CHAPTER THREE: THE FALLING
1534 Words
I changed my outfit four times before Sebastian arrived.
The black dress felt too formal. The jeans and sweater too casual. The floral dress Amélie once insisted I buy felt like trying too hard. I went back to the jeans and sweater and added my mother’s silk scarf—intentional without being desperate.
Nothing about this felt effortless.
I was touching my bare engagement ring finger when the doorbell rang at exactly 7 PM.
Sebastian stood there holding a book instead of flowers.
“I panicked at the flower shop,” he said. “Everything felt like a performance. Then I saw this.”
He handed it to me. A first edition of *Autobiography of Red*.
I stared at it. “This is my favorite book.”
“I know. Week two. You said it made you fall in love with poetry before you chose practicality instead.”
“Is bringing a book instead of flowers weird?”
“It’s perfect,” I said—and meant it.
---
The restaurant was small and tucked into De Pijp—warm light, mismatched chairs, handwritten menus. Intimate without trying to be.
“How did you find this place?” I asked.
“My great-aunt used to bring me. She said good food tastes better somewhere that isn’t trying to impress you.”
“She sounds wise.”
“She was. She’d have liked you. No patience for performance.” He tilted his head. “She would’ve seen right through my charm act.”
“You have a charm act?”
“Of course. I deflect seriousness with wit. You organize things so you don’t have to feel them.”
I laughed. “That’s brutally accurate.”
“I promised messy Sebastian tonight.”
“And what does messy Elise look like?”
“I’m hoping to find out.”
We talked—not about books, but about everything else.
He told me about nearly quitting academia, about relationships he’d sabotaged when they grew too real. I told him about Richard. The engagement. The i********: discovery. The way I’d built a controlled life afterward so nothing could blindside me again.
“He sounds like an asshole,” Sebastian said.
“He wasn’t. That’s the problem.”
Sebastian reached across the table and took my hand.
“You’re not too rigid,” he said quietly. “You’re protecting yourself. That’s not a flaw. Anyone who makes you feel like you need to shrink to be loved doesn’t deserve you.”
My throat tightened. “How do you always know what to say?”
“We pay attention to each other.”
“I’m scared,” I admitted.
“Good,” he said. “Me too. Want to be scared together?”
I looked at our hands linked across the table.
“Yes.”
---
We walked home slowly through Amsterdam’s spring air, lights reflecting in the canals.
“Tell me something nobody knows,” he said as we crossed a bridge.
I hesitated. “I used to write poetry. I was good. But it scared me. So I stopped. I chose control instead.”
“Do you still write?”
“Sometimes. Then I delete it.”
“That’s heartbreaking.”
“That’s practical.”
He stopped walking. “Will you show me someday?”
“Only if you show me your terrible drafts.”
“Deal.”
“Your turn,” I said.
He was quiet a long time. “I’m lonely,” he finally said. “I have friends. Colleagues. But I still feel alone. Until you. With you, I don’t.”
The honesty hit me like a wave.
So I kissed him.
It was awkward at first—noses bumping, nervous laughter. Then it settled into something certain. His hand at my face. My fingers in his hair. The city fading away.
“I’ve wanted to do that since Monday,” I said.
“Since week two,” he countered.
“We’re a disaster waiting to happen.”
“Probably.”
“Want to do it anyway?”
“Yes,” I said.
---
At my door, he hesitated.
“If I come up—”
“I know.”
“But I want to.”
I thought about control. About grief arranged into tidy boxes.
“Come up,” I said.
We made terrible coffee. We talked until 3 AM. My apartment felt less sterile with him in it.
“Can I see you tomorrow?” he asked at the door.
“Coffee,” I said. “Something casual.”
“Nothing about this feels casual.”
“I know. But let’s pretend a little longer. Before we tell Marc.”
He didn’t like that.
“Okay,” he said finally. “But not for long.”
---
The next two weeks lived in a fragile, perfect bubble.
We met in quiet cafés. Walked hidden canals. Avoided Sebastian’s neighborhood. Avoided Marc.
I learned he hummed while working, that he ate strawberries despite the allergy, that he feared failing at fiction more than anything.
He learned I feared open water, cried at sad movies when alone, loved rain on windows.
We were building something—intense and secret and dangerously real.
And foundations built on secrets c***k.
Two weeks later, he called.
“My editor loved the article. She wants me to present it next Friday. Will you come?”
“Won’t that be public?”
“You can come as a friend.”
The word stung.
But I wanted to be there.
“Okay.”
---
The event was elegant and intimidating. Academics and critics filled the room. I felt out of place in my simple black dress.
Sebastian found me near the drinks table.
“You look beautiful,” he said softly.
He presented brilliantly—engaging, sharp, alive. I’d seen this version in private, but watching him command a room made me ache with pride.
Afterward, a woman approached me—elegant, precise.
“I’m Dr. Helena Van der Berg,” she said. “Sebastian’s mother.”
Oh.
“And what do you do, Elise?”
“I’m a professional organizer.”
“How practical,” she replied smoothly. “And does Marc know you’re here tonight?”
The implication was sharp.
“Sebastian and I are friends,” I said evenly.
“I’m sure you are.” Her smile was thin. “Sebastian has a habit of fixating. Consuming himself with new interests before moving on. I’d hate to see you hurt.”
Sebastian joined us.
“Mother.”
She left soon after, but the damage lingered.
“Your mother hates me,” I said later at his apartment.
“She doesn’t know you.”
“She thinks I’m a phase.”
“You’re not.”
“What if I am?”
He pulled me closer.
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” he said quietly.
The room stilled.
“You can’t say that.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s been two weeks. Because we’re hiding. Because this is moving too fast and I’m terrified.”
“Are you scared because it’s wrong—or because you feel it too?”
I did.
“I’m falling too,” I whispered.
“Then fall with me.”
And we did.
---
Three days later, Marc arrived in Amsterdam unannounced.
I found out when he called from outside Sebastian’s house.
“I’m staying with him! Dinner tonight? The three of us?”
My overnight bag was still in Sebastian’s closet.
After dinner, we’d tell him. That was the plan.
Dinner was unbearable. Every glance between Sebastian and me felt visible.
Marc went to the bathroom. Sebastian grabbed my hand.
“We have to tell him.”
“I know.”
Marc returned in time to see.
He froze. “Are you f*****g kidding me?”
“Marc—”
“How long?”
“Three weeks,” Sebastian said.
“You lied to me,” Marc snapped. “I asked you to stay professional. And you—” he looked at Sebastian, “—you do this. You get intense, then you panic and ruin it.”
“This is different,” Sebastian said.
“That’s what you always say.”
Outside, the argument escalated.
“I’m trying to protect you,” Marc told me.
“I don’t need protection,” I shot back. “I need you to trust me.”
“Even if he breaks your heart?”
“Even then.”
Marc left furious.
Silence settled between us.
“I do have a pattern,” Sebastian said quietly. “Of getting scared. Of ruining things. What if he’s right?”
“Do you want out?”
“No.”
“Then don’t leave because you’re afraid of becoming what everyone expects. Be better than your past.”
“And if I don’t know how?”
“Then we figure it out together.”
He kissed me on that quiet Amsterdam street—uncertain, imperfect, chosen anyway.
But something had shifted.
The secret was gone.
The easy part was over.
Now we would find out whether what we’d built could survive the weight of being real.
- Writer
