Paris was supposed to be a romantic city ‘The City of Love’ it had been dubbed by so many people. On that day it didn’t feel very romantic, not to her at least. It was her first time in the city. She’d been called there on a last-minute business trip, to meet with an important client. It was the same client she’d been meeting with for months, and if she managed to play her cards right, it would be the biggest success of her career so far.
This business meeting couldn’t have come at a worse time. It was supposed to be her five-year anniversary with her girlfriend, they’d had a fancy meal booked at one of their favourite restaurants, a nice evening out. All that romantic stuff. The stuff she swore she hated, but secretly loved doing. She’d had to cancel it all last minute for this business trip.
She had tried to make it up to her. Payed for her girlfriend to fly out and visit her, booked a meal in a top-class restaurant for her. She’d brought the ring that had been burning a hole in her suit jacket for months with her. She was finally, after years of teasing form her closest friends, going to propose. At least until this morning.
Until this morning when she’d woken up to a voicemail from her girlfriend. She’d listened to it, expecting the usual ‘Hey babe, I miss you. I can’t wait to see you again soon.’ What she wasn’t expecting was for it to have been a pocket dial, to hear the unmistakable sounds of her girlfriend having sex with someone else. She took comfort in the fact that the other voice was unfamiliar, it wasn’t someone she knew, not one of their friends or her girlfriend’s colleagues.
She’d saved the voicemail to her phone. Before heading out of the hotel she was staying in to go for a run, an attempt to clear her head, to work out what to do. She knew they were going to have to talk about this, it wasn’t something she could just ignore. But for now? For today? She’d have to ignore it, focus on this business deal. Once the day was over, once she was back in her hotel room with a bottle of red wine could she process.
She knew if this was a movie the sky would be grey and sombre to reflect her mood, there might even be a thunderstorm just to make it even more gloomy and emotional. But this wasn’t a movie, and the sky was beautiful and sunny. The warm July day enticing couples out for romantic strolls, for families to bring their children out to play. There she was, on that day in Paris, the city of romance and love, where her heart was broken for the first time.
A Place of Mine 