“Fuck,” Nathalie thought. “Shit,” she cursed out loud.

She kicked an empty pack of cigarettes out of her way and thought, “I can still turn around. I can go back there and ask the receptionist to let me through.”

But Nathalie knew she wouldn’t do it. She was almost at Kim’s place now and her best friend already had dinner ready. Nathalie regretted that she had agreed to stop by tonight. She had as soon as she had seen the sad look on Raven’s face.

“I really should have run after her,” she thought for the hundredth time. “I mean, I could have told her how I feel.”

Nathalie had been rehearsing what she wanted to say to Raven ever since she had left the hotel. She kept replaying the scene in her head, over and over, imagining the several ways Raven could have responded.

A cyclist who was also waiting for the light to change suddenly straightened and pushed himself off with a grunt. Nathalie’s eyes flicked up. She crossed the street just as the light turned red again.

“Maybe it’s a good thing Kim called,” Nathalie told herself. She wasn’t sure yet if she should tell Kim about Raven. “Who am I kidding,” she thought. Of course, she would tell Kim about Raven. She wouldn’t be able to stop herself even if she tried.

But how to summarise what had happened in the last 24 hours? “I met someone last night and had an instant crush,” was what first came to mind. Kim would have a good laugh about it, Nathalie knew.

She pulled the elastic band out of her hair and wrapped it around her wrist. She had just turned onto Kim’s street. “Did I bring my key?” she wondered. Nathalie usually had Kim’s house key on her, so she could drop by whenever she wanted to.

She pulled out the contents of her front pockets. She found her ID and debit cards and the single key of her own front door in one pocket. The other one was empty. She would have to ring the doorbell.

Nathalie stopped walking and looked up at the sky. It was still clear and had even turned into a beautiful, romantic pink and orange. “Perfect for a night at the park,” she thought. Her fingers traced the square ‘9000’ logo on her shirt.

Nathalie looked down at her chest. Raven had looked so darned adorable with her 9000 baseball cap. Nathalie had bought it only two weeks ago, but she didn’t regret giving it away to Raven one bit. She could always get another one.

She put the key and passes back in her front pocket and pulled out her phone. Without thinking about it, she opened the photo app. Nathalie scrolled back to the very first picture of Raven on the bridge this morning.

Raven still looked a little uncomfortable in this image. Nathalie could tell by the awkward way she was holding onto the metal railing. Raven already looked a little more relaxed in the next pictures, the lines around her eyes crinkling.

Nathalie’s thumb now hovered over the screen. She had reached the photo she had taken at the City Pavilion later in the day. Raven was sitting on a bench, holding a cone with several large scoops of Italian sorbet.

Nathalie had snapped the picture just as Raven was flicking her tongue over her upper lip, staring into the camera confidently. The fire in Raven’s eyes made Nathalie’s blood thrum in her veins.

She was still staring at the picture, her fingers tight around the device when an incoming email message slid onto the screen. The name flashing at the top of the notification nearly made her drop the phone.

Raven had sent her an email and the subject was ‘You know, it is weird.’ Nathalie immediately caught the reference to the words she had used before the waiter had interrupted them.

The notification window had already disappeared from the screen. Nathalie quickly navigated to the email app to read the message. Thousands of butterflies darted around in her stomach as she started reading.

“Hi, Nathalie,

Thank you for showing me around Ghent today. Your city is magnificent. I really appreciate your time and enthusiasm. I couldn’t have wished for a better guide.

This might sound a little odd, but I feel like we’ve known each other for much longer than we actually do. I think you were about to say something along those lines at lunch when the waiter interrupted you.

I just wanted to say: yeah, it is indeed weird…

Raven.”

Nathalie reread the last few lines a couple of times. Her head was spinning and her hands were shaking. There was no question in her mind about how Raven felt after this email. Nathalie hit the reply button and started typing.

“Hey, Raven,

Thanks for your message. That was exactly what I was going to say at lunch, but…”

Her screen suddenly flashed and the email she was typing disappeared. Bart’s name appeared instead.