The first thing I was aware of was the smell.
Not the room, not the unfamiliar weight of someone else's duvet, not the grey Paris light coming through curtains that were not mine in a city I had only just arrived in. The smell came first, working its way into my sleep before the rest of me was ready to follow, warm and specific and entirely unexpected. Butter. Something with eggs. Coffee, real coffee, the kind that meant someone had used actual grounds and actual heat and actual intention rather than a capsule machine performing a rough approximation.
I opened my eyes.
The ceiling was high and white and Parisian and for three seconds I did not know where I was. Then I did. Then I remembered all of it in the particular order that memory returns things after a strange night: the towel, th
