Charles de Gaulle Airport buzzed with morning chaos—a symphony of rolling suitcases, multilingual announcements, and the particular exhaustion that comes from overnight flights. Juno dragged her wheeled bag past duty-free perfume displays and advertisements promising the real France, her legs unsteady from airplane sleep and jet lag.
She clutched her worn leather journal in one hand and Carmen's crumpled handwritten itinerary in the other: Say Yes to Everything – Carmen's Rules (NO EXCEPTIONS). The words blurred as she squinted at the terminal signs, trying to decode directions to the RER train.
"Excusez-moi," she attempted to a passing businessman, her high school French creaky from disuse. He pointed toward a sign she'd walked past three times.
The train ride into the city felt like entering a movie she'd watched but never starred in. Gray apartment buildings flashed by the windows, clotheslines strung between balconies, glimpses of lives she'd never imagined. Juno pressed her nose to the glass and scribbled fragments in her journal: Windows like secrets. Laundry like flags of surrender.
The hostel in Montmartre perched on a narrow street that twisted upward like a question mark. The receptionist, a girl with purple hair and multiple ear piercings, stamped Juno's passport with theatrical flair.
"You are American, oui? From Chicago?" Her accent made the city sound exotic instead of industrial.
"That obvious?" Juno laughed, suddenly self-conscious about her travel outfit—jeans that had seemed appropriately European in her bedroom mirror but now felt decidedly Midwestern.
"Americans always look like they are searching for something," the girl said, handing over a key. "The French, we already know we will not find it."
Before Juno could respond, a familiar shriek echoed through the lobby.
"JUNO ELENA SINCLAIR, YOU BEAUTIFUL DISASTER!"
Carmen Diaz materialized like a small, perfectly coordinated hurricane, her curls bouncing as she launched herself at Juno. She wore a sundress that probably cost more than Juno's plane ticket and held her phone at the perfect angle for documentation.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Carmen announced to her phone screen, spinning Juno around for the camera, "meet the baddest woman in Paris! She just quit her job and flew across the ocean to find herself. We love a main character moment!"
"Carmen, stop—" Juno laughed, trying to escape the impromptu livestream. "I look like I haven't slept in twenty hours."
"You look like someone who finally chose herself." Carmen lowered the phone and studied Juno's face with the intensity she usually reserved for color-coordinating her outfits. "Holy shit, Jun. You actually did it."
Carmen dragged her through Montmartre like a woman on a mission, past tourist traps and into hidden alleys that felt carved from old movies. They bought pastries from a boulangerie where the owner spoke no English but understood Carmen's enthusiastic pointing. They climbed winding staircases where Carmen stopped every few steps to capture the perfect shot, the city spreading below them like spilled paint.
At Sacré-Cœur, Juno sat on the stone steps while Carmen networked with a group of backpackers from Sweden. She opened her journal and tried to capture the weight of the morning—the way the light fell differently here, how conversations in French sounded like music even when she couldn't understand the words.
Day one, she wrote. I keep waiting for someone to tell me I made a mistake. That I should go home and fix whatever I broke in that conference room. But the only voice I hear is my own, and it keeps saying: more.
"Come on," Carmen said, interrupting her thoughts. "I found us a place."
She led Juno down Rue des Abbesses to a bar so small it might have been someone's living room. Books lined the walls like insulation, and candles flickered on mismatched tables. Behind the counter, a man with tousled dark hair poured wine with the concentration of someone crafting poetry.
Carmen approached the bar with her signature confidence. "Bonjour! Deux verres de vin rouge, s'il vous plaît."
The bartender looked up, amber eyes catching the candlelight. His smile was slow and knowing. "American?"
"That obvious?" Carmen grinned.
"Your accent is charming, but your pronunciation..." He shrugged with quintessentially French dismissal. "I am Étienne. And you are?"
"Carmen. This is Juno. She just escaped corporate hell and is having her first real day of freedom."
Étienne's gaze shifted to Juno, and she felt suddenly exposed, like he could see through her travel-worn exterior to something she wasn't sure she was ready to share.
"Ah," he said, pouring their wine. "The best pour for broken hearts, then. Though perhaps not broken—just finally honest with yourself, non?"
Without warning, he recited something in French, his voice low and musical. Juno didn't understand the words, but they settled in her chest like warmth.
"Baudelaire," he explained when he saw her confused expression. "He wrote about the courage it takes to embrace uncertainty."
Carmen kicked her under the table. Juno's cheeks burned.
Back at the hostel, the dining hall buzzed with the energy of twenty-something travelers from six different continents. Carmen immediately appointed herself social director, pulling Juno into conversations in three languages and making friends with everyone from a German philosophy student to twin sisters from New Zealand.
Juno tried to blend into the background, content to observe and scribble notes about the beautiful chaos, until a voice cut through the multilingual chatter.
"Let me guess. First time in Paris. Looking for something profound to Instagram."
She looked up to find a man about her age leaning back in his chair across the table, dark eyes glinting with amusement. His hair looked like he'd been running his hands through it, and he held a glass of red wine like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to the conversation.
"Actually, no," Juno said, meeting his gaze. "I'm here to get lost on purpose."
His eyebrows lifted slightly. "Intentional wandering. How very American."
"And you're here to judge tourists while pretending to be sophisticated?"
Carmen paused mid-sentence in her conversation with the German student, clearly tuning in to the new dynamic.
"I'm Leo," he said, extending his hand with mock formality. "Travel blogger, professional cynic, and only occasionally pretentious."
"Juno. Recent corporate escapee and amateur life-imploder."
"See?" Carmen interjected, grinning. "I told you she was a main character."
Leo laughed, but his eyes stayed on Juno. "What kind of corporate escape?"
"The kind where you walk out of a meeting and don't look back."
"Dramatic. I like it." He pulled a battered notebook from his pocket and flipped it open, revealing quick sketches of faces, buildings, fragments of overheard conversations. His hands moved as he talked, sketching something Juno couldn't see. "Most people talk about escaping but never actually do it."
"Maybe I'm not most people."
"Maybe not."
Throughout dinner, Leo volleyed sarcastic comments about everything from Carmen's influencer energy ("Does anything happen if you don't document it?") to the hostel's wine selection ("They're serving us box wine at Paris prices"). Carmen fired back, calling him "a Hemingway cosplayer with commitment issues."
But Juno caught him watching her when he thought she wasn't looking, those dark eyes studying her like she was a puzzle he couldn't quite solve. When Étienne appeared briefly to drop off another bottle of wine, his fingers brushed Juno's as he set down her glass, and Leo's sketching paused for just a moment.
"You have admirers," Carmen whispered when Étienne retreated to the bar area.
"I have jet lag and terrible decision-making skills."
"Same thing, basically."
Leo closed his notebook with a soft snap. "So what's the plan, Juno the corporate escapee? Besides getting lost on purpose."
"No plan. That's the point."
"Dangerous philosophy." But he was smiling, that crooked grin that made her think of trouble she might actually want to find.
Later, on the hostel's tiny balcony, Juno leaned against the iron railing and tried to process everything that had happened since she'd walked out of that conference room. Paris hummed below her—distant traffic, late-night conversations in windows across the street, the particular sound of a city that never quite sleeps.
Carmen appeared with a bottle of cheap rosé and two plastic cups. "Okay, debrief time. Thoughts on mysterious bartender poet versus sarcastic sketch artist?"
"They're both strangers, Carmen."
"The best ones always are." Carmen poured the wine and raised her cup. "To detours. And men who are either poetry or punchlines. Sometimes both."
They clinked plastic and drank wine that tasted like possibilities.
"Leo was sketching you during dinner," Carmen said casually.
"What?"
"His notebook. Every time you laughed or gestured, his pencil moved. Very stalkerish. Very romantic."
Juno felt heat creep up her neck. "You're imagining things."
"I have eyes, Juno. And instincts. That man is either going to write you a song or break your heart. Maybe both."
"I'm not here for romance. I'm here to figure out who I am when I'm not trying to impress Linda Crawford."
"Who says you can't do both?"
After Carmen went inside, Juno stayed on the balcony, writing in her journal by the light of her phone. She pulled out one of her postcards—the Eiffel Tower at twilight, classic and predictable—and wrote herself a note on the back: Begin.
It's only day one, she thought, listening to Paris breathe around her. But something's already shifting. Something that feels like the first real breath she's taken in years.