Some weeks pass and Lafayette begins to feel his optimism fray at the edges, bit by bit until he wakes up one morning and finds himself so very close to giving up.

He is at a lost and does not know what to do, but that night though – that night when he holds back bitter tears and chokes down an entire bottle of wine, he is coherent enough to remember Connor’s soft voice in awe as they sit on a crumbling rooftop together.

“You are right,” Connor breathes, staring over Paris, “France is beautiful.”