Wastelands

I had to tell you right away: It's 1 A.M. in Paris when Henry calls, the alcoholic fumes from his warm breath travel fast across the ocean. I can always tell when he fakes his confidence, he can always tell when I fake mine. He asks me questions he already knows the answer to, they're only smoke screens and my heart is beating in a vacuum.

"I went to New York" he says, "over Christmas. I went to your address and stood outside your building for an hour" (he talks as if to an answering machine). "I only went there to see you and I didn't because... well". He breaths heavily into my ear, Stephanie frozen like a marble statue on a kitchen chair.

"You should come to Paris" he says, then hangs up. It's as much a question as an order and it echoes through the noise from the traffic outside. What should I do?