Anna and the French Kiss

For the two of us, home isn't a place. It is a person. And we are finally home.

The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.

Is it possible for home to be a person and not a place?

I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I wish friends held hands more often, like the children I see on the streets sometimes. I'm not sure why we have to grow up and get embarrassed about it.

Will you please tell me you love me? I’m dying here.

I'm saying I'm in love with you! I've been in love with you this whole bleeding year!

Why is it that the right people never wind up together? Why are people so afraid to leave a relationship, even if they know it's a bad one?

I mean, really. Who sends their kid to boarding school? It's so Hogwarts. Only mine doesn't have cute boy wizards or magic candy or flying lessons.

I wish for the thing that is best for me.

Girl scouts didn't teach me what to do with emotionally unstable drunk boys.

I'm a little distracted by this English French American Boy Masterpiece.

Soap?" "School of America in Paris" he explains. "SOAP". Nice. My father sent me here to be cleansed.

So what do I wish for? Something I'm not sure I want? Someone I'm not sure I need? Or someone I know I can't have?

I don't want to feel this way around him. I want things to be normal. I want to be his friend, not another stupid girl holding out for something that will never happen.

A moment of reserve. "That was it? The whole story?" "Yes. God, you're right. That was pants." I sidestep another aggressive couscous vendor. "Pants?" "Rubbish. Crap. Shite." Pants. Oh heavens, that's cute.

Most people in Atlanta don't have an accent. It's pretty urban. A lot of people speak gangsta, though," I add jokingly. "Fo' shiz," he replies in his polite English accent. I spurt orangey-red soup across the table. St. Clair gives a surprised ha-HA kind of laugh, and I'm laughing too, the painful kind like abdominal crunches. He hands me a napkin to wipe my chin. "Fo'. Shiz." He repeats it solemnly. Cough cough. "Please don't ever stop saying that. It's too-" I gasp. "Much." "You oughtn't to have said that. Now I shall have to save it for special occasions." "My birthday is in February." Cough choke wheeze. "Please don't forget.

How many times can our emotions be tied to someone else's - be pulled and stretched and twisted - before they snap? Before they can never be mended again?

We both got our Point Zero wishes―each other. He said he wished for me every time.

I moan with pleasure. "Did you just have a foodgasm?" he asks, wiping ricotta from his lips. "Where have you been all my life?" I ask the beautiful panini.

Madame Guillotine gets mad at me. Not because I told them to shove it, but because I didn’t say it in French. What is wrong with this school?

Har. Bloody. Har." He smiles. "Oh, I see. Known me less than a day and teasing me about my accent. What's next? Care to discuss the state of my hair? My height? My trousers?" Trousers. Honestly.

Anna, Anna," Josh interrupts. "If I had a euro for every stupid thing I've done, I could buy the Mona Lisa. You'll be fine.

The only French word I know is oui, which means “yes,” and only recently did I learn it’s spelled o-​u-​i and not w-​e-​e.

This is home. The two of us.

Please. The boy gets a boner every time you walk into the room." My eyes pop back open. Does she mean that figuratively or has she actually seen something? No. Focus, Anna.

Why do I care so much about him, and why do I wish I didn't? How can one person make me so confused all of the time?