#malmurd

Her departure was soon looming - her bags were packed, her goodbyes said, the train ticket tucked away in a leather bound notebook. She wanted to close her chapter on Paris but there was one goodbye she knew she had to allow herself. She had said none when she left Barcelona and how she regretted it.

Since the night he helped her when she had trouble with her ankle, she found herself to have realised what her emotions for the man meant - a man who she could never quite love if he could not love himself first. Still, she had a deep affection for him that she knew she had to address before she left. She owed herself that much.

Once at the top of the wrought iron stairs, she rapped at the wood of the front door, hoping he would be in.

With a yelp, Carmen felt her heel land on a particularly angled cobble and her ankle twisting in a most awful way. She stumbled and fell across to a brick wall, landing awkwardly with both hands landing on the wall, no doubt grazing them slightly.

“Mierda...” She said to herself, attempting to push herself up onto both feet but losing her balance once more as she sucked in air through her teeth. Her ankle stung and, as she looked down she found her heel broken, tethered only by a piece of fabric at the back. “Maldita sea.” She cursed herself, bitter about her hard luck so late in the evening with so few around her. With pursed lips, she manoeuvred herself to sit on the wall, undoing her shoe and inspecting the damage. She knew the heel was wiggling but didn’t realise it would give out quite so soon. Dejectedly, she placed the heel beside her and took the other one off, stretching her leg to see her slightly swollen ankle.

“Me cago en todo lo que se menea!” She cursed aloud deliberating whether to just hop back home all the way. At least most of the time there were bridges, walls and shops she could lean on to get back to L’Enfer, though it would surely mean it would take her twice as long...and then, god, if it swelled up it would be a day off work she’d have to take. No amount of cursing could change how inconvenienced she was.

"Carmen, may I borrow you for a moment or two?"

Of course she should have said no. There was no point in mixing business with pleasure, even if she were indeed in the business of pleasure. It was her day off, and she was far away from L’Enfer. Perhaps she was naive in thinking people did not indeed travel far and wide for the lavish decadence of the hellish nightclub.

Reaching out for his hand, she nodded as she ascended from the arm of the chair. “Sure. Though I daresay I am a few more drinks in than I normally am when you come to visit me.”

It took Carmen a few days after she received the envelope from Anthony, within it was an address. An address that would allow her to actually confront something for the first time in a long time. Sure, initially she was blinded by her stubborn determination and had she received the information sooner, she may have been more inclined to go immediately. But presented with the choice, she found it more difficult to act. But then...the night before she saw a ghost of her past and realised perhaps running away was not the best plan, though that had always been her go to. Whatever came of what she would do, at least she looked at the situation face on. No matter how mortifying or heartbreaking it had the potential to be.

And so, opening up the envelope, scrawled on the paper was an address in Montmartre. And to Montmartre she went in a taxicab, her fingers grasping the paper in her hand as she watched the streets of Paris pass by. Her stomach fluttered in anticipation of her own actions once she was there. She hardly had a plan of action - she would surely know once she arrived.

Pulling up to the house eventually, she pursed her lips and paid the driver before stepping out and looking at the door that loomed over her. It was now or never. And with the clacking of her heels, she pulled her coat around her tighter and made her way to the door before knocking loudly and waiting.