I can't believe I'm here... a Paris.

C'est ca.

Incroyable.

And I've hitched myself to someone unlikely, someone I can't be sure of or confident in, someone that is impossibly devoted to someone she shouldn't be. And yet, je ne peux pas m'empecher de me bouger pour lui.

It takes three short weeks for me to fall. Coup de foudre. Maybe it's because I'm in a foreign country. It happened a lot with the men at the shelter; they'd go for the first available person, because they were desperate for some sort of connection, and the romantic one is the easiest and hardest to make. Easiest because you can have anyone if you're desperate enough, but if no one else will do it's exceedingly difficult. Currently, no one else will do. She's wonderful.

I know she's not perfect. I know full well that she is selfish and narcissistic, and bitchy like I am, and I can't trust her to do the right thing because she doesn't want to look at the hardest things within her own life. But she's so lovely. She is open and generous, and sweet without being saccharine, and shares her secrets so readily. Of course I've fallen head over heels for someone funny and kind and strong in situations I can't be strong in. Of course she's beautiful. When I first saw her coming round the corner of the accueil, I thought she was pretty. Reasonable. Chic. Well-kept. And now I think she's beautiful, the most beautiful in the world. As always, as always. This crept up on me slowly; from liking being around her, to being wary of falling for her, to actually falling for her. Well, nothing is going to happen. I'll just have to ride it out.

She was sad today because someone's dying in her family, and although they are old and it's for the best, and she knows this because, if one is French, one is always to the point, she was tired from the long trip and from feeling too much for too long. All I wanted to do as she recounted the history to me was to wrap her up in my arms, kiss her forehead and stroke her hair. I listened instead, and touched her elbow. We sat on her sofa together, both slouched in crouching posture- legs tucked under, facing each other, arms round legs, leaning on the back of the sofa- mirror images, but how I wished we were touching instead. She'd said she was tired in the day at school; I wanted to take her hand (smoker's hands with gallic, tanned skin, that look weathered but not as old as mine) and lead her to her bedroom, and just sleep there. Just lull her to sleep, leaning against me with her soft body and her sharp French cheekbones. Her eyes are almost the same colour as her skin, but they glow green or sometimes blue. I would like to hold her and tell her that, contrary to what she's heard from vicious sources, she's so beautiful. I may not think that she is perfect, but I will always think that she looks perfect. Her hair, her face, her body that she doesn't feel OK with, it's all perfect. I want someone to tell her that would make her smile, lift her worried eyebrows, make the sun shine out of her face as it does. Her face is as evident as the weather. As obvious, as easy. It's just the thoughts that are difficult to conjugate. I adore her.