Stephanie Perkins - Anna and the French Kiss

“But that’s just it!” I burst from my chair, and suddenly he’s right on top of me. “I don’t know you. I tell you everything, St. Clair. About my dad, about Bridgette and Toph, about Matt and Cherrie. I told you about being a virgin.” I look away, humiliated to say it aloud. “And what have you told me? Nothing! I know nothing about you. Not about your father, not about Ellie—”

“You know me better than anyone.” He’s furious. “And if you ever bothered to pay attention, you’d understand that things with my father are beyond shite right now. And I can’t believe you think so poorly of me that you’d assume I’d wait the entire year to kiss you, and then the moment it happened, I’d . . . I’d be done with you. OF COURSE I was with Ellie that night. I WAS BLOODY BREAKING UP WITH HER!”

The silence is deafening.

They broke up? Oh God. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t—

He stares me directly in the eyes. “You say that I’m afraid of being alone, and it’s true. I am. And I’m not proud of it. But you need to take a good look at yourself, Anna, because I am not the only one in this room who suffers this problem.”

He’s standing so close that I feel his chest rising and falling, quick and angry. My heart pounds against his. He swallows. I swallow. He leans in, hesitantly, and my body betrays me and mimics his in response. He closes his eyes. I close mine.

The door flies open, and we startle apart.

Josh enters detention and shrugs. “I ditched pre-calc.”

I can’t look at him for the rest of detention. How can I be afraid of being alone, if it’s the only thing I’ve been lately? It’s not like I’ve had a boyfriend all year, like he’s had a girlfriend. Though I did cling to the idea of Toph. Kept him as—the thought makes me wince—a reserve. And Dave. Well. He was there, and I was there, and he was willing, so I was, too. I’ve been worried that I was only with Dave because I was mad at St. Clair, but perhaps . . . perhaps I was tired of being alone.

But is that so wrong?

Does that mean it’s not wrong that St. Clair didn’t want to be alone either? He’s afraid of change, afraid to make big decisions, but so am I. Matt said that if I’d just talked with Toph, I could have saved myself months of anguish. But I was too scared to mess with the relationship we might have, to deal with what we really did have. And if I’d bothered to listen to what Matt was trying to tell me, maybe St. Clair and I would have had this conversation ages ago.

But St. Clair should have said something! I’m not the only one at fault.

Wait. Isn’t that what he was just saying? That we’re both at fault? Rashmi said I was the one who walked away from her. And she was right. She and Josh actually helped me that day at the park, and I ditched them. And Mer.

Oh my God, Meredith.

What’s wrong with me? Why haven’t I tried apologizing again? Am I incapable of keeping a friend? I have to talk to her. Today. Now. Immediately. When Professeur Hansen releases us from detention, I tear for the door. But something stops me when I hit the hall. I pause beneath the frescoed nymphs and satyrs. I turn around.

St. Clair is waiting in the doorway, staring at me.

“I have to talk to Meredith.” I bite my lip.

St. Clair nods slowly.

Josh appears behind him. He addresses me with a peculiar confidence. “She misses you. You’ll be fine.” He glances at St. Clair. “You’ll both be fine.”

He’s said that to me before. “Yeah?” I ask.

Josh lifts an eyebrow and smiles. “Yeah.”

It’s not until I’m walking away that I wonder if “both” means Meredith and me, or St. Clair and me. I hope both means both. I return to Résidence Lambert, and I knock on her door after a quick trip to my own room. “Mer? Can we talk?”

She cracks open her door. “Hey.” Her voice is gentle enough.

We stare at each other. I hold up two mugs. “Chocolat chaud?”

And she looks like she could cry at the sight. She lets me in, and I set down a cup on her desk. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Meredith.”

“No, I’m sorry. I’ve been a jerk. I had no right to be angry with you.”

“That’s not true, I knew how you felt about him, and I kissed him anyway. It wasn’t right. I should have told you that I liked him, too.”

We sit on her bed. She twists a glittery star-shaped ring around her finger. “I knew how you felt about each other. Everyone knew how you felt about each other.”

“But—”

“I didn’t want to believe it. After so long, I still had this . . . stupid hope. I knew he and Ellie were having problems, so I thought maybe—” Meredith chokes up, and it takes a minute before she can continue.

I stir my hot chocolate. It’s so thick it’s nearly a sauce. She taught me well.

“We used to hang out all the time. St. Clair and me. But after you arrived, I hardly saw him. He’d sit next to you in class, at lunch, at the movies. Everywhere. And even though I was suspicious, I knew the first time I heard you call him Étienne—I knew you loved him. And I knew by his response—the way his eyes lit up every time you said it—I knew he loved you, too. And I ignored it, because I didn’t want to believe it.”

The struggle rises inside me again. “I don’t know if he loves me. I don’t know if he does, or if he ever did. It’s all so messed up.”

“It’s obvious he wants more than friendship.” Mer takes my shaking mug. “Haven’t you seen him? He suffers every time he looks at you. I’ve never seen anyone so miserable in my life.”

“That’s not true.” I’m remembering he said the situation with his father is really terrible right now. “He has other things on his mind, more important things.”

“Why aren’t the two of you together?”

The directness of her question throws me. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think there are only so many opportunities . . . to get together with someone. And we’ve both screwed up so many times”—my voice grows quiet—“that we’ve missed our chance.”

“Anna.” Mer pauses. “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“But—”

“But what? You love him, and he loves you, and you live in the most romantic city in the world.”

I shake my head. “It’s not that simple.”

“Then let me put it another way. A gorgeous boy is in love with you, and you’re not even gonna try to make it work?”

I’ve missed Meredith. I return to my room feeling both solaced and saddened. If St. Clair and I hadn’t fought in detention today, would I have tried to apologize again? Probably not. School would have ended, we’d have gone our separate ways, and our friendship would have been severed forever.

Oh, no. The horrible truth knocks me over.

How could I have missed it? It’s the same thing. The exact. Same. Thing.

Bridge couldn’t help it.The attraction was there, and I wasn’t there, and they got together, and she couldn’t help it. And I’ve blamed her this entire time. Made her feel guilty for something beyond her control. I haven’t even tried to listen to her; I haven’t answered a single phone call or replied to a single email. And she kept trying anyway. I remember what Matt and Rashmi said again. I really do abandon my friends.

I yank out my luggage and unzip the front pocket. It’s still there. A little beat-up, but a small package wrapped in red-and-white-striped paper. The toy bridge. And then I compose the most difficult letter I’ve ever written. I hope she forgives me.

The rest of the week is quiet. I mail Bridge’s package, I rejoin my friends at our table, and I finish my detention. St. Clair and I still haven’t talked. Well, we’ve spoken a bit, but not about anything important. Mostly we sit beside each other and fidget, which is ridiculous, because isn’t that what this is all about? That we won’t talk?

But breaking old habits isn’t easy.

We sit a row apart in detention. I feel him watching me the entire hour, the entire week. I watch him, too. But we don’t walk together to the dorm; he packs his things slowly to allow me time to leave first. I think we’ve arrived at the same conclusion. Even if we managed to begin something, there’s still no hope for us. School is almost over. Next year, I’ll attend San Francisco State University for film theory and criticism, but he still won’t tell me where he’s going. I flat-out asked him after detention on Friday, and he stammered something about not wanting to talk about it.

At least I’m not the only one who finds change difficult.

On Saturday, the Mom and Pop Basset Hound Theater screens my favorite Sofia Coppola movie, Lost in Translation. I greet the dignified man and Pouce, and slide into my usual seat. It’s the first time I’ve watched this film since moving here. The similarities between the story and my life are not lost on me.

It’s about two Americans, a middle-aged man and a young woman, who are alone in Tokyo. They’re struggling to understand their foreign surroundings, but they’re also struggling to understand their romantic relationships, which appear to be falling apart. And then they meet, and they have a new struggle—their growing attraction to each other, when they both know that such a relationship is impossible.

It’s about isolation and loneliness, but it’s also about friendship. Being exactly what the other person needs. At one point, the girl asks the man, “Does it get easier?” His first reply is “no,” and then “yes,” and then “it gets easier.” And then he tells her, “The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.”