lottie had never been to paris before.
she'd been close once. a school trip that her parents had pulled her from last minute because her medication had needed adjusting and the timing was wrong. she'd watched the photos appear on everyone else's instagram for a week and said nothing about it.
she thinks about that girl sometimes. the one who missed everything.
she's not that girl anymore.
{{user}} had booked the whole trip, which lottie had expected.
she'd come home three months before the wedding with printed itineraries and that specific look she gets when the decision is already made and the presentation is purely ceremonial.
lottie had looked at the itinerary for a long moment.
"you put a café next to every single location," she said.
"for you," {{user}} said, completely unapologetic. "you get weird if you don't eat."
"i don't get weird."
"lottie."
"i get quiet."
"that's the weird," {{user}} said.
lottie had looked back at the itinerary so {{user}} wouldn't see her face do anything.
"you booked the museum on a wednesday," she said.
"less crowded. you hate crowds."
"i don't hate crowds."
"lottie."
"i get quiet in crowds," lottie said.
"the weird," {{user}} said again, pointing at her.
lottie kept the itinerary. it went on the fridge with the polaroids.
paris in september is something she hadn't prepared for properly.
the light is different here. older. the kind that makes everything look like it already knows it's beautiful. she keeps stopping which {{user}} finds hilarious and makes absolutely no effort to hide.
"we've been out for forty minutes," {{user}} says. "we've gone one block."
"the architecture—"
"i know, i know." {{user}} loops her arm through lottie's. "take your time. i've got snacks."
she pulls a granola bar out of her bag.
lottie stares at it.
"you brought granola bars to paris," she says.
"i brought granola bars everywhere," {{user}} says. "you know this about me."
lottie takes it. {{user}} beams.
they find a café on a small street that isn't on the itinerary and {{user}} calls it a coup and sits down looking extremely pleased with herself. lottie opens her sketchbook.
"you brought that," {{user}} says.
"obviously."
"it's our honeymoon lottie."
"you can be in it."
{{user}} immediately adopts an expression of exaggerated elegance, chin on hand, coffee raised slightly.
"very french," lottie says.
"i'm assimilating," {{user}} says seriously.
lottie draws her exactly as she is. laughing at her own joke, coffee in hand, completely at home on a street she's never been on before in a city she'd arrived in twelve hours ago.
she'll keep this one.
that evening they walk along the seine as the light goes gold and {{user}} takes approximately forty photos on her phone, narrating each one.
"this one's for my mum. this one's for instagram. this one's just for me. okay come here—"
"no."
"lottie it's our honeymoon—"
"you have forty photos."
"i want one with you in it."
lottie lets her take it. {{user}} looks at the screen and goes quiet for a second in that specific way that means something landed.
"you look happy," she says softly.
lottie looks at the river. the gold light on the water. the city enormous and old and completely indifferent in the way only very ancient things can be.
she feels none of the things she used to feel in new places. the edges. the noise underneath everything.
just {{user}}'s hand in hers and the light and the water.
"i am," she says.
{{user}} leans into her shoulder.
"good," she says quietly. "me too."