“Lady Penelope, when have I ever let you down? You can trust me.”
And, of course, Elliot is right: he’s never let me down. I feel so relieved at the thought of going home that I don’t even care if it means having to get the train on my own. Tomorrow, I can be asleep in my own bed.
“I love you, Elliot.”
“I love you too, Penny. Remember: nine thirty tomorrow morning, Gare du Nord. Write it down. There are eight major train stations in Paris, and I don’t want you going to the wrong one!”
“I’ve got it, Wiki,” I say, trying to sound more confident than I feel. But Elliot has succeeded where I thought no one could: my spirits have lifted just a tiny bit. At least now I have a plan: I’m going home.
Chapter Forty-Two
By the time I manage to crawl into bed, it’s gone 4 a.m. The four hours of fitful sleep I have are barely enough to reduce the bags under my eyes, which are the size of small balloons.
Even though I’m excited about going home, I can’t help but keep checking my phone, desperately wishing for a text from Noah to pop up, telling me he was wrong to assume I was lying and that he doesn’t want us to split up. But there’s nothing.
I rush around my room, quickly tossing all my belongings into my suitcase. My stomach clenches when I remember I left my bag with my camera in it somewhere outside Blake’s room—but I can’t worry about that now. I’ll ask down at reception if anyone has handed it in. According to my phone, it will only take ten minutes to get to Gare du Nord in a taxi, so I have a little bit of time.
I sit back down on the bed and tear a piece of paper from a notepad. I’ve never written a goodbye letter before, and I never expected I would have to write one to Noah. I don’t quite know where or how to start. I scribble down my thoughts numerous times, but everything I write sounds wrong. I scrunch up the rejected letters and toss them towards the bin (which I had cleaned out to avoid the room smelling bad all evening).
Finally, I feel happy with what I’ve written.
Noah,
I don’t really know where to begin. There are a lot of things I want to say, but all I need to say is that I’ve gone home.
I’m sorry that all this happened, but I feel like I’m in your way here. Hopefully now you can experience everything that fame has to offer, and you won’t have me dragging you down.
I can’t hide that I’m hurt and upset. I put everything I had into this relationship, and you threw it all back in my face. I’m hoping one day you’ll realize I never lied to you and that all I wanted was to make you happy.
You’ll always be my Inciting Incident, but maybe Inciting Incidents always lead to The End?
Penny x
PS Please don’t contact me. I need some time to clear my head.
I place the letter next to my phone, which I check one more time. There’s still nothing from Noah. I probably don’t need to tell him not to contact me; he most likely doesn’t intend to anyway.
I do one last check of the hotel room, then drag my suitcase out into the hallway. It’s more than a little bit of a struggle—this is the first time I’ve had to move my suitcase myself, without anyone to help me, and I’ve collected a lot of souvenirs to take home, including at least twenty miniature bottles of shampoo and body lotion from all the hotels.
When I get down to the lobby, I hear my name. “Penny?”
In that split second my heart leaps, thinking that it might be Noah. Maybe he’s going to apologize? I turn and see a shiny, bald head and a cheery smile.
“Larry!” I smile at him and hope that my sunglasses are doing a good job of hiding my puffy eyes.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I thought you might want this back.” He hands me my bag, with my camera still inside. I can’t help it: I throw my arms round his waist. Larry seems to be the only person on this tour who has always looked out for me. My head barely reaches his chin, and he chuckles.
“Thanks, Larry,” I say, sniffling, and eventually I let him go.
“Glad I caught you! But where are you off to, miss? Would you like a hand with that?” He takes the suitcase off me and carries it out to the front of the hotel.
“Actually . . . I’m going home.” I look down the road, searching for anything that remotely resembles a taxi I can flag down to take me to the station.
He frowns. “But—”
“Please don’t ask, Larry.” I can feel my bottom lip starting to tremble, but I refuse to cry; I’ve done enough of that. I pray for a taxi to come. One seems to be free, but it whips past me and stops at the feet of an effortlessly glamorous woman carrying a poodle. Looking down at my button-up shirt and black leggings, I’m frustrated. I didn’t realize you had to look chic in Paris just for the taxis to stop for you.
“Does Noah know?” Larry asks gently.
“Of course he does,” I say. It’s not a complete lie—he’ll know as soon as he sees the letter.
“Well, then he wouldn’t want you to go to the station on your own. At least let me drive you.”
He might not care what happens to me, I think, but I know I’m being petty. And a ride wouldn’t hurt. Larry gestures towards the blacked-out Mercedes sitting just along from us and I look back at the traffic on the road.
“OK. Thanks, Larry.” It’s enough that I’ve just broken up with my boyfriend; the last thing I need is to get lost in Paris with a heavy suitcase in tow. “I appreciate it.”
Larry is kind enough to just make small talk in the car, telling me all about the trip he took to Notre Dame yesterday. Once we arrive at the station, Larry helps me with my suitcase and wishes me luck, and I thank him for everything he has done for me on the tour.
“You’re welcome, Penny. And don’t worry—Noah will come back to his senses,” he says with a friendly wink.
I smile weakly and nod. Then I spin round and face the imposing entrance to the station. I take a deep breath and walk in as confidently as I can.
Once I’m inside, I let the facade drop. I also realize that I’m not entirely sure what I have to do. In hindsight, I should have asked Elliot for a little more detail, but at 4 a.m., after one of the worst nights of my life, I wasn’t exactly asking the right questions. All Elliot said was that I had to be here for 9:30 a.m. I look up at the departures board and see there isn’t a train leaving for London until 11:30 a.m. Maybe Elliot wanted to give me plenty of time? I start looking around for any signs that may have my name on them, with no luck.
Breathe, Penny, I tell myself. What would Wiki do? I try to put on my most sensible, logical head—which is difficult, because that part of my brain seems to be lurking underneath a cloud of emotional fog.
“Excusez-moi ?” I stare at the small woman in the glass-fronted ticket booth and she smiles at me politely. She has a petite face and her eyes are framed with round glasses. She has overdrawn her red lipstick. “Parlez-vous anglais?” I ask, hoping I’m not mangling my French too much. When she nods at me, I smile with relief. “I need to get to England. My name is Penny Porter. I don’t suppose you have a ticket for me?”
The lady looks at me with slight confusion on her face. “Pardon? My English is not very good. You have a reservation?”
“Yes! Maybe?” I hand over my passport. She smiles as she turns to her computer and starts tapping away.
She frowns. “I do not see anything here for you.”
“No, sorry. I think my friend may have booked me a ticket. Elliot Wentworth?” I realize how dramatically I’m using my hands to express myself and I turn tomato red. Clearly this lady will not understand who Elliot is based on hand gestures.
“Mademoiselle? You need a new ticket?” She points at her computer and then to a train, smiling like she’s just won the lottery.
I smile back at her just as sweetly and shake my head. “Never mind. It’s OK. Thank you. Merci.”
I lug my bright pink suitcase back over to the departure boards. What on earth am I thinking, trying to make my own way home? It does
n’t matter that Elliot has somehow arranged plans for me; I am clearly an absolute liability, an accident waiting to happen. I sit down on my suitcase and call Elliot to ask what exactly I’m supposed to be doing, but his phone goes through to voicemail. I mutter at the screen. “Not now, Elliot, you complete and utter—”
“Pen-face! You’re here!”
I spin round and see Elliot standing there in his checked trousers and red loafers. His brown hair is styled to perfection and his crisp white shirt and black bow tie look perfect with his tortoise shell-rimmed glasses. I run at him and jump up, wrapping my legs round his waist in an elaborate movie-style hug.
“OK, calm down! This isn’t Dirty Dancing ! I’m not built for this type of affection,” Elliot says.
He drops me and I just about land on my feet.
“Sorry, but I’m so excited to see you! Are you really here? Was this your plan all along?”
“Yes. I considered bringing you home for about a millisecond, then I thought, We’re going to be heartbroken, sad losers. Do I want to be a sad loser in my bedroom in Brighton? Or a sad loser in Paris? New York pulled you out of a slump, so I thought maybe Paris could do the same for me. It felt like fate: I had days off from CHIC; I used the credit card that Dad gave me for emergencies to buy the tickets; and I had just enough time to head to London to get the Eurostar this morning. I’ve had NO sleep. I need a shower though, because I feel so gross.”
“Elliot, you’re the best. What’s the plan?”
“I have a hotel booked in the fifteenth arrondissement.”
I love Elliot so much! “What’s that?” I ask.
“It’s an area of Paris—did you know there are twenty arrondissements in Paris in total?” Elliot takes my arm and we walk out to find a taxi.
Even though sadness hovers over me like a rain cloud, it’s as though a few of the grey clouds have parted slightly and this big beautiful rainbow has appeared to take away some of the gloom. I feel so different now I have Elliot with me.
“I did not know that! Elliot, you look amazing considering you’ve had no sleep. You should see my eyes under these sunglasses.”
He pulls up my glasses and peers at me with a look of concern on his face. “What designer are they?” he asks, still looking.
“The sunglasses? Oh, they’re not designer. I bought them at Topshop two years ago.”
He laughs as he puts the sunglasses back over my eyes. “No, the bags, daaaahling.” Elliot bursts into a cackle of laughter and drags me over to a taxi. I muster up a little giggle as I jump into the car next to him.
The taxi begins to pull away from the station when I spot a head of messy brown hair and a familiar silhouette. I can’t work out if it’s shock or undeniable delight that pulses through my body. Noah’s come for me.
“Stop the taxi!” I shout.
Chapter Forty-Three
Except it’s not Noah. When the guy turns round, he doesn’t look anything like Noah. It’s just my desperate imagination playing tricks on me.
The taxi driver harrumphs as I slump down into my seat, and Elliot pats my hand gently.
Thankfully, the ride isn’t too long, but when we pull up outside the hotel that Elliot’s booked I can’t help but be dubious. It’s a far cry from the hotels I’ve been staying in on tour—the exterior is shabby and the walls are covered in graffiti.
Elliot shrugs. “It’s all I could find at the last minute. It has a good rating on TripAdvisor though!”
I squeeze Elliot’s hand and we walk into the hotel. Just the fact that he’s here is something no amount of money could ever buy, and I’d be happy to stay in a cardboard box as long as we are together.
Even though it’s early, the receptionist hands us the room key, and we lug my suitcase up three flights of stairs to our room. We are in fits of laughter trying to drag the heavy suitcase up each step and I can barely breathe. The combination of being unfit (I definitely shouldn’t have skipped as many PE lessons as I have) and our giggling is making this task a lot more difficult.
The exterior isn’t the only thing that’s different about this hotel: it is also a lot more cramped. The two single beds in our room are pushed up against one another and the ends of the beds pretty much touch the wall. There is a tiny window, but no hope of a view of the Eiffel Tower—instead, I’m greeted with the sight of a brick wall and a fire escape. There’s graffiti on the outside wall that reads: L’AMOUR EST MORT. Elliot translates it: “Love is dead.” I know how that person feels. In the bathroom, the showerhead hovers over the toilet, and I have to hunch my shoulders to fit in.
“Well, that kills two birds with one stone.” Elliot laughs as he pokes his head round the bathroom door.
We both fall back onto the beds in an exhausted heap. Although I have been absorbed in my own misery about Noah and I breaking up, I’ve not really taken into consideration how Elliot must be feeling right now. Alexiot is no more, and a part of my heart breaks for him as I lie there thinking about it.
I reach out and grab his hand. “Wiki? Did you see this coming with Alex? Have you guys been arguing a lot?” I roll over onto my stomach and prop my head up with my hands.
Elliot lets out an exaggerated sigh and interlaces his fingers over his stomach.
“You know that Alex isn’t out yet, and of course I didn’t mind in the beginning. I would never pressure him into coming out—he needs to go at his own pace. But, as stupid as it sounds, I thought by now we would have jumped that hurdle together. That maybe I would have been the one to change him and give him the confidence . . . I sound like a bad movie. I know I can never change anyone but, Penny, I’m tired of playing second fiddle. The photo of us kissing just magnified everything. He completely freaked out and demanded to know how on earth I ever let this happen. He said,”—Elliot’s voice sounds so small, my heart squeezes inside my chest—“he said he wished he had never kissed me at all. I felt so embarrassed.”
I look over at Elliot and he’s squeezing his eyes really tightly shut. Then he opens them again, blinks, and for the first time his voice sounds harder. He sounds more like his father, which is weird because he never sounds like his dad. “It’s just sad to invest so much in someone and not feel like that investment has had a good return. So it had to end.”
Elliot rolls over and, despite his words, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so upset about anything. I know that if he’s dealing with something sad he’d rather turn off the emotion tap completely than let the world know how badly he is hurting.
“Oh, Wiki, that’s horrible. But you have to know it’s not to do with you. This is something Alex needs to work out within himself, and that’s really awful for you because all you can do is sit and wait at the sidelines. But you haven’t done anything wrong by wanting your relationship and your feelings to be respected. He can’t hide you away forever.” I look at Elliot and smile a little, just to see if I can inject a bit of positivity.
To my relief, he smiles back at me. “I know, Penny. It’s just . . . I really like him. Like, really like.” He raises his eyebrows at me.
“Like, really like like?” I wiggle my eyebrows back at him and we find ourselves giggling a little bit. Then he jumps off the bed.
“Like really like like like. Look at us, Penny. We’re acting as though the world has stopped turning. We’re stewing in our own sadness and it’s very unattractive. We’re in Paris, for goodness’ sake—we need to forget about guys and go out and have fun. You might not have had any Magical Mystery Days with Noah, but you are sure as heck having one with me.”
“Ooh, I know this great fashion street you will love,” I say, thinking back to my day out with Leah. Was that only yesterday? It feels like a million years. “It has all these fancy boutiques on it—”
Elliot frowns. “Wait, how do you know about a great fashion street?”
I blush. “Leah took me. She dressed me up for the after-party last night.” I take out my phone, even though it pains me to scroll past pictures
of Noah and me together, looking so happy. I find one Leah took just after we left the hotel, when my hair, makeup, and outfit were all perfect. I show it to Elliot, whose jaw drops to the floor.
“Oh, Penny, you’re telling me Noah gave you up after this ? Honey, he’s a fool.”
I take back my phone and put it in my pocket, tears threatening to fill my eyes again. “I guess if I knew how to look like that all the time maybe I would be enough for him.”
“Oh, no,” says Elliot. “That is not the Penny I know. If he can’t love you like this”—he gestures at my schlubby leggings, shirt, and messed-up hair—“then he does not deserve to have you. Penny, you’re not a princess; you’re a queen. And queens deserve hot chocolate and croissants for breakfast, so let’s go.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Flaky, fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth croissants dipped in velvety smooth hot chocolate should be requisite morning-after-a-breakup food for everyone. I’m pretty sure the waitress gives us a disapproving look as we order their last six pains au chocolat, but we don’t care.
Elliot soon wins her over with his French chat, and before long they are exchanging tips on where to find the best macarons in Paris. Elliot sounds so cool; I swoon every time he speaks, which he starts to find really annoying after a while.
After breakfast, we walk the strip of very expensive shops that Leah took me to, and I feel a wave of sadness creep over me as I remember how much effort I went to for Noah last night only for it to all go so horribly wrong. Every time I start to look sad, Elliot pulls out the bag of leftover pains au chocolat and makes me take a bite while he does the same.
It works—until we run out of pains au chocolat. That’s when we sit down for lunch and I have the world’s cheesiest croque-monsieur—and, of course, a massive slice of apple tart. Who says that food can’t solve every problem? Food and best friends are officially the ideal combination.