The Design(73)

I gripped my backpack strap and took a step back. The small separation was enough to break my resolve.

“Goodbye Grayson. Take care of Brooklyn.”

“Cammie!”

I walked through the airport doors, and did my best to ignore the tears clouding my vision.

…



As luck would have it, my plane was delayed twice because of mechanical issues. I sat in the crowded terminal and watched plane after plane take off, wondering when my turn would come. Each hour that passed made it that much easier for me to question if I was making the right decision. I was still in LA. I could walk out of the airport at any time. If I was on a plane or in Paris, the waiting, the wondering, the second guessing would be put to rest.

I sat between a family traveling to Paris for vacation and a couple anxious to start their honeymoon. There were a few passengers traveling for business, but they were focused on their work, unencumbered by the noise around them. I sat at the crowded gate, people watching and feeling wholeheartedly alone.

In an effort to distract myself from the sick feeling in my stomach, I’d pulled out my sketchbook and started drafting simple designs on the last few pages. The process helped pass the time and gave me something to focus my mind on.

Finally, after four hours of delays, they announced that our flight was boarding. I was rushing back from the bathroom, the effects of two cups of coffee starting to become unbearable. Just as I arrived back at the terminal, my boarding group was lining up and I scrambled to gather my things.

“Miss?” someone spoke behind me as I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I turned to see a middle-aged man pointing over to where I’d been sitting.

“I think that’s yours?” he said.

My sketchbook sat on the ground, flipped upside down with its pages splayed out.

“Oh! Thank you!” I said as I rushed to gather it up. I flipped it over to dust off the pages that’d been on the floor, and my stomach clenched. Grayson’s soulful eyes stared back at me as I gazed upon a sketch I’d done of him years ago when I was still in high school. The sketch was on one of the first pages, long forgotten. Even the graphite from the pencil had started to fade. I remembered sitting in my room and sketching furiously while I listened for any sign of footsteps, praying Brooklyn wouldn’t come in and catch me in the act. The entire first half of the sketchbook was practically a shrine to him.

“Everyone in boarding group B, please line up!” the flight attendant instructed over the speaker system, jarring me from my reverie.

“What’s taking you to Paris?” the man asked as I moved to join the line. “Business or pleasure?”

He eyed me with a tentative smile.

I closed my sketchbook and turned toward the boarding door. Down that dim hallway there was a plane waiting to take me to Paris. There was no turning back.

“Neither,” I answered as my gaze held steady on the future.

It was the first honest answer I’d given all day.





Chapter ThirtyTwo


“Cammie, get your ass back to the United States or I will get on a plane and drag you home myself. Seriously, what were you THINKING?! Grayson called to let me know you’d left. Thank God for him. How could you leave the country without even telling me? Haven’t you seen Taken?! Don’t you know what happens to pretty American girls when they go abroad? No, Jason, I will not hang up. She needs to know how insane she is. No, seriously—”

Brooklyn’s message cut off after that, so either her allotted message time had ended or Jason had forced her to hang up. There were three more messages waiting for me after that one, all from Brooklyn and each over a minute long.

Instead of listening to them, I shot a selfie and paired it with a simple message: “I am FINE. Please don’t worry. I’ll call you soon.”

I’d been in Paris for two days and was in no rush to call Brooklyn. I was just getting my bearings and calling her would throw me back to square one—back to when I’d first stepped off the plane and felt the crippling grip of homesickness around my neck. I’d pushed through it, ventured out, and managed to find a small hostel on the edge of a relatively nice arrondissement to establish as a home base.

Each guest at the hostel had a small bunk to themselves with storage space beneath to lock up any valuables. My bunkmate was a Russian girl with cropped black hair and a tattoo of a tiger along the side of her neck. Across from us was a bunk with two teenage guys from Australia. The last two nights they’d arrived back at the hostel at nearly 5:00 am and slept well into the afternoon. I hadn’t had the chance to meet them, and the only reason I knew they were Australian at all was because they both talked in their sleep (mostly about wallabies and sheilas, heh).

In an odd way, everything seemed to be coming together. I spent my first few days wandering around Paris and trying to blend in with the locals. I tried out three different crepe cafes before I had to cut myself off. If I wasn’t careful, I’d blow my entire savings on desserts.

Money was constantly on my mind. I knew that I had the trust my parents had left for me, but I didn’t want to touch it. That wasn’t Paris money. That was money for purchasing a house and settling down. Besides, the whole reason I had flown to Paris was to see if I could stand on my own two feet. If I budgeted right and found a decent job, I could live in Paris indefinitely.