Nice - Day 6

Something in the afternoon air smells of autumn, Henry smells like a snowfall when I wake up with my nose on his collarbone. I want to tell him that I've kept his daffodils but I've already lied to him once (he asked if I had ever had sex with someone French. Who does he think I am?).

He talks about Paris, about the apartment and the gardens. He talks about his sister and chain smokes his Camels over breakfast somewhere on Cours Saleya. Scattered across the paving are traces from yesterday's market, he picks up a marguerite and starts picking the discolored petals. She loves me, she loves me not.

Come with me he says, in passing, not looking at me but somewhere in the hazy distant, through the buildings out towards the ocean. It sounds like a whisper but breaks my heart like a wrecking ball, violently and mercilessly. It's not a question, he doesn't wait for an answer, just lets the cigarette dissolve into ashes along with the marguerite petals on the ground below us.