The morning of Amara's departure arrived on swift, traitorous feet, the way all endings do. Paris was swaddled in an early-morning fog, the city's famed rooftops rendered soft and impressionistic as though Monet himself had painted the skyline just for her. Amara had never been one for poetic goodbyes she preferred a sharp exit, a quip, a laugh, and a door shut behind her. But with Elara at her side, suddenly, the romance of leaving felt heartbreakingly real.
They shared one last, slow breakfast at the hotel a table cluttered with croissant flakes, two cooling cafés crèmes, and the single red rose Amara had rescued from the detritus of last night's laughter. Elara wore Amara's dress shirt over her pajamas, looking both impossibly glamorous and delightfully rumpled.
Amara, who'd once thought herself immune to sentimentality, found her throat tightening as Elara buttered a third croissant and handed it over without comment, as if croissants could hold the world together.
