The young handsome man
furrows his eyebrows upon reading the message in his cell phone. He had been
looking forward to receiving a reply from that person for a week and certainly
that cold uninterested reply was not something he had been hoping for. Granted
it had been years since his last interaction with Cathleen, but Paris had hoped
he would get some sort of enthusiasm from his first love.
After all, it had been seven
years.
Taking a deep breath, Paris locks his cell phone and places it back inside his
trench coat pocket. He slowly takes in his surroundings, the bustling city
where he spent most of his life in until he left it for Vienna seven years ago. Things have not changed that much
from the way he remembers it. The scent of freshly baked pastry, taste of Decaf
Cappuccino, and the sound of street musicians are still the same.
‘L’îsle au Chocolat’.
This quaint cafe was their their secret place
where they would meet after school seven years ago. Everything from the simple
rustic interior to the old matron waitress had not changed. Paris had always
chosen the table beside the large window overlooking the streets. He didn’t
like sweets, but he couldn’t help but order the cafe’s signature crème brûlée –
Cathleen’s favorite.
Sipping his Cappuccino, Paris stares at the
empty chair accross him and the untouched crème brûlée before him. He wonders
if she still comes here and does all this. Does she still like to wear her long
brunette locks down and does her warm smile still captivate the room whenever
she’s around?
Or has she changed?
The Cathleen he knew would never send him such a
cold message. The Cathleen he knew used to laugh at jokes even when they
weren’t really funny. The Cathleen he knew used to hold his hand and gave him an
encouraging smile right before a musical competition. The Cathleen he knew was
like a ray of light that permeated inside his dark and boring existence.
Paris sighs, his heart tortured. He had returned
for two weeks now and he had mustered all the courage left inside of him to
break the news to Cathleen a week ago. He had prepared for the worst from
Cathleen and yet her icy reply tore his insides. Maybe she has changed, she had
moved on and found a much more suitable man to be beside her – a man who would
fight for her, who wouldn’t run off to another country to selfishly chase after
his own dream.
Paris knew he didn’t deserve Cathleen seven years ago, and he knew he
doesn’t deserve Cathleen now. From what he heard, she had made a decent living
for herself as an up-and-coming executive in a Fortune 500 company. He would be
the last thing she need right now. He would only be in her way, which was fair
considering she had felt like she was in his way seven years ago. It wasn’t
fair for him to wish that her feelings had not changed for seven years, even if
his feelings for her had remained the same.
Paris empties the other pocket from his trench coat and pulled out a small
velvet box. He opens it gently and is greeted by the familiar sight of an
elegant ring with a sparkling round diamond on top. He bought it on his first
day in Vienna seven years ago and he had always known who he would give the
ring to. Hopefully tomorrow when he meets her, he would let her know that.
------
It’s midnight and the lights are still on inside the third young master’s
bedroom of the Pelletier household. The sight was normal among the household
staff, for it was a known fact that compared to his siblings, Alain Pelletier
had always been the most hard-working. It was almost a cruel fact that he was
born third, after two heirs had been pronounced to inherit the most of the family’s
fortune. The eldest Pelletier son was a brilliant yet broken man after the
death of his wife three years ago. The second eldest was a loser – a timid man
with a kind heart that gets deceived in numerous occassions and has no
knowledge whatsoever that his trophy wife is cheating behind his back.
But tonight Alain was not burning the midnight oil to clean up his
brothers’ mess to make them look good like he always did. Tonight he has a far
more personal agenda and he couldn’t care less for his family financial feud.
In fact, he was looking at a familiar brunette’s picture displayed in his
tablet PC. In the picture she was smiling exuberantly behind a large window of
a small cafe. A young handsome man was sitting in front of her, smiling in the
picture and holding her hands like they belonged in his.
The picture is dated seven years ago, and it had been in Alain’s possession
for that period of time as well. Along with some more recent pictures of the
same young brunette woman sitting all alone behind the same large windown of
the same small cafe, with a lost expression carved in her beautiful face.
Beside Alain are a few crushed paper fliers of a violin concert dating
tomorrow. Some of the fliers that had not been properly crushed displayed a
face of a young man whose name Alain had loathed for the past seven years, for
that man took that woman’s heart seven years ago and has not returned it to
this day.
Paris.
