Chapter 25
Five Weeks Ago
Why?
That was the question everyone asked—Dad, Noor’s parents, the police (multiple times in multiple lie-spotting configurations).
Why did you run away, Tosh? Why did you girls go out into the night when you knew it was dangerous?
Why did you spend three days in an old church without telling anyone where you were?
We stuck to the script. I was angry. I wasn’t thinking straight.
I didn’t want to leave Paris. Noor was trying to convince me not to run away.
She was worried something would happen to me if she left me alone.
I cried when the police officers asked if I’d thought about how much I’d hurt my father.
Yes, I thought about it a lot. It was stupid and thoughtless and I regret it so, so much.
I apologized to Dad, again, as we waited for the Métro. He was gray with fatigue and stress. “Why, Tosh?”
“I’m sorry I hurt you, but you hurt me, too, Dad.”
“I was trying to keep you safe.”
“You isolated me. You locked me up in the apartment, you forbade me to see my friends, you ignored my words when I couldn’t talk, and now you’re taking Paris away from me.
Every time you try to keep me safe, you take something important away—my autonomy, my friends, my voice, my new home.
It’s not my fault Le Bec’s a predator, but you’re punishing me for being attacked. ”
“It is your fault. You should have been more careful. You have no idea how dangerous it is out there.”
I reached up and tore the bandage off my neck.
“Yes, I do.” The few early-morning passengers stared at us.
“I will bear this reminder of the worst night of my life for as long as I live. I will remember how terrified I was, and I will remember how much he enjoyed my terror. If I let my fear decide where I live, what I do, who my friends are, or where I go, it’s like reliving that night forever.
I don’t want to live a fear-based life. And I don’t deserve to be punished because you’re scared of what could happen to me. ”
“You aren’t being realistic. There will always be bad people out there, and you need to learn to be careful. I’d think your attack would have taught you that.”
“You keep saying predators are unavoidable, but you never say they’re unacceptable.” The train pulled in, and we got on. We had our pick of seats this early.
He huffed, exasperated. “What do you want me to do? As much as I want to, I can’t stop them. You need to do the work here. I can’t protect you all the time, so you need to be careful to stay safe.”
I rubbed my eyes. I was so tired I could barely focus, and I didn’t want to have this argument right now, on no sleep and after what Noor and I had been through.
But I needed him to hear me. “You can say, ‘That’s not okay,’ when you hear someone say creepy things.
You can say, ‘I believe you,’ when someone tells you what happened to them.
You can make it a little less easy for predators to exist. You can keep doing it even if it feels awkward.
You can set an example so that other people feel empowered to do it, too. ”
He sat with that for a minute, looking upset.
No, not upset, I realized: uncomfortable.
“Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll try. But I’m your father.
I can’t stop protecting you; it’s my job.
And you put me through hell, Tosh. For three days, I imagined the worst possible things—and I couldn’t do anything to save you. ” His voice broke.
He was so distressed, and I wanted to feel sympathy, but instead I seethed with resentment.
Noor and I had chosen to save ourselves, and we beat Le Bec because we worked together to overcome him.
We didn’t need Dad to step in and save us.
“Did you ever imagine a good outcome, Dad?” I asked, trying to keep the aggravation out of my voice.
“Did you ever think, I raised a smart, resourceful person, and I can trust her to use her skills if she gets into a bad situation? Because that’s what actually happened. Noor and I kept each other safe.”
He looked at me—really looked at me. “I guess—yes. But it’s hard to not be scared for you.”
I was too exhausted to tell him he was still missing my point. I just said, “I know you love me, Dad. I just wish you knew what it was like to live in my skin.”
Neither of us spoke the rest of the way home. When we got back to the apartment, Dad looked at his watch and sighed. “I’m going to try to catch a couple of hours’ sleep before I have to go to work.”
“Okay.” I turned toward my room. I planned to sleep for a solid week.
“You know,” he said, “when I saw you in the hospital after you’d been attacked, that brought it all back—the black time when your mom was sick and I couldn’t help her. I had to watch her fade away, and I felt so powerless. Then I almost lost you. I don’t think I could have survived that.”
“You didn’t lose me, Dad.”
He folded me into a long hug. “Thank you for coming back.”
—
“Mademoiselle Tosh.”
I turned my head groggily toward Madame Dupuy’s voice. “Mmm?”
“It is time to get up. You are going with me to do shopping in fifteen minutes.”
I felt around for my phone and squinted at it.
I’d slept nine hours, but it felt like fifteen minutes.
I struggled out of the sheets that had twined themselves around me, cleaned up, and joined her in the hall by the door.
She pointed to the rolling caddie she used for groceries, and I took the handle.
“Thank you for everything you did for us last night,” I said as we waited for the elevator.
She made the “pff” sound that meant, It was nothing.
I sighed. “I’ll miss you so much. I’ll miss everything about Paris.” The elevator dinged and opened its doors to reveal Nick and Sophie.
“Tosh!” Sophie exclaimed. I froze. If it had just been Nick and me, I’d have turned around and taken the stairs.
But Madame Dupuy put her hand on my back and gently propelled me into the elevator.
I bent down to do kiss-kiss-kiss with Sophie and then stole a peek at Nick, but he was staring at the button panel like it held the secrets of the universe.
Sophie greeted Madame Dupuy, who returned her greeting and then wished Nick good day.
The warm, rich sound of his “Bonjour, Madame Dupuy” was so comforting and at the same time so distant that Sophie had to repeat what she’d just asked me while I blinked back tears.
“Where have you been? Have you been sick all this time? Did Nick give you the porte-clés I bought for you with my own money?” He’d left the Astérix keychain outside my door the night before I’d tried to kill someone in front of him.
Just a handful of days ago, but it seemed like decades.
“Yes, he did.” I pulled my keys out and showed her the little Astérix figure dangling from the ring. “Thank you so much; it’s just perfect.”
“I kept asking him if you’d gotten it, but he just got sad and wouldn’t talk to me. Did you break up?”
“I—” I looked at Nick, who was not looking at me so hard he was generating a heat aura. “I guess we did. I did something bad, and then I ran away. I hurt Nick a lot.” My voice shook. “Even though I didn’t mean to.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Well, are you sorry that you hurt him?”
“So very sorry.”
“Tell him.” She pointed to her brother, who’d flattened himself against the elevator wall, as far away from me as he could get in the small space. He looked miserable.
I tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look at me, so I apologized to his ear. “Nick, I put you in a terrible position and I regret it so much. I know I really hurt you. I hope you’ll forgive me.” He didn’t say anything.
“Nick,” Sophie said loudly. “She said she’s sorry. Now you have to forgive her.” He remained silent. “Nick—”
“It’s okay,” I interrupted. “He doesn’t have to do it right now.”
“Yes, he does, because if he doesn’t, I’ll never see you again.”
My heart cracked. “Oh, Soph, that would make me so sad. But sometimes when you hurt people really badly, it takes time for them to recover.”
“Are you still friends with me?”
I crouched down and took her hand. “I will always be friends with you. You helped me when I was sad and alone my first day in Paris. In fact, you were my first friend in Paris.” Nick glanced at me for a moment, his face soft, like he was remembering our first meeting, too, when he and Sophie had helped me with the building codes.
I smiled at him, but he’d already looked away.
“I will always be your friend, too.” She was silent for a few moments. “Do you want to have a playdate? Just us, without Nick? Like, tomorrow, if my mom says it’s okay?”
Yes, I wanted to say. I wanted to play Barbies or ride scooters or dress up like pirates and princesses with her. But I shook my head. “I’m so sorry; I can’t. Dad is moving us back to Portland, and I have to start packing.”
“But you just got here.”
“I know, and I really want to stay here. Paris feels like home now. But Dad says we have to go back.”
Sophie threw her arms around me with such force that I knew I’d stay hugged for a long, long time. “You can stay here. You can live with us.”
I held on to her. “Oh, Sophie. I would love that more than anything, but I can’t. My dad would worry too much about me if I stayed.”
“Tell him to stay here.”
“I’ve tried. He won’t listen to my reasons.”
She finally let go of me. “Well, can I video chat with you when you’re not here? I do that with my grandmas and granddads. It’s almost as good as talking in real life.”
I nodded. “If your parents say you can. And if it won’t make Nick uncomfortable.” The elevator dinged and the doors opened.
Nick cleared his throat. “It won’t.” He didn’t look at me.
I followed Madame Dupuy out of the elevator, looking back when Sophie yelled, “Bye.” I waved, she waved, and then Nick was leading her away.
Madame Dupuy and I stopped at all her usual vendors: the primeur, who supervised his tween son as he selected scallions, tomatoes, and baby potatoes for us; the poissonière in her chest waders who greeted Madame Dupuy by name and told her that the dorade was freshly caught; the scary fromagière who always glared like she’d prefer to hack a wedge off me instead of the wheel of Brie de Meaux.
Our last stop was a tiny stand selling fresh apricots, and then we headed home.
As we waited to cross the street, Madame Dupuy turned to me.
“How much do you want to stay here, Mademoiselle Tosh?”
“More than anything. When we moved here, it felt like coming home in a way that Portland never made me feel. It felt like Paris was the true home of my heart. It sounds super dramatic, but this feels like the place where I’ll make a difference.
If I go back to Portland, I know I won’t be where I should be, and I’ll lose the life I should have had. ”
The light changed, and we started across the street. “Have you thought that you have already made that difference? With what you did the other night?”
“But it’s not finished, is it? I’ve been thinking about that man—the one I left Nick with. He’s probably infected, and he’ll probably infect others. I have no idea how to clean that mess up, but it is my mess, and I want to try to fix what I’ve done.”
“So what would you do to stay here?”
I shook my head. “After I ran away like that, Dad’s not going to reconsider.
I’ll have to go back to Portland and follow his rules for another year, until I turn eighteen.
Then I’ll work my way back here somehow.
Take a gap year and get a job and save up.
Find a study-abroad program. Get a job here as an au pair.
Whatever I can do, because I belong here. ”
I don’t know what Madame Dupuy said to Dad that evening, but when the EU needs a new trade negotiator, it should hire her.
She got him to agree to stay in Paris for the school year if I agreed to let him track my phone, maintained an A equivalent in all my classes, hung out with my friends only at school or at our apartment, and saw a counselor.
I didn’t love the conditions, especially the tracking, but she got me friend time, and in any case, staying here was worth the compromise.
When I texted Noor the news, she was packing for her family’s August vacation to Turkey.
Noor: I am so happy !
Me: I wish you weren’t going on vacation. You could come over and we could hang out
Me: Dad could glare suspiciously at you
Noor: Hahaha
Me: Fun times
Me: Actually, I’m glad you’re going on vacation. You don’t need the dad glare
Noor: Tell that to my father, please. He will be glaring at me for a long time
Noor: I will bring you back a souvenir from Turkey
Me: Oooh, yes please! The gaudiest one you can find
Noor: Of course
I texted Martine to tell her that Dad had relaxed the friend rules.
Slightly. She sent me a beach selfie from the ?le de Ré with a string of heart emojis.
I knew she’d tell Youssef. I didn’t bother texting Nick, because after our encounter in the elevator, it was pretty clear that he didn’t want to talk to me.
So I was surprised a couple of days later to see a text from him as I was packing for our Alps hiking trip.
Dad had forgotten to cancel the reservations when he decided we were moving back to the US.
So we were having an August vacation along with the rest of France.
I hoped that a couple of weeks of pounding trails would get him back to himself, because he was still acting stiff and strange with me.
My heart fluttered as I clicked on Nick’s text, and then it fell when I saw the words “Hi from Sophie. She says she hopes you’re having fun in Portland” under a photo of her in a kayak.
I replied that Dad had changed his mind, and we were staying in Paris.
I stared at the screen, hoping Nick would reply, would say something so that I knew he’d forgiven me.
Finally, I read, “She says yay.” The speech bubble pulsed for a moment, then disappeared.