Cafe

She stood under the clock tower watching as it toll out the hour. Eight rings, as clear as day. In her hands, she grasped the picture of her beloved, or her ex as he was now. She shivered in her dress, a light sky-blue silk bridesmaid dress she wore for her sister's wedding. She had felt the urge to walk out as she could no longer stand to see her sister beside the man they both had loved so dearly, only it was her sister who was the one he proposed to. Love can be so unfair, she thought as she turned her face up to the evening sky, watching as the leaves fell from the trees, signalling the end of the summer season. The sky began to melt into the lovely blue, purple and orange colours of dusk. A silent teardrop rolled down her fair face as she closed her eyes. Happy birthday to me, she thought to herself as she thought about the neglect she had been shown on her special day. Overshadowed by her older, more beautiful sister, she was always cast in the dark and never noticed. The tears fell more freely now. Her twenty-first birthday had come and was just hours short of being over; there was nothing else she could do to gain the day back.

                She felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. A little startled, she quickly wiped the tears from her face before she turned around. A boy, tall and Asian, with dark sandy hair blown into disarray by the wind, was looking down at her with concern.

                "Are you okay miss?" he asked her in an English accent, holding out a tissue for her. He had been watching this beautiful young woman from afar for the past few minutes and could not help but approach her with concern when he saw that she was crying.

                "Oh, yes. I'm sorry, just a little over-thinking" she replied in a shaky voice. She took the tissue with a small smile of thanks and dabbed her eyes to prevent her makeup from running.

                "Well...you look very upset. Do you want to talk about it?" he asked. She looked up at him in surprise. A stranger was being so kind to her.

                "I...well. I should get going soon. But, talking would be nice for a few minutes" she said aloud as she thought to herself.

                "Well then, let's go somewhere warmer" he said with a beautiful wide smile that made her insides flip over. "But first, are you sure you don't need to be anywhere important right now...?" He looked her over and noticed for the first time what she was wearing.

                "Oh! No, no it's fine. No one will miss me anyway." She thought back to the many bridesmaids her sister had picked out for her extravagant wedding and knew nobody would notice one missing.

                "Come, there's a cafe that's open for a few more hours across the street. We can warm up there" he said as he turned towards the direction of the cafe and led the way. He didn’t want her to see the pity that showed on his face at her response. He peeked back at the girl and watched as she followed with a small, sad smile on her face.

                This woman looks like she's been in so much pain, he thought as his heart beat a little faster at the thought of this stranger being upset. He couldn't explain it but somehow he felt like he had a connection to this sad girl. Perhaps it was because he had been through enough secrets and tears in his past to be able to connect emotionally.

                They silently walked to the cafe and entered to the smell of coffee and the quiet chatter of the few customers who appreciated the design of the authentic French style and decor of the shop. The young man led the two of them to a booth by the window where they sat comfortably in the dark red plush seats.

                "Penny for your thoughts?" he asked after she had given her order to their waitress and settled in.

                She took a short moment to gather herself. It did not take her long, she often hid her emotions inside her mind and no one was ever the wiser.

                "Have you ever felt like you were a shadow? I mean...always wandering after the one person you are bound to for life and you can never escape? Like, you have to do everything they do, only more so to impress. There's nothing you can do except go along with it because if you don't you'll be lost and there's no choice but to silently be forced to act as the puppet." She struggled to say the right words, locking her fingers together and furrowing her brows in concentration as she stared down at her hands. She looked up to him, her face full of grief.

                "Are we talking about a family member here? An older sibling perhaps...?" he probed, watching as she went to a faraway memory in her mind. She nodded.

                "Can I trust you? You're just a stranger, a man whom I've never met in my life. Why tell you my secrets?" She asked him, wondering why she felt so much trust for this man.

                "That's the thing about telling your secret to a stranger. You don't know what kind of person they are but the one thing that you do know is that they can't judge you. I don't know anything about you except for the fact that you're sad and lonely. You need someone to talk to and I'm the best you've got for now." He said gently. "You don't have to tell me anything. We can start as friends if you'd like. There's no need to reveal secrets! Let's just put aside our sadness for now"

                "I'd like that," she said with a smile.

                "Good. My name is Marlin. I'm twenty five; I'm in Paris because my friends and I are spending a few months here on vacation. I'm here for another two weeks before I go back home to England where I grew up all my life. I don't know what I'm doing with my life career-wise so I'm just going with the flow" he said cheerfully as the waitress brought two cups of coffee to their table. Marlin flashed a smile of thanks to the waitress and gestured for his companion to begin.

                "Marlin," she softly repeated his name. She could already feel her mood lifting in his presence. She took a sip of her coffee.

                "I'm Brooke. I'm in Paris on my co-op term studying fashion. I'm a Canadian, from Ottawa. I go back home in about a month but I have been here a lot over the past year so it's as if Paris is my home and Canada is where I go for vacation. My older sister got married today hence the reason for my outfit right now" she smiled, catching him steal a glance down at her dress.

                "So you're an aspiring fashion designer? Seems like Paris is the perfect place for you to be"

                "Yeah, I guess. But, right now I just really want to get away" Brooke said as she poured more cream into her coffee and watched as it slowly turned into a light ocher brown.

                "You're going back to that sad place again" he said gently as he probed her with his eyes, wondering what on earth this woman has been through.

                "I'm sorry. I just...I love Paris. For the past year it was the place where I can be myself. Be away from everyone and everything and just focus on my designing. But now that my sister's here everything is changing. She's having her honeymoon here. A honeymoon that's going to last for four weeks"

                "I see. You're the shadow of your older sister" Marlin caught on. "Let me guess.  She's an overachiever. Straight A student, lawyer, getting married to a rich business man."

                "Almost. She's a doctor and her new husband is a young waiter from a steakhouse back in Ottawa."

                Marlin raised his eyebrows at the last part. "A young waiter? How young are we talking?"

                "He's twenty two. My sister is twenty nine."

                "You're kidding! Your parents...?"

                "My father passed away when I was ten. My mother raised the two of us by herself ever since then and this is the one thing that she doesn't approve of from my sister. When Cami, my sister, threatened to run away and elope with him she had no choice but to support them. Avoiding a scandal, you know?"

                Brooke slowly drank her coffee and looked up to his kind expression.

                "So your older sister is marrying a waiter and they're having the wedding and honeymoon in Paris."

                "Yeah it's a little crazy considering his paycheck is hardly much. My mother and sister are paying for the entire wedding. His parents are contributing for the honeymoon. Of course Cami wanted a perfect wedding and Paris being the city of love..." she trailed off letting the obvious words hang in the air.

                "Makes sense," Marlin nodded. "Perfect place for a honeymoon too. Where are you working right now?"

                "I'm at the University of Paris, working with the professors on their new fashion program. It's a great program, new last year when I came to Paris"

                "So you're a fashion designer and a teacher's assistant as well" Marlin observed. He saw the light in her eyes when she spoke about fashion. She smiled in affirmation at him.

                "I love to teach. If I wasn't into fashion, I would have gone to teachers college. But of course my mother wouldn't have me living on a teacher's pay so she pushed me to pursue something bigger. I'm glad she did because I love what I'm doing right now. "

                "Seems like your mother is a big part of your life"
                "You have no idea. She is so big on family reputation and she's always...striving to make our public image look good. Having this wedding here in Paris is also supposed to hide the fact that Cami is marrying a waiter who's seven years younger than her. Of course most of the guests know already but who's going to bring it up when the wedding is probably the most beautiful and extravagant event they've ever been to."

                "Ahh, good point, wouldn't want to be the one who starts a commotion at a wedding"

                Brooke nodded and looked down at her coffee again.

                "Tell me Brooke. What happened at your sister's wedding? What happened that made you so sad?" He asked her gently, not wanting to come across as chastising her for skipping her sister's big day.

                As she took a sip of her coffee, she looked out the window and went to a faraway place, on the other side of the world. Her memories came flooding back when Marlin asked her why she didn't stay for Cami's wedding.

                "It all started with a letter..." she began her story, staring out at the dusky streets of Paris...