A/N: I've never written for Sarah Dessen, but here goes

A/N: I've never written for Sarah Dessen, but here goes. This is for 'This Lullaby', in the scene where Remy depicts her mother leaving index cards of inspiration cards scattered around the house, and how she wrote one 'Just dinner, nothing could happen' and how she liked that.

I'm writing this in my school computer lab, with my teacher checking on me every few minutes, trying to finish this in the first half of class before the next class who booked it wanders in. Bottoms up!

Disclaimer: I do not own This Lullaby, or any of Sarah Dessens other works

-x-

"Sarah, wait!"

Her heel cracked on the pavement underneath it, breaking. Sarah cursed herself for wearing her good heels on what would have only been a day shopping for the perfect ensemble for her dinner tonight. The five-inch stiletto gave way, and she stumbled, her center of balance shot.

But he caught her, his hand around her wrist as she nearly fell.

"Sarah, Sarah. Why didn't you tell me you were in Paris?"

"I have no obligation to you," she snapped, trying to jerk free. "Why are you following me?"

"Sarah, I love you."

She stared at him a second, the speech drummed out of her. She had knew as much, but it had been so easy to believe that he had been chasing her to feel young again, to recapture something long lost.

"Henry. Be serious."

"I am so very serious, Sarah. I couldn't love a woman more than you. I never stopped."

"That was such a long time ago . . . I got over it years in the past . . . I thought you had too."

"But Sarah, what we had was perfect. Don't tell me you don't want to go back to that, if only for a while."

She shut her eyes, turning her head away.

"That was . . . that was three years ago, Henry. Things have changed."

"Sarah, nothing has changed! We are exactly as we were. We were both on the edge of something great, but our split ruined it. It would be so easy to go back."

"Everything is different now," she insisted. They were drawing eyes now. Parisians were letting their eyes linger on either side of the odd, warring couple, and Sarah felt her skin crawl under their scrutiny.

"What did I just say?" His eyes were searching hers, but she closed her lids again, a veil to keep him away, to stop him from uncovering some ugly part of her that wanted him back, too. "Unless you think that because you're a rich girl now, that changes everything?"

"Our circles are different," she said, proud of how strong her voice came out. "And everything is different with them."

"I can show you that you are no different from the girl you were three years ago," his voice was strained, trying to sound arrogant but coming out a plead. "Please. Just one dinner. Just one night."

She shook off his hand from her wrist finally, and looked at where the silver bracelet had dug into her skin where his hand had held it there. A gift from Pierre. She remembered whispering to him 'I prefer silver over gold.' And she remembered him whispering back 'So you would take second-best over first simply out of preference. How admirable.'

Would he think it admirable, now?

Would she leave him waiting at his expensive restaurant to eat burgers with Henry? Would she shuck off her second-rate silver, and don a new coat of copper?

Or would it really matter? After all, what could happen in between three courses and a bottle of cheap wine?

"All right, okay," she said, feeling her world crumpling around her, not violently, like paper being crushed, but gently, like there was a lighter held to the sky, and the burning hole grew wider, the edges curling up elegantly, blackened, burned.