Analise almost didn’t notice it. Paris had a way of making her feel like everything was borrowed. That nothing truly belonged to anyone. Maybe it stemmed from the fact that she felt like she didn’t belong. Still, the object managed to catch her eye. When Analise Stone arrived in Paris two months prior, she realized she had left behind the only item that had ever mattered to her. She didn’t expect to see it being flipped through on a table in a Parisian cafe. A familiar shade of worn leather caught her eye. She slowed, then stopped completely. It was her notebook. The notebook she lost two months ago. It sat open in front of a man, his fingers resting on the slightly curled pages. He acted as if he had read from this very page more times than he could count. Analise’s breath caught in her throat as she tried to think of what to say to the man handling her most prized possession. “Um..” she mumbled, mostly to herself at first. Then louder, with more clarity, “Hey, that’s my notebook.” The man didn’t react immediately. He was intently focused on the page in front of him, focusing on the words for longer than needed. Analise stepped closer without meaning to. “That’s mine,” she spoke again, softer this time. “Where did you get that?” Only then did he shift. Slowly, Christopher lifted his head. For a moment, he just looked at her. As if he was trying to convince himself she was truly there. “It’s you…” Analise breathed. His expression shifted, flipping through shock, joy, and grief in seconds. “Analise,” he said, like he was testing the name, making sure it still belonged to her. For a moment, neither of them moved. The bustling streets around them continued to move, but to Analise, the world had frozen. He looked down at the notebook briefly, his cheeks warming with something. Not embarrassment exactly, possibly shock to see her again. “I think,” he said carefully, “that this belongs to you.” Analise itched to grab it from him, but she couldn’t quite get her fingers to move. Her eyes stayed on him instead. Two months had stretched between the two. Christopher’s hair had grown longer; Analise’s hair had been chopped short. However, they were still the same two strangers who were brought together by the sheer will of the universe. “That’s not…” Analise tried to say, but paused when she realized the sentence was going nowhere. Christopher’s fingers were still on the notebook, fidgeting with the page. “I tried to find you,” he finally said. Analise blinked. “You did?” He nodded. “All I know of you is that your name is Analise Stone, and that you were moving to Paris. And, I wasn’t even sure if you were truly moving to Paris or if this was just a vacation.” Her grip tightened around the strap of her purse suddenly. “How are you here?” she asked finally. He shrugged. “I couldn’t get off the train in Geneva, or else my fairytale in London would be over.” Analise’s breath caught in her throat. Those were her words: the words she used in their game at the London train station, the words she had written in several notebooks. She reached for her notebook then, hoping to escape this interaction and forget about Christopher L’ameur all over again. Their fingers brushed as she grabbed the leather book. It shouldn’t have meant anything to her, but it did. She looked down at her worn notebook. “You read it.” “I did,” he paused. And then quieter, “All of it.” Analise let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh that didn’t quite land. Her speciality. “That’s invasive,” she said. *more in notes and credits*
“Maybe,” he said. “But I didn’t feel like I was reading something meant to stay private.” Analise held her notebook a little tighter now, like it might escape her again if she didn’t grip it tight enough. “I didn’t mean to keep it for this long,” Christopher spoke after a moment. That made her meet his eyes again. “I guess…” he paused, his voice trailing. “I guess I just wanted something to hold onto. I wanted to think of ways to finish your unfinished manuscripts. I liked thinking of what you were writing.” He stopped, thinking of what he had said. “Sorry, that was creepy.” She laughed. He sat back a little. He already said too much. Why not say more? “I was supposed to marry someone,” he said. Analise didn’t react outwardly, but something in her expression shifted, signalling she was paying attention. She knew Christopher was closed off about something; he had expressed that in the six hours they spent talking on the train to Paris, she just didn’t know what. “It ended before it happened,” he said. “Three years ago.” He paused. His fingers were tapping lightly on the table. “We didn’t fall apart loudly. I think that's what bothered me most.” Analise sat down in front of him. “I don’t know what happened. I went from loving someone with all my being to just co-existing with her,” he frowned. “And when it ended, I told myself that was it. That if something so pure could fall apart so easily, maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Maybe I wasn’t meant to love another.” His mouth tightened slightly, and Analise reached for his hand, showing she was listening. “I didn’t date. I didn’t let anyone close enough to call it anything. Because I thought if I did, it would all fall apart at the last second like before,” “That sounds exhausting,” Analise said after a moment. He laughed slightly. “It was normal to me.” She hesitated before speaking again, searching for the words to say. “I’m good at being temporary,” she admitted. “I’m not good at letting people get close to me. I think that’s why I left on the train when my heart was begging me to stay.” He nodded. “You didn’t have to leave.” “I know,” she said with a half smile. “I guess I just didn’t know what would happen if I did.” “I do,” he said. Analise’s eyes searched his face. “What?” “I think it would’ve changed everything,” he said. “I think you knew that, too. That’s why you got off in Paris.” Silence. She looked at the notebook in her hands. The same notebook that brought her back to Christopher. “So, what happens now, Mr Universe?” she asked, a smile present in her voice. Christopher didn’t explain right away. He paused and studied her, trying to memorize the curve of her lips and the slow blink of her eyes, in case he lost her again. “I don’t want to be left behind like one of your unfinished sentences,” he said, eyeing the leatherback notebook in Analise’s hands. She swallowed. “I don’t want to be someone you occasionally play The Universe Bet with.” Christopher stood slowly. “So don’t be.” Analise held his gaze for a moment longer, then she stood too. “I don’t think I know how this works,” she breathed, the breath coming out more like a laugh. He gave a small, honest smile. “Me neither, Ms Stone.” A pause. Then, he nodded toward the street. “But,” he said, looking towards her and grinning, “the universe already brought us together twice.” She laughed. “That’s true.” And this time, when they left the cafe, they stayed hand in hand, unlike the two strangers beginning their fairytale in London.
