I hadn't noticed her sitting by the window with the fancy frame. I didn't understand the relationship David and I supposedly had at that moment. Was he just set on doing nice things for me, like his father, or did he actually care?

"What did he say?"

"He said they are all going to Notre Dame for a walk. He wanted to know if you will join them."

Who did "all" include? Was Luke going to hang out with the rest of us? I walked to the bathroom, and supported myself on the white marble countertop. There was a vase with white tulips on it, and an assortment of small white bottles on a crystal self in front of me; they contained soap, moisturizer, exfoliating gel, and perfume, and were all signed by Dior. To my right, on top of the white marble bath, there were more bottles that looked similar.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I definitely had a better aspect after sleeping for a while. I had grown so used to seeing my eyes puffed and surrounded by dark circles, that they looked surprisingly light. I turned to the augmentation mirror, and remembered I had to put on the dark contacts.

I used every Dior bottle in the bathroom, and genuinely enjoyed myself. Luxury was overrated, but it was always pleasurable. After I got out of the bath, not only my eyes, but my mood was lighter too.

David was waiting for me having a cup of tea in the lounge next to the garden restaurant. There were white columns on both sides, and the roof was arched. Crystal chandeliers hung from it every few meters.

He noticed me, and subtly raised his chin to greet me. I could tell he was not in a very friendly mood. He probably hadn't showered yet.

"Hey. Where are the others?"

"They left the hotel early, so they're meeting us there." he answered, without looking at me in the eye.

"All of them?"

I didn't want to ask about Luke directly, and I wasn't even sure of why I was so interested in his whereabouts.

"No, Luke's not coming. He said he's exhausted."

We walked down Avenue Montaigne, passing endless designer shops and limousines, until we arrived at the point where it converged with Avenue des Champs Élysées. I turned around, and found the Arc de Triomphe.

"This avenue is as wide as it appears on the Lindt chocolate box." I said, and I smiled at the lack of seriousness of the remark.

David smiled too, and the light that gesture irradiated made me feel closer to him immediately. We hadn't talked since we had left the hotel, and I had been wondering why he had invited me along until that smile. One of the things I loved most about him was that his expressions were always sincere. I knew he was smiling truthfully, so I relaxed straight away.

"I'm sorry for not having helped you yesterday." he said, and walked closer to me.

We resumed our stroll through Avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt, towards the Seine. A majestic sandstone building, decorated with statues and high columns, was on our left, and, looking at my map, I deduced it was the Grand Palais. There were trees on both sides of the street. The buildings on our right side were white and not very high, and there was a black iron, Parisian balcony on almost every window. This avenue was not as wide as Champs Élysées, but it was still ampler than many streets in London, and the sunlight glistened on the blossoming leaves of the trees, and made us frown.

"I went to London, too." he confessed.

"What? Why?"

He shook his head, and I understood he wanted to let me know he hadn't made that trip to take care of me, which had been my first guess. I was half relieved and half disappointed.

"I wanted to talk to my father. After everything that had happened, I became worried... I don't know... I believed mum was going to use him to get to me, and then me to get to you."

"Why would she do that? She's your mother, David, even if she made some really bad choices."

We were walking very close together, only inches apart from each other, and I already felt that the atmosphere among us had changed completely. We were back to being who we were before the night of the treatment.

"I know... And maybe I didn't even believe that, but I was still worried... And I found out that she had called dad and told him they were coming to Oxford, and added she was going too, just to have an inside into everything."

"Wow, that's unexpectedly nice and brave, huh?"

We arrived at the river, and started crossing to the other side through Pont des Invalides. I looked to my left, and recognized the Alexander III Bridge and its golden statues from an episode of Gossip Girl. The Seine was full of ships transporting tourists that pointed to the riverbanks, and took pictures continuously.

"I don't know... Call me skeptical, but I can't believe she would do anything nice for me, for us. And there was something weird."

"What?"

"I told you, I'm very skeptical now. After my dad went to sleep, I checked the location tracker of the phone, and she was already in Oxford when she made the call."

"And did she specifically say she was going to go there? Did she lie?"

David nodded. I frowned again, and the sun was not the main cause that time.

"I know, it's weird." he said.

The Orsay museum appeared on our right. The big clocks on its façade made it clear that it had been a train station long before it became a museum. I longed to put on a cape, do my hair up, walk through its doors, and be transported into that era. They knew less back then, so they didn't have the responsibility of doing anything remarkable. They just couldn't. They had fewer thrills, so every little thing that happened was more exiting. Every memory of stolen kisses smelled like a blurry cloud of cigarette smoke. Love was platonic and eternal, passions didn't fade out.

"Let's not think about it; we're in Paris now."

That comment was so unlike me those days that David chuckled, and I laughed too. We were both unable to let go for more than a couple of minutes. The quick turns and twists of reality pressurized us too much. That was another reason why I wanted to go back to the eighteenth century: time went by much slower then.

I started to make out the towers of the Notre Dame cathedral.

"Let's forget about everything for a couple of hours... just until tomorrow."

His eyes were reluctant and sizzling in equal parts. I wanted to be even closer to them, I wanted him to kiss me like he had before his treatment, forcefully, meaningfully. But I knew he wasn't going to. He smiled, but it was a sad grin; he couldn't really believe we could feel young again. The night of the Bridge, we were also suffocated, but we still hadn't hurt each other, and we had found the hope we needed by looking into one another's ardent eyes. But now, there wasn't just the two of us; Luke was back, and there was Alex too - or was she? -.

We could no longer grab the innocence we searched for by grabbing each other.

As we approached the île de la Cité, stalls selling second-hand books and watercolours filled the sides of the Seine. A man with white hair painted the Pont Neuf from its edge, sitting on an old stool. Young girls peering through the pilled books wore midi skirts and flowery head scarfs.

Alex was the first one I saw. She was munching on a crêpe, sitting on a stairway that led to the river. Africa was a couple of stairs lower, pointing at something and laughing. Lindsay was laughing too. They looked so different there, mixed with the beige colours and classical elegance of Paris. Lindsay's hair was the same shade that the golden light of the falling sun projected on the sandstone buildings. The relaxed looks on their faces made it seem like a long time had gone by, like they were happy, free souls reminiscing a dark episode from another time and making jokes about it.

"Comment ça va?" Lindsay asked when we arrived, completely failing to imitate the French accent.

We all laughed.

"It's so strange... Are people here oblivious to everything that's happening? Are they conscious of the time we are living?" I said.

The relaxed atmosphere that surrounded them faded away.

Great. Even if I had just been talking about letting go for a while, I had managed to push off the only glimpses of calm that had come to us in the last week.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to... Bring it up."

Alex took another bite of her crêpe.

"It's alright, Tess. We all have a hard time trying not to think."

"But we are in Paris now!" Lindsay exclaimed, lifting her arms in the air and swirling around.

"We are not just in Paris, we are at the very heart of the City of Light; we have the Eiffel Tower on our rooms, for God's sake!" I pointed out.

"Oh, please, let's just not talk about the ten-thousand-pounds a night hotel... My mood was just starting to lift." Africa said.

David opened his mouth to defend his father's choice, but Africa cut him.

"Sorry, David."

"No, sorry, Africa." Alex said, as she ate the last piece of her crêpe. "The hotel is fabulous, David."

He smiled, and my stomach hurt when the thought of both of them sharing a hotel room crossed my mind.

"And I heard it has a spa." Alex continued, without stopping to look at David. "And this crêpe is even better than those at the Breton Creperie in Oxford. God, I love being on holiday."

Everyone laughed, and I did too, but jealousy didn't let me completely enjoy the sound of it; the optimism of the moment. The sky turned completely orange, and Alex and David went down the stairs to the river to take some pictures. David took them with his iPhone, instead of using a vintage camera, but, even so, he merged with the river, and the darkening shadows, and the bateaus... Consummately.

"He is pretty hot." Lindsay said, as if responding to my thoughts.

"I know... And I messed up. I pushed him off." I shook my head, and turned my head from the river, and Alex's giggles, to my sister. "I pushed him off, and then I realized he is... He could be... My soulmate, if that even exists. Why am I always late?"

Lindsay sighed. She knew where my thoughts had drifted to.

"You weren't late for Nora, Tess. You were early now. She inspired you, and you achieved something no human was supposed to accomplish. If you want to get her into this, think about how you probably never would have done it if it hadn't been for her."

"But then... I was late for Danny too. I am still being late for a lot of people."

She didn't say anything to that. She couldn't. It was the truth. Alex and David were still by the river. He took her in his arms, and threatened to throw her into the water. She laughed. I understood that he was looking for someone simpler. Someone healthier. Someone happy.

"Hey, they are playing some street music over there, want to come?" Africa said.

We walked to a small square, and sat down on a terrace of one of the many cafés to listen to the music. There was a red sunshade over the tables, and the chairs were made of rattan. It surprised me that they were positioned towards the street, instead of towards the tables. I guessed it resembled people's attitude in that beautiful city. They probably looked less into themselves, and more towards the alluring secrets that the streets guarded. It was the city of passionate love, after all. Nobody would fall in love by continuously visiting their innermost fears, instead of facing outside.

"Oh my God, it's the Beatles! I can't believe we fled from England and are listening to the most British group ever." Alex said, as she and David joined us.

They sat down, and she held his hand. A lump formed in my throat. Lindsay noticed, and she started to sing to the lyrics to distract me.

"Something in the way she moves... Attracts me like no other lover... Something in the way she woos me..."

I looked at her sarcastically, as if to say that she couldn't have picked a song that sounded more familiar at that very moment. And then it struck me. It did sound familiar. It was strange, because I had never actually listened to The Beatles, but I felt like I had paid attention to those lyrics before. It bothered me.

"I... I think I might have heard this song these past few days."

"Of course you have." Africa answered. "It's one of the most famous songs by The Beatles."

"No, but... I mean... It's something else..."

"What is it, Tess?" David asked, worried, and he let go of Alex's hand.

I smiled, and then blushed intensely. I hoped he hadn't noticed that I had grinned at them setting free.

"It's nothing." I shrugged. "It's just overly familiar."

Africa and Alex were looking at me like I had definitely gone completely crazy. Lindsay was trying to read my mind forcefully.

"You know what?" Alex said, getting up. "I think that's enough tourism for today. Our ten-thousand-pound beds await us."

She was really enjoying her time. I had never seen her so cheery, so childish, and I knew it had more to do with David than with being overwhelmed by luxury.

David insisted we should take taxis to the hotel instead of using the metro, so we arrived in less than ten minutes. The window of the taxi was like a television that showed a beautiful film that I still hadn't figured out how to be a part of.

Mum and dad were sound asleep when Lindsay and I entered the suite, and she said she was going to go to be as well. I felt much more rested than usually after my earlier nap, so I decided to go to the spa that Alex had talked about.

What did you think of this chapter? Is "Something" familiar to you as well? Do you think that David might be falling for Alex? There's only seven chapters left until the end of the novel... What do you expect? I will upload the following two chapters tomorrow, at 12h30 and 21h30 UK-time! :)

The first chapter of the sequel, which will be titled "If I live forever, can I live now?" will be up on September 15th.

I also wanted to let you know that I opened an Instagram account, in which I will post pictures related to the book series, quotes... Follow me https: //www.instagram.com/seasidewhispers/  and let me know what you think! :)

You can contact me at: [email protected]