Minka appears on the verge of tears as she helps me lug my two suitcases and carry-on bag out of the trunk of her car. We drop them onto the pavement, and I sling my purse across my body so my hands are free. But as soon as Minka and I turn to face each other, we burst into tears.
“You better call me every night, or I’ll go to Paris and hunt you down,” she says, wiping her face. “And that shit will be easy. All I’ll have to do is show everyone a picture of that ass, and they’ll lead me straight to you.”
I let out a congested laugh. “I’m gonna miss our ride-alongs so much.”
She shakes her head. “Hopefully Eric will get that promotion next week, so I can say goodbye to my Lyft-driving days for good.” She laughs when she realizes I’m too choked up to respond. “But you better never say goodbye to me for good. You better come back when this internship is over. Don’t make me come over there and kidnap your ass.”
I smile despite the bleak thoughts racing through my mind. “I’ll be back. I promise.”
After a hug that lasts way too long, eliciting many angry horn blasts from the line of cars piling up behind us, I finally trudge into the terminal. Pulling up the digital ticket on my phone, I quickly check my luggage then make my way to the security line. I consider taking out my makeup bag to clean up any damage caused by that emotional farewell, but I decide against it. I’m not picking up any guys at the airport.
When I’m past the security checkpoint, I find an empty corner at Gate B26 and sink into a seat, propping my feet up on my carry-on. Putting on my noise-canceling headphones, I open my DuoLingo app to continue my French language lessons. With the headphones on, I can’t really hear the words as I whisper them aloud, but I can feel them in the shape of my mouth and tongue.
I’ve only been studying a few minutes, when I realize I’m no longer paying attention to the app. My mind has been overtaken with thoughts of Minka and how much I’ll miss her. And how awful I feel for making her think I’m definitely coming back to New York after the internship.
The truth is that the purpose of the internship is to secure me a position with either Le Cordon Bleu or the partner who is sponsoring me. In my case, I’m being sponsored by Lazare Brasseries, a French eatery who is counting on the possibility I will choose to work with them after my internship is over.
One third of my internship hours will be spent working at the brasseries and the other two-thirds will be spent at Le Cordon Bleu. In exchange for my labor and creative contributions, Lazare pays my stipend and any room and board expenses. I managed to negotiate a raise in my stipend from 600 Euros per month to 1200, but the compromise was that I have to start the internship in June rather than August.
I know I should feel happy that the executive chef at Lazare is so excited to work with me. And I should be grateful that, unless something goes horribly wrong, I’m pretty much guaranteed my choice between a sous chef position at Lazare or an assistant instructor position at Le Cordon Bleu. But neither of those options end with me returning to New York to be with Minka and my family.
Or Ethan.
I wince at the thought of him. Just imagining his gorgeous face fills me with an unbearable physical longing, which the French refer to as la douleur exquise. The exquisite pain. There’s nothing exquisite about alternating between nausea, crying jags, and numb indifference.
The fact that Ethan has made zero attempts to contact me over the last few weeks only solidifies my resolve to leave New York. He and Edward can have it. I’m tired of fighting to survive in a place I once considered home.
Exiting my DuoLingo app, I open Spotify and turn up the volume as I tap on the going-away playlist Minka made for me. I scroll past the more upbeat songs and put on “Je Rêverai à Toi” by Kate Bollinger. But the longer I listen, the more I realize the lyrics are about a person who’s dreaming about someone who left them.
I tap the skip button and I sigh as the song changes to “my future” by Billie Eilish. Hitting the button again, I land on “A Soulmate Who Wasn’t Meant to Be” by Jess Benko. This time I don’t skip the song, but only because my hands are too busy wiping tears.
Jess Benko sings about looking at their soulmate who wasn’t meant to be and seeing a stranger, and I lean forward to hold my wet face in my hands. As I try to conceal my emotional breakdown from my fellow passengers, my heart leaps into my throat as I spy a pair of familiar sneakers through the spaces between my fingers.
Ethan kneels before me as I raise my head to look up at him. “Hey, love,” he says softly, his voice tender, his eyes full of trepidatious hope. “You going somewhere?”
I shrug as I’m instantly overcome with guilt at his reference to the internship I kept hidden from him. “What are you doing here?” I whisper.
I don’t want to assume I know his intentions, but my heart is beating out of my chest, spurred on by the same hope I think I see in his eyes.
He takes my hand in his and my stomach flutters at the sensation of his warm skin on mine. “What I should have done the moment you walked into Forked. I’m offering you a job…as executive
