I hadn't intended to stop. Paris was drowning beneath the rain that evening, the kind that turned every streetlamp into a smear of gold and made the Seine look almost black. I was halfway across the bridge when I saw her. A girl sitting alone near the railing. Crying. I slowed without meaning to. There was something about the way she was trying to hide it—the lowered head, the trembling shoulders, the stubborn little attempt to make herself invisible—that caught somewhere beneath my ribs. Everyone else walked past. I couldn't. I watched her for a moment, rain slipping from the brim of my coat, and wondered what sort of sadness could make someone sit alone beside the Seine in the middle of a storm. Then she looked up. And somehow, the noise of Paris seemed to disappear. Her eyes met mine for barely a second before she looked away again. I don't know why that moment stayed with me. Perhaps because she looked unbearably alone. Perhaps because, suddenly, I didn't want her to be. I walked toward her slowly, careful not to frighten her. “Are you all right?” A ridiculous question. She clearly wasn't. Still, it was the only thing I could think to say. I opened my umbrella and held it over her, letting my own shoulder fall into the rain. “You don't have to tell me what happened,” I said quietly. I paused beside her. “But you shouldn't have to cry alone.” For the first time, she looked at me properly. And there it was again—that strange pull in my chest. Warm. Uninvited. Impossible to explain. I had stopped because she was crying. But standing there beneath the rain, I found myself wondering something far more dangerous: What happened to her… and why did I suddenly care so much?