Because He Said So
Prologue

Raeanne looked up to the second story of the building, her soft green-hazel eyes narrowed against the bright sun that shimmered beyond it. She raised a slender, pale hand to shade her face and her long lashes closed slowly as she tried to find words for the indescribable appeal of this Paris, corner apartment she had come to love.

The pictures had first come from a former coworker, Jean, an eccentric girl who listened to Reanne’s dreams more closely than she did herself. Originally a lofty joke, Reanne had told Jean about her childish fantasy of leaving the States and moving to a romantic European country to study art. Why not here? Jean had asked through her lip piercing and thick Canadian accent. I mean, you’re workin’ at a fuckin’ art museum, eh? Reanne had shaken her head, as always struggling for the words to describe her feelings. The cities here aren’t steeped in the same history, she had managed. There’s an oldness there that has secrets to tell. She had blushed, silenced by her scrappy, cheesy attempt. Jean, unfazed, had only shrugged, her short black hair bobbing under the weight of hairclips laden in it. Then what’s keepin’ ya here?

In retrospect, the answers that had been difficult to find then were abundant and clear to her now. What hadn’t been keeping her? Reanne had had a beautiful apartment, fully furnished, and overlooking the neighborhood park. Her family had been only a few cities away, a quick bus ride or an even quicker drive. She had had a job, a steady friend circle, a boyfriend, a calm routine to her life.

But those last two had failed her -- one because of the other, really. We’re too much of the same, Reanie, he’d said to her one night. They had been sitting on either side of a table having dinner at a popular restaurant down the street, the flicker of the candle resting between them breaking the shock and fear that had frozen her face. I thought you liked keeping a schedule? Her bottom lip had begun to tremble, the first crack in the wall of denial she had erected when she had first noticed his slow withdrawal over the past few weeks. He had sighed, maybe frustrated with her ignorance or maybe simply tired. It’s not about keeping a schedule, Reanie, it’s about living life. She had watched him stolidly, but behind her still eyes she had been screaming. Scared she would lose control of it if she opened her mouth, she had simply shaken her head without understanding. Reanie, I’m sorry, but I’m bored with you… There had been a long pause where his meaning had been cuttingly clear, but their ending still unhemmed. …so I guess this is to say that I’m leaving. He had stepped around the table to kiss her gently on the cheek before leaving, his strong shoulders effortlessly holding the weight of her sorrow and his stride relentlessly taking him farther from her, the strings of her heart pulled tight and thin.

Reanne had seen the pictures later that night while checking her email, a quart of ice cream nested between her knees and a spoon dangling from her mouth. Even through the tears, or maybe because of them, the ancient slants of gray stone and the arching windows framed by black iron appeared to offer the only refuge for her sudden annoyance with her apartment, with her life. She had laughed at first, both at her own delusional desire and Jean’s gall to send her something so fanciful. And yet she had read the description of the apartment, the details of its lease -- only to find that the building was more beautiful than she had first noticed and that its price was much lower.

She had fretted that it was in Paris, she had fretted that she spoke little to no French, and she had fretted that she would have to leave everything in her life behind…and yet the goading thought of being “too boring to stay with” drove her to action. She had contacted the apartment’s owner immediately and the arrangement had been strikingly easy and quick to settle. Within a week Reanne found herself with a two-bedroom apartment in Paris and her own apartment sold and empty. What few things she had chosen to keep fit in the two carry on suitcases that she checked at the airport as she boarded a plane, overcome by her own stupidity yet too prideful to turn back.

And here she stood, at the foot of an austere building with grace hidden in its plainness. She was shaken from her thoughts by the thud of her suitcases as the cab driver dragged them from the trunk. She took them from him hurriedly, thanking him with her pathetic, high-school French. She paid him and distractedly waved to him as he drove away, suddenly aware of the emptiness of the street and the judging silence that washed over her as the car puttered away. She had suddenly lost all inertia and stood, dumbfounded at the full effect of her rash mistake. She almost had the heart to turn back.

“Oy, what’s got you rooted there?”

Reanne looked up, startled by the sound of English -- British English, no less. A man with short cropped dark hair and thick eyebrows framing brilliant blue eyes returned her watch. A smirk played above his square jaw, dimples cutting into the hollows of his cheeks. He leaned against the banister of the second-floor walkout porch, a burning cigarette pinched between two fingers of his right hand. He was wearing a pair of dirty blue jeans -- only a pair of dirty blue jeans. Reanne blushed as she caught herself staring.

“I -- uh -- must have the wrong address. Sorry to bother you.” She turned to leave.

“Reanne, yeah?” he called down to her. There was a hidden laugh to his tone.

Reanne stopped and glanced at him over her shoulder hesitantly. “That’s right…how do you know?”

He rubbed the cigarette out before flicking it to the street below. He winked at her, his eyes flickering with a mysterious charm. “My name’s Tyler. Come from London. I’m your new roommate.”