She has not spoken to her family in months. She imagines they have some idea of where she is; when one runs away, is not their destination always Paris? She has always had a fantasy of moving there and changing her name, spending her days in quaint coffee shops and meeting strangers whom always order her another danish. She goes by Adrienne now and loves the atmosphere of Bella's, the place that has her usual waiting on a bar top every morning. She writes poetry and reads old words by men long gone, and then heads back to her flat with clothes lying everywhere and the smell of whiskey wreaking from it. She puts her dark hair up and her most revealing dresses on and finds some man in need of a date for the night. They smoke, and she listens to said man tell her his life story while offering up nothing of her own.
They do not need to know who she is, or why she has left everything she knows.
And so she repeats this daily. It is a soggy morning when she sees him: a blond haired man with eyes that sparkle like diamonds. He does not buy her a danish, nor a coffee; in fact, he barely looks in her direction at all. This is peculiar and has left her immensely intrigued. When he comes back the next day, however, he notices her sitting in a corner all alone in a baggy sweatshirt, hair piled up on her head.
He sits down and asks her what she is reading.
"I don't know," she replies, and it is then he notices the book is upside-down. He invites her to explore the city with him, and she kindly accepts.
They spend weeks learning one another's tastes, and they experience sounds and smells, and she thinks she loves him. He cares about her enough to not ask too many questions about her past, and that is the most endearing quality about him to her. After one month, he gets on one knee in Bella's, and she accepts, because he is quiet and he is normal and he is safe.
Silly girl, she should have known that the past always catches up.
Her fiancee, a banker, is off talking to a colleague of his as she sits alone in a corner of the grand ballroom. She has attended three of these gatherings so far in the two months of their engagement, and it is always the same faces drinking the same drinks and acting equally snobby as before. She takes a sip of wine.
"Dominique."
The name is familiar, but she has not heard it in a long time. She is not sure she knows who this Dominique is anymore; curiosity and fear get the best of her, and she turns around.
Her and the speaker have some of the same features, like a nose that forms a perfect ski-slope and almond-shaped eyes. His hair is wild and dark dark dark, and she would recognize those lips anywhere. She can still taste them. It has only been a year since she has last seen him - isn't that right? - and he has not changed a bit. He smirks at her.
"What are you doing here?"
"Everyone is worried sick, you know," the man says, and she just nods.
Memories of school and empty broom closets and stolen kisses are whirling through her head, and she becomes very dizzy. The reason she left in the first place is standing in front of her now, invading her new life. She's shagging her cousin and dirty looks and disappointment all come flooding back to her.
"Dom?" The man has a look of concern etched on his face, but she turns back around.
"I don't know her anymore."
She cannot stay in this city anymore, so she pawns her ring and leaves without a word or a trace. She travels to Berlin and Venice and all kinds of cities with men that look nothing like the one she has wanted since she was sixteen. She is drunk most of the days now and goes home at night to sit under the stars and smoke and curse him and how he can wreck all her plans with one unexpected visit.
It is a hot evening, and the pub she is in is full of drinks and loud music and men who are trying to use her, like the only currently caressing her breast. She might would care, but she is four drinks in and the man resembles the one from Paris. He takes her back to his flat, and she ignores the fact he takes off his wedding ring before taking off her clothes, and she does not even regret it come morning.
She continues like this and gets lonelier and farther down in the bottle.
He shows up at her flat in Madrid one day, looking older than a year ago at that party. He begins to spew out words of love and lust and how everyone has damn near accepted it, and she finds herself believing him even though she is sure it is all a lie.
When she kisses him, she is pleased to find he still tastes of smoke and smells of Quidditch. She roams her hands over his familiar body, and just like she did when she was a teenager, she ignores the tainted word that always comes to mind: cousin.
They do not tell anyone and elope and move back to Paris. He buys her a danish everyday at Bella's, and no one in the big city notices the way their faces have the same shape or how her father and his mother are siblings.