Young Writers Society

The ebb and flow of people had almost subsided by the time we reached the lake in the middle of the old city. The sky was low. "This is where I used to live," she said, pointing at a set of three second-story windows. 

"Maxence and I lived there for a year and a half." 

The windows of the apartment were dark now, but she told me he still lived there, with his mother three floors above him, the kindest woman alive. The lights from the streetlamps and the other, living apartments gazed down at us, and we gazed back, all around. The lights on the water of the lake reflected in her eyes as she watched the place she used to know. 

She hated the trees. 

"I miss the people," she said. "I can't believe they fucking did that." 

A vegan environmentalist couldn't stand the sight of those trees occupying a space once sacred to her. 

"People used to hang out there at all hours of the day and night. I used to sleep with earplugs," she said about the noise they made, "but people still complained." She talked as if the complainers had all held a conference and agreed to commit treason. She stared at the tree-filled lot, the result of their criminal efforts, a sad smile reflected in the water. "The noise was annoying, sure, but you got used to it. And now there are all those trees, nobody comes here anymore. But you need people in your life," she said, passionate, as if she'd been meaning to say it for a long time. "Love is people. You need people." 

The lights seemed to waver a bit, nodding in agreement. I could tell the beer was beginning to take a toll on her. Northern French beer was a little stronger than the rest, and they were proud of it. Frenchman waxed poetic on the effects of their alcohol, and Coralie was no exception. She sat with her legs dangling towards the still green water, staring up at the apartment where she used to live. 

"So many memories," she murmured, swinging her legs to shift her weight. I could see a young Coralie walking these streets, arm-in-arm with a tall Maxence, laughing at little or nothing at all and buying their hamster, going out and having fun, staying in and reading books on the water. Meeting people together. Living a life together, around this lake, surrounded by these lights every night, getting used to the noise only to have it stripped to silence.

I tried not to check my phone to see if Jorge had texted. "My Maxence," was how I had explained Jorge to Coralie. He was leaving for Spain in ten days and was spending the weekend in London with a friend of ours from Ireland. Coralie had given me a knowing smile when I told her what had happened the week before, when we had stayed out too late but I hadn't wanted to call her because I wanted to be with him, in the piano apartment. 

Nothing had happened. I had been too scared to try, I had liked my reserve too much, and I was paralyzed by how big it all had felt. But it didn't matter now–– it was too late. Coralie and I sat there on the edge of the water, each thinking of our loves, past and present. 

The lights on the water, steadfast and unmoving, stared at us from two different directions, daring us to comment on the beauty of the night, to spoil it with our acknowledgment. He texted me three times but I sat looking at the water, wondering whether I wasn't wasting time. I suddenly saw myself, years from then, watching myself sitting on the water, wishing I had done something–– but what? I could feel regret building like storm clouds on the horizon, but I had no idea what they were barreling towards, or how to avoid them. 

He was texting me in the middle of a night out with his friends in a city he had never visited, what was he thinking? What was I thinking, sitting there, watching still water and thinking of the poem I would write later? Coralie still sat staring at the place she once loved. I could only guess what she was thinking. I knew exactly how she felt, to return to a well-loved place for the first time, and stare it in the face as if it were a stranger. This was a sanctuary of memories. It was her first time coming back since she left Maxence, and I was witnessing it, a humble bystander to a moment in her life's history. 

I watched her watch this place. 

The silence, the stillness, after so much noise and laughter. I could tell she could see its reflection in her own life, now still as the water, once so full. But even the still water is full of light, I wanted to tell her. Even the quietest night rain still rises in the heat of the morning.