Chapter 1 - Say Hi
If someone had told me, Claire, that I’d be living in Montreal at twenty-eight, wrapped in three sweaters, watching snow fall like confetti outside my tiny apartment window… I would’ve laughed…Or cried…Hard to say.
Back then, everything made me emotional. But that was before.
Before I packed my life into two suitcases.. and then asked my dad to ship 2 more. Before I left Lille, left France entirely, and screamed “freedom!” in the Charles de Gaulle airport bathroom mirror like a slightly unhinged heroine in a French indie film.
That was 4 years ago and I never went back, nor regretted it.
Here I am now, living on the third floor of a cozy Plateau Mont-Royal walk-up, the kind of Old Montreal-adjacent building that creaked like it had opinions. The heating was temperamental, the hallway smelled like someone’s daily incense ritual, and the windows whined every time the wind hit them, but it felt like my kind of haven and loved every inch of it.
The floorboards especially, every time someone walks down the hallway, they sigh. Like, literally…The wooden planks complain like an old auntie with arthritis and attitude.
But even then, I’d never trade this building or this neighborhood for a million. Make it a billion and we’ll talk.
This little bubble is everything I wished for when I escaped France. It formed naturally, comfortably, with the people in it.
There’s Madame Solange, the Haitian grandmother on the first floor who knits scarves like she’s trying to single-handedly protect Montreal from winter.
There’s the sweet Spanish family downstairs, always smiling, always carrying groceries like they’re meant to feed twelve, not four.
There are the two introverted siblings on my floor, students who practically teleport from their apartment to university and back, never saying more than three words at a time.
There’s another French family upstairs, the nomadic couple and their tiny toddler who seems to speak three languages already and none of them clearly.
And a couple of tenants I haven’t met yet, which is totally fine with me, i just see them once in a while.
It’s quiet. It’s warm. It’s community-ish… in a Montreal way. Everything was perfect.
And then…
A disturbance.
A shift in the universe.
A ripple in my peaceful little bubble.
Because on my floor — the top floor — the one with limited noise, limited drama, and unlimited calm…
the vacant apartment finally got a new tenant.
At first, I didn’t care.
People move in, people move out.
Fine.
But then I met him.
And by “met,” I mean:
I said hi.
He did not.
First, he couldn’t smile and be polite
Second, he couldn’t be more handsome.
Third, he couldn’t be more grumpy.
Honestly, kill me.
It’s beauty wrapped inside a grumpy package.
A gift nobody asked for but everybody notices anyway.
And the worst part?
He moved in like he owned the entire building.
And that, that was the beginning of my problem.
