"Connie... Please, don't give up like this. This isn't you Connie..."
She wondered if he'd heard her properly, if he heard that she was going to let herself fall in love. She knew this wasn't her, not the her he knew anyway, this wasn't the ball breaking, formidable woman she knew herself as, this wasn't Connie Beauchamp this was Connie Chase, the weak, feeble girl who set her hopes too high- the girl who wanted the 2.4 children, the perfect career, the loving husband, a dog and still time to spare.
She wiped the few stray tears what had made their way down her face, "That's where you're wrong Ric. This is me; this is the person I used to be, before Michael. I don't know if I can do this anymore, the face I put on at work isn't who I am, its merely a shadow of who I wanted to be and you, you of all people should know that this is the real me- the woman who cries, laughs at your dire, dire jokes... this is the real Connie. Not that woman you see at the hospital and I thought..." she wiped the remainder of her tears, "I thought, foolishly, that in there you would have fought my corner, stuck up for me because I told you what Michael said to me... Yet you still choose to laugh over Elliot's mention of my loss of control, even though it is in fact your fault."
"How's it my, personal, fault Connie?" He looked confused, she did love his confused face but with it was a hint of anger wanting to get out. She decided to keep it simple she thought that keeping it simple would make things easier for her in the long run and by keeping it easy she knew that it couldn't easily be misinterpreted, so she bit her tongue and went for it, "I love you Ric... I have fallen head over heals in love with you and quite simply I don't know what to do with it, how to handle it. After Michael I promised to myself I wouldn't let myself be so foolish again, yet I was foolish and I was foolish enough to believe with it that maybe you could have at least had a slight feeling of reciprocation, that maybe with you I actually stood a chance, that I was good enough for you... yet now, now I wish I... I wish... I wish I wasn't so stupid as to let myself feel this way about someone again because when I'm with you I just feel so powerless, so helpless and... God I didn't expect it to be like this, I wanted to tell you tonight, up the Eiffel tower, looking over Paris but now I wish I never even thought of telling you at all..."
Paris was indeed the city of romance, yet when the ball had been served Connie didn't know what to expect, she'd told him she loved him, she'd told him how she felt and in a way she never thought she would. She was expecting it to be at least a tiny bit romantic, just to give her an extra chance of him saying the four words back. Now the deed had been done she once again wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole, she couldn't help but wonder if there was the tiniest of chances that maybe he'd throw the ball right back at her and she'd catch it.