Retrospective: Paris - What we really want

6.2 Francesco De la Cruz
Spring 1995, A street in Paris

It was so ordinary to be back in Paris. Just like being in any other big city Francesco had visited since he'd left almost a year ago. Not as bad as he had expected.
Okay he couldn't even point out what exactly he expected.
Not to be so indifferent, though.
Maybe it was because Mae wasn't here anymore.

Mae, who had kept their agreement and cut off all contact since he'd left.
Francesco had tried to call her countless times, over and over again while he was on his first tour with Deep Rift. At first he'd thought it was just bad timing that she had never picked up.
But sometimes he'd gotten the impression he got through, and just when he started to speak, the phone went back to dial tone.
About a month later, just before the tour ended and he wanted to return to Paris, someone finally had picked up and they'd told him that Mademoiselle West had moved out.
It had been like a punch in the guts.

Francesco had been so mad that he meant so little to her. She must have heard at the bar why he had left, but she hadn't even given him a chance to talk to her, to try and convince her to keep up their relationship.
Then he had been hurt. She knew how worthless he really was. Maybe it had all just been kindness, after all.
Then he was been mad again. He'd finally got the chance to prove himself, but she had apparently written him off already.

He never talked about it, but of course the others had noticed his bad mood.
"Whatever bugs you, how about you use it as inspiration?" Joanne had said.

So he'd drowned his agony in music, furiously wrote many songs of which a few he revised over and over again, until their original meaning was distorted and mutilated beyond recognition and he could bear to sing them.
The management loved them and the fans loved them even more.

But it was not enough. Music helped to release some of the pain, but it did not sedate it, and he'd craved something stronger.

"Try these instead," Alejandro had said and pointed to a pack of cigarettes, in another attempt to keep him away from Heroin.
And so Francesco had numbed his agony with Nicotine until his throat had burned instead of his heart.
It was just a diluted substitute, but it was better than nothing.
He replaced one drug with another to distract himself.

"Are you thinking of her?" Rosa asked. She came out of the store with a small paper bag in her hand.

"Who?" Francesco studied her questioning eyes.
Chocolate brown instead of milky green.

Rosa worked as an assistant in the studio in Oasis Springs where Deep Rift recorded. He'd noticed right away that she liked him when they first met, though she pretended she didn't care that much. But she'd always tried to stay close to him until he slept with her. And she still kept chasing him. Unlike Mae, who always encouraged him to chase his own happiness instead.

"The girl from Paris that broke your heart," Rosa said casually.
Francesco wondered if she was jealous. Unexpectedly, he didn't dislike it.
It didn't feel so bad to be chased.
To be wanted.

"Who told you nonsense like that?" he chuckled and lit another cigarette.
Smoking had become a habit, though the agony had already faded long ago.

"The boys were talking," Rosa said.
Francesco made a mental note to kick "the boys" asses. The past was gone and there was no use to dig it out again; he'd rather look forward.

"I thought about how far I've come since I left from here," he said, not exactly lying. He gently brushed her cheek and on her face appeared the hint of a smile.

He had a new life now, new people to care about, and it was a good life, so much better than what he'd before. 

Hell, he had a life.

Others would sacrifice so much more than he had to be in his place.

What did it matter that the only time he truly felt alive was when he was on the stage.
He had no more burning passion left except for music, felt no more head-spinning happiness, but also no more pain.

All the feelings he'd ever had for Mae were tucked away in that locked box, banned from his heart, buried somewhere deep at the bottom of an abyss, together with the memories of Diego, the lawyer Monsieur Armand, Dante, trafficking gangs, rape, kidnappings and mass-murderers.

Not quite forgotten, but they also didn't matter anymore.

Francesco wasn't mad at Mae anymore.

Wherever she was now, he genuinely wished her all the best and hoped life would repay her the kindness she had shown him.