In the morning, we pack for another flight. With five cities in under two weeks, I’m being dragged along a smeary water-color tour of the world, where everything has been de-saturated and diluted to an unforgivable degree.

We arrive in Kent and check into The Marquis, the deep grey rooms reflect the sky outside and my mood. Bleary eyed, I turn to my brother and take hold of his Marc Jacobs sweater.

“Tell me you love me, Billy.” He responds with the correct words and I ask him to go through his language skill set, to say “I love you” in every dialect he can think of from Japanese to Spanish.

“Tell me in French.” I spit, as I lie back on the chaise. His porcelain skin pales minutely, as he says the words. It would have gone unnoticed were it not for the phone call the other night. “Why have you never taken me to France? You’ve lived in France, why not show me your home?”

“Aren’t you happy with what I’ve shown you?”
“I am. But why not Paris?” though the thought of France admittedly sits in my gut like a ball of stale bread. A woman’s intuition has a rapier’s pointed accuracy. He’s taken me to every major city in Europe, but Paris.

I hear him again on the phone on the other side of the suite. I come up behind him, like I used to do to Nathaniel. I rub his chest and stomach, pulling him into me. I press my lips against his back: “Take me to Paris, or take me home.” Billy hangs up the phone in a flurry of cajoling “Oui, oui, oui’s” though he doesn’t say I love you. He turns to me, wrapping two large hands around my waist and lifting me up and near throwing me on the bed, hovering over me with a smile much younger than he is, forming fine lines around his eyes that I secretly love more than any other feature on his face. He lies on top of me and says lightly:
“Paris it is.” I’m not sure what has changed his mind, but I’m hoping the trip will put to rest the apprehension in my heart, like it’s waiting to shatter all over again.

We’re on a plane the next day and I can’t shake the perpetual feeling that I’m about to cry. Billy sits beside me; he holds my hand in his, dozing softly against the headrest. I grab the bag every airline provides for anyone who’s prone to airsickness. I’ve never used one in my life and yet I find myself dry heaving into the sterile container, until I can’t possibly suffer anymore. Billy awakens in surprise as I throw the bag away, wiping my eyes.

Like my rebellious forays into the streets with its selfish attitude and grit, the glamour of the world my brother has bestowed upon me has taught me things that hurt as well. Nothing is altruistic, certainly not this trip to Paris. “Je t’aime” rings in my ears as we land, all the way to the hotel. I ask Billy again to tell me he loves me. But I don’t hear it. His voice doesn’t possess that reverence, that tenderness. In that moment, standing in the elaborate Villa d’Estrées lobby, waiting to be delivered to a room that’s no doubt just as opulent, it feels as if everything he’s ever said is a lie. I have a wealth of experience at my disposal, and yet I’m unworthy of that rose-petal tone delivered through a call in the middle of the night.

The next morning he takes me to the Eiffel tower and the Louvre. We take pictures as any couple would take. We have our portraits drawn by a street artist, and at one point I tell him I love him, in shaky French. The artist draws our portrait, as I softly kiss his lips, his hands on my cheeks.

We’re in a small café where I can’t order a single thing without Billy’s help, when suddenly he drops his glass, where it shatters on the floor. I giggle. My brother rarely finds himself in disarray and the sight endears me even further.

“You said you were staying in Montpellier!” Billy says in surprised English, before repeating himself in French. I suddenly feel the urge to vomit, cry and throw my plate across the room. A woman behind me answers him in French. Billy responds in desperate English before correcting himself in French again.

“It’s a four hour train ride Rose, what could you possibly have needed?”

She answers in English: “Bella was in town, I hadn’t seen her since she went back to the States. Why are you so angry, mon amour? Let’s take this outside, you’re causing a scene,” she says harshly. Indeed he was, as the patrons of the café looked at this odd couple in disgust and amusement. They disappear out the door.

The waiter approaches me and says something I can’t understand. I shake my head in ignorance. My thoughts are elsewhere and like a true masochist, I watch their gesturing hands out the window. Billy rubs the back of his neck furiously. I’ve never seen him in such discord.

Rose is a tall, slender woman with ebony hair cropped close to her scalp. Her skinny, black pants taper down to envious red stilettos that don’t look cheap by any definition of the word. Her smartly styled black button up shirt is held at the waist by a thick, black vinyl belt. Her nails are painted a bright white—expertly shaped and filed, so when she puts her long hands on her hips, they stand out as shooting stars in the night. She grabs his arm violently to stop his nervous reactions, and I’m immediately out of my seat.

Billy yells something very loudly in French—so loud in fact, it scares me. He bursts back into the café and grabs his jacket, paying the bill with shaking hands. “Je suis désolé,” he repeats to the waiter. His eyes beg me to be silent and cooperate.

Outside, once I’m face to face with her, all the blood in my body rises to the top like cream. I don’t shake her hand and Billy lightly squeezes the back of my neck, until I take it and say “Hello.” Her smoky eyes cast downward, as Billy finally introduces us.

“Oh your sister,” she says in slight surprise, raising a penciled eyebrow. Billy stands on the other side of me and slides a hand down her side, where it rests lightly on her hip. He leans in to her ear and whispers something that makes her laugh, punctuating his statement with a light kiss to her jaw line.

“This is Rose.”

I wished I had my bag from the airplane handy. I turn and dry heave again onto the street.