It started on a cold, rainy night in Paris. A private party — small circle, close faces, the kind of evening where music hums low and wine flows too easily. I wasn’t supposed to be there, not with my head the way it was after ending things with someone I’d tried too hard to make right.

I escaped to the balcony for air, rain misting against my skin, and that’s when I met her.

She wasn’t part of our usual circle. Leather jacket, dark eyes, glass of red in her hand, like she belonged to another story entirely. It began with something stupid — a comment about the weather, a sarcastic reply. By the third glass of whatever we were drinking, conversation turned bold. She wasn’t shy. Not about what she wanted, how she moved, how she spoke. It was effortless, and it pulled me in because it was the opposite of everything I’d been suffocating under.

Somewhere between midnight and dawn, we ended up in her apartment. The details blur — wine stains, fogged-up windows, her laugh filling the room. She was beautiful, but it was her confidence that did it for me. No hesitation. No second-guessing. She knew who she was and didn’t apologize for it.

We didn’t fall into clichés. We became friends, somehow. The kind that touch too long, share too much, sleep together sometimes because it’s easy, and nobody’s pretending it means more. It’s a kind of freedom I didn’t realize I needed.

Now it’s months later, and I’m standing outside her place again. Same jacket. Same grin.

“Come on,” I tell her when she opens the door. “Let’s get drunk and pretend we’re better than everyone else.”

And like always, she just smirks and lets me in.