Chapter1: Before Fall
"They told me Paris was where hearts speak. But all I heard was the hum of traffic and time." My name is Liana Montreal and this my story of how it feels like to he betrayed with something you think can bring the lost.
The train slid into Gare du Nord like a slow sigh. The air outside carried the scent of rain, perfume, and something electric as if every raindrop whispered a secret. I stood by the doorway, suitcase in hand, heart racing. "Paris."
The word itself felt like silk on her tongue soft, dangerous, unforgettable.
The city stretched before her a masterpiece in grey and gold. Streetlamps glowed like watchful eyes; lovers leaned into each other beneath umbrellas; pigeons scattered across wet cobblestones like living shadows.
I thought: So this is what love looks like a city breathing poetry.
As the taxi carried her through the streets, the rain began to thin into silver threads.
Through the window, Montmartre rose like a dream on a hill, the Sacré-Cœur gleaming pale against the bruised sky. Artists huddled under awnings, their canvases bleeding color into puddles.
Every turn felt cinematic, as if the whole city had been waiting for me to arrive to play be part in its endless story.
At Pont Alexandre III, the golden statues watched over the Seine, their wings darkened by time. The water below was heavy with reflections boats gliding like slow-moving memories.
The Eiffel Tower appeared in the distance, not just as iron and light, but as a pulse steady, eternal, indifferent. It wasn't the joy I had expected.
It was something else something ancient.
The beauty of Paris wasn't loud; it was quiet, patient, almost sad like a lover who knows every romance must end.
Later, I walked through Le Marais, where narrow streets smelled of coffee and books, and the chatter of strangers brushed against my ears like music from another life.
Every face I passed looked half-dreamed, as if everyone here was pretending too pretending love was real, pretending time didn't move.
I stopped at a café by the river the kind with misted glass and fading jazz humming through the air. I ordered coffee, though what I really wanted was a reason to stay.
Through the window, Paris unfolded endless and unknowable.
My reflection merged with the city lights. For a moment, I couldn't tell where I ended and Paris began.
"They said the city would teach me love," I whispered to myself,
"but maybe it will only teach me how to miss it."
And as the evening deepened, and the lights along the Seine flickered like dying promises, I felt it that faint ache beneath beauty.
Paris was everything I imagined and yet nothing I truly understood.