts less than pure. Her mind was racing as she watched him and she couldn't understand how after all this time, after reliving the way he so callously broke her heart for months until it finally stopped hurting so much, how she could still want him. She could feel the memory trying to wiggle itself to the surface, dislodging itself from the deepest trench of her mind that she banished it to. She was hyperaware of every teardrop shed over him, and yet, all she could focus on was the first night she spent with him in Paris. As much as she tried to fight it, knowing she was only setting off down a dark road that would lead her to where she ultimately didn't want to go, she found herself succumbing to the old feelings he arose in her.

---

"So, you know how they call Paris the City of Light?" she asked him as she struggled to unlock the old deadbolt on the door of the top floor flat.

He looked at her apprehensively, but with a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Ouais."

"Well —"

She felt the lock finally turn and she tried her best to contain her excitement as she slowly pushed open the door to her new studio flat. She struggled to keep her composure and bit down on her lip when the soft glow of dozen of strands of fairy lights gently illuminated the tiny space. It hadn't been a month since she left London, but she missed him and she hoped to show him that.

"What d'you think?" she asked as she ushered him inside and closed the door behind them.

He laughed at the array of lights draped across the walls and clinging to the window frame. "C'est —" He seemed to be searching for the words to say to not disappoint her as he moved further into the flat and his eyes fell over the mattress on the hardwood floor being the sole piece of furniture in the room. "Eh bien, c'est petit."

She pushed herself up onto the kitchen counter to better watch him take it all in, like a lioness stalking her prey. "You shouldn't judge things based on size, Sami," she teased him.

His eyes found hers across the room and his silence began to worry her. He had never been as quiet as he was that night. He hadn't said more than three sentences to her since leaving the stadium after the match. The entire drive through the city to bring him back to her place was distressingly devoid of conversation. She tried to reassure herself that he was just tired from the game, but the reality of their long distance relationship was beginning to sink in with Sophie. The statistics of a normal couple making it through a year apart were not in their favour. She didn't even want to think how much being in a relationship with a famous footballer diminished their chances of survival even more.

She felt relief wash over her when she smirked and said, "I like your mattress." He lightly kicked it. "The floor is a nice place for it." He slowly sat down on her mattress and began taking his shoes off. When he caught her staring, he smiled. "Viens ici, mon amour."

---

She was brought back to reality when the stands erupted and thousands of English supporters flew into air like lava spewing from a volcano. They were certainly alive with the same intensity once a header from Lescott went soaring by Lloris to find the back of the net. Gabe had bolted straight out of his seat and Sophie couldn't help but smile at him. She had missed the excitement of the game, the pure elation that bursts out from deep within at a goal. The thrill of taking the lead, the chanting of the proud fans, the sight of thousands of people in their team's kit enthralled by every promising attack and groaning in frustration at every off target shot. She had cut football from her world when he cut her from his and only now did she realise that she had let him taint the only two things she had ever been passionate about.

For a brief moment, her head was reeling, she felt the adrenaline rush through her body, and the joy she was experiencing was plastered all over her face. For one brief moment, she remembered why she loved football, much in the way she loved French. It made sense to everyone who knew Sophie why she would love him so much. He was the embodiment of both her obsessions and he combined the two into something she loved more than either one separately.

---

His skin was still warm to the touch as she ran her fingers over his shoulder and across his collarbone, while he slipped an arm around her waist, lazily resting his hand on her hip.

"Comment tu trouves la fac?"

She giggled. "You're really asking me about school right now?"

He spoke slowly and sternly, as to make sure he had every word in English correct. "I have to ask when it's the whole reason you're not home with me like you should be."

She felt herself reach the fork in the road and she was internally screaming at herself to turn back once she remembered those words he so often liked to bring up. They were always phrased differently, but held the same meaning. He made it painfully obvious he felt like she had left him and no amount of trying to convince him that she was only gone temporarily because of her degree worked on silencing his insistence that she wasn't where she was supposed to be.

"Je l'aime," she retorted. "Chacun parle le français." The attitude dripped from her words like venom. She dragged her fingertips down his sternum and her voice suddenly softened to an audible whisper. "Mais pas comme toi." She placed her hand over his heart to feel it beating steadily in his chest. "I heard someone from Marseille the other day at uni. I could tell by the accent. It reminded me of you."

He placed his hand over hers on his chest and began to stroke his thumb over the top of her wrist. "Tu me manques," he whispered.

She always loved that phrase in French. He never saw what she found so amusing about it, but she was convinced a native speaker wouldn't. To her, with English as her first language, she was used to missing him, but in French, he was missing from her, as if she was not complete without him, and she thought that was a far more accurate way to describe it.

"J'sais," she acknowledged the awful feeling she had been experience too.

"When will I see you again?"

She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of his body next to hers as he wrapped his arm around her tighter to pull her closer. "Soon. Je promis."

His hand left hers to slip his other arm over her and hold her body to his. Gently, he placed a loving kiss on her forehead. "Je t'aime."

---

Her senses shut down one after another, leaving only sight when the ball reached his feet and her heart began to race rapidly. It felt like it was confused on whether it wanted to push itself into overdrive until it was beating so fast, it exploded from her chest, or burn itself out, blowing like a fuse from the inability to convert that much energy pumping through it. The blood pounding in her ears drowned out the indistinguishable noise of the crowd that she had adjusted to by now. She wanted to close her eyes, to turn her head away, but she didn't have the chance before he curled the ball right passed Joe Hart inside the near post. She could see the French supporters come to life the way England had nearly ten minutes prior, and the first sound she recognised as something other than the racket coming from inside the arena was a loud groan from Gabe, followed by a string of curses directed at none other but him again.

Sophie had no response. She was frozen in her seat, the contents of her stomach threatening to empty themselves all over the unsuspecting man sat in front of her. She was silently cursing him in her head right along with Gabe. Twenty-one other men on the pitch, any one of which could have scored the equaliser. John Terry could have netted an own goal and she would have been happier with conceding that way than with watching him save the day for France yet again. It was the fork in the road and she had warned herself not to travel down this path. She was now forced to continue, knowing all too well where she was going to end up.

"I fucking hate him," Gabe said through gritted teeth as he sank back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest. "What the fuck is that?" He sat up and leant forward to mock the goal celebration by putting his finger to his lips. "He always shushes the crowd like some fucking little arrogant cu—"

"Stop," Sophie cut him off.

"But he's —"

"Stop."

She was bombarded with conflicting feelings and sickening memories that she couldn't let Gabe know about. Memories less pleasant than the ones she preferred to focus on. It was starting to feel all too similar to last October and she swore the temperature inside the arena just dropped. She couldn't fight off the thoughts she had been suppressing since it happened any longer. She always preferred to remember her time with him in Paris as an indescribable feeling of bliss mixed with the sense that everything was right between them, but there was no denying it didn't stay that way. He had taken what she thought was their paradise and turned it into a nightmare that only brought back the pain that had left her emotionally numb for so long.

They sat in silence, the whole arena feeling more like a library than hosting a football match. She had been waiting for this tournament for the last four years, since the last one concluded, and now that she was here, watching the two countries she loved try to defeat each other, she couldn't have felt more confused. Either way, she was going to walk out of that stadium a loser that evening and she was now cursing the group draw. The whole year had been testing her, from Arsenal getting Marseille in the Champions League, to England playing France in their first match of the group stage. He was everywhere. The harder she tried to forget his existence, the more he threw himself in her face to spite her. She would have rather been crushed by Spain and humiliated by Germany ten times over than sit through another moment of this torture.

The half-time whistle offered no relief to either of them as the players cleared the pitch and fans temporarily left their seats. Gabe sat perfectly still, his arms still crossed over his chest and a blank expression carefully masking any emotion he may have been feeling, but Sophie knew all too well where his mind was at that moment.

"You want a beer?" Sophie asked to try to distract him from his hateful thoughts.

"No, I want to beat France. And I want your boyfriend taken off on a stretcher."

The way he emphasised that word stung Sophie, and with that cruel reminder that she couldn't call him that anymore, the floodgates were opened. She was now running down the path into the darkness as the memory took hold of her and wouldn't let go. She thought of the guillotine, silently wishing it away, but it refused to be scared off again. She was sick and tired of avoiding him when he was right there in front of her. She surrendered to the thoughts and the humid night air in Donetsk was no longer warm enough to keep her from shivering as the feeling of his freezing fingers that had burned themselves into her skin sent a chill down her spine.

---

It didn't feel like it usually did. Something was different that time, like having sex with a stranger she met at a club and took home. Everything felt foreign to her. He didn't feel warm to the touch as she raked her fingernails down his back, not eliciting so much as a shallow breath from him to let her know he liked it. His lips never once found hers, leaving the whole experience impersonal, like she was some cheap whore he had picked up for the hour. She felt nothing, but an emptiness inside that was growing with each robotic movement. There was no desire, no love, not even a hint of lust in their touches. All they were doing was going through the motions without so much as an inkling why.

Goosebumps covered her skin, as pale white as the bedsheets gripped between her fingers. The boredom she felt was surely as plain to see on her face as it was on his. It had become impossible for them to be together in the same country when they had proven they could manage a relationship in two separate ones a body of water apart. She had always feared losing him while she was in Paris, but not like this.

She didn't look for him when they aligned themselves on the pitch again, or even paid any mind to the game once the whistle blew to start the second half. All she could do was replay it over and over again in her head, each time having to suffer through the blank look on his face and stare into his dull brown eyes glazed over with apathy. The feeling of ennui all too consuming for the both of them. Sophie had no interest in the game anymore as each thrust she remembered counting in her head to pass the time became less pleasurable and hot shame filled her. The only emotion that overcame her the entire time was disgust. She just wanted to wash it all off her. She wanted to wash him off her. Eight months later and she still didn't feel clean of that night.

There were no words exchanged between the two of them, just the mutual inability to make eye contact. All the arguing, all the fighting over the phone for weeks about his move and her unwillingness to compromise with him sent them both beyond the point of speaking. It wasn't a compromise. Dropping out of uni for him was not a compromise; it was a sacrifice and one she wasn't willing to make for a derailed relationship that had clearly reached its expiration date.

---

Sophie was startled by the sounds of England's frustrations arising from the stands as Gabe lurched forward in his seat to yell about a yellow card. "Ashley, what the fuck are you doing?"

"Stop yelling at Ashley Young like he can hear you. This is exactly why I can't take you to the pub on match day." She was taunting him the way he had taunted her earlier, hoping he would provide a distraction for her harrowing thoughts, but she had no such luck.

A stalemate was setting in, neither side able to break through and find what they were looking for. She didn't know whether she was referring to the match or to them anymore. No one was coming out of this victorious. Not France, not England, and certainly not Sophie.

Discontentment hung heavy around the stadium like the humid summer air and all she could see was his sweaty figure on the pitch, trying his hardest to be the one to find the opening in the back four. If only he had tried that hard to get through her defence.

But he didn't.

---

He didn't say a word to her as he laced up his trainers and checked his jacket pocket to make sure he had his keys. The last thing he wanted was to have to come back after he left. He hesitated by the door and Sophie knew he was waiting to see if she'd be the one to try to salvage this broken wreck. As far as she was concerned, the ship was sinking, might as well abandon it. The sound of the door closing behind him is the single most soul shattering noise Sophie has ever heard. She crumbled at the foot of the bed.

---

"So that's how it ends." Gabe was irritated by the final whistle blowing and the match ending in a draw. Neither side won, but both had lost. Gabe checked his phone quickly. "Hey, Soph, me and the lads are gonna hit the pub to drown the sorrows, you know. Jimmy wants to know if you're in."

She shook her head as they made their way to the exit. "Nah, I think I'm just gonna go back to the room and shower."

"Good deal. You've been working up a proper stench there. Didn't wanna say anything."

She reached back to hit him, but he dodged her playful jab. "You're such a prick sometimes."

As they cleared out of the stadium and begun the slow walk back to their hotel, Gabe kept Sophie close to his side, wrapping a protective arm around her whenever they passed a group of people either drunk from dropping points from their first match, or drunk from managing to snag one. The warmth of June hit her full blast and she breathed in the stagnant air. She could feel the sweat on her lower back sticking her shirt to her like glue.

"Man of the match," Gabe whinged about the award going to Samir when they reached the hotel lobby. "Man of the bloody match. I'm disgusted." He feigned vomiting, evoking a laugh from Sophie. "I give up on this whole tournament."

"It's the first match of the group and you surrender? Are you sure you're not French, Gabe?"

Even though the whole evening had put her in a bad mood, she couldn't stay sour for long. The streets of Ukraine were buzzing with life. People from all over the continent had converged to cheer their country to victory and she was in the midst of it all. As Gabe had said, she had a lot to be thrilled about. Four years of hard word had finally paid off and she was here to enjoy her success, not dwell on her failures.

"Oh, very funny," Gabe said sarcastically as he pressed the button for their floor in the lift. "You sure you don't want to come along?" he asked again. "If anyone could use a drink after that, it's probably you."

She smiled at him reassuringly. "I'm fine. Next time. Go." She exited the lift on her own and turned to face her brother. "Have a fun time with Jimmy."

He looked unsure, but he nodded. "Alright. Catch ya later."

The lift doors closed between them, separating Sophie from her brother and she realised she was alone for the first time since they arrived. She rubbed the back of her neck, feeling the heat radiating from the spot and the slick coat of sweat moisten her hand. It was almost unreal to be that hot. It had been an icy, unforgiving winter, which was only made that much colder by the fact she didn't have him to warm her up on those arctic nights as the cold snap overtook Europe. It had been bone-chillingly glacial since she returned from Paris in October. The only relief was a brief heatwave in March before temperatures plummeted and rain filled the daily weather forecast. She stopped at the door to her room to insert the key card and realised it got cold again when he came back, as if he had driven the balmy weather away.

She kicked off her shoes once inside and pushed the thoughts of the weather from her mind. It rained in April because it rains in April. He had nothing to do with it. Their breakup didn't cause the subzero temperatures and horrid conditions of the winter months to hit hard. It was simply the seasons acting as they were supposed to and the actions of their relationship coincidentally coincided with that.

But she couldn't deny seeing him again that evening left her feeling warm and she knew the blistering June heat was not responsible for that.

She reached into her pocket for her phone and quickly found his number in her contacts. She couldn't bring herself to delete it, sometimes sending texts to him that he never responded to and not responding to the ones he sent her. Her fingers hovered over the letters, debating with herself whether to send it in French or English. The tapping sound of her long fingernails hitting the screen was the only noise in the hotel room as she pressed send.

Meet me in Paris?

Placing her phone down on the bedside table, she reminded herself not to hold her breath. He left her in Paris, but it was the only place she felt like they existed anymore. To Sophie, they only existed in Paris in her memories. London was too far tainted in her mind and she couldn't give Manchester a chance. Only in Paris did she feel like they had any hope left.

Her phone lit up as it vibrated. She had half hoped it was only Gabe checking in on her when she reached for it. She couldn't imagine all the worst case responses he could have sent her. Swallowing her fear, she checked his messaged and smiled.

How about Donetsk instead?