Your Equilibrium

If Thomas had been some strikingly handsome man all the junior editors were pining after, it might have made sense. But no. He just stood out. Completely ordinary looks, hidden behind bright clothes and an almost absurd number of bracelets. Though Gisèle and the others mostly discussed his smile — equally ordinary, in Izzy’s opinion.

Either way, the rumors would die down soon. Izzy was sure Delcourt didn’t particularly like her — if not outright disliked her. Starting with that conversation about appearance, and ending with the fact that she had practically landed on his head.

Still, judging by how often Gisèle tried to peek at their messages from the next desk, silence and peace weren’t coming anytime soon.

“Want some, no?” Gisèle held out a chocolate bar.

Izzy grabbed the edge of her desk so she wouldn’t instinctively lean away. Gisèle always appeared too close, too suddenly, even though they sat side by side. Izzy had started recognizing her movements by the scent of her perfume: the sweeter the air, the closer the lifestyle editor of City Courier was.

“Can you ask normally?”

“What’s wrong with that?” Gisèle pouted.

“It’s like you’re offering and implying I should refuse at the same time. It’s annoying,” Izzy said, though she still took a piece of chocolate.

“What’s wrong with it?” Gisèle repeated. “I just asked if you want it or not.”

Izzy sighed.

“I can’t get used to the way you, Quebecois, phrase things,” she said, slumping back in her chair. “Why is there always another question inside your question? Like: ‘You want coffee, no?’ Or: ‘Maybe we sit here today, yeah?’ It’s like you’re either unsure or pushing the person toward a specific answer. I’m constantly trying to guess the right one. It makes no sense.”

“Why do you need logic?” Gisèle shrugged. “Drop your weird European habits already. Adapt. No one’s going to do it for you.”

She slid the rest of the chocolate toward Izzy and rolled back to her laptop, muttering something unintelligible in slang Izzy still couldn’t decipher.

Izzy wanted to say she was afraid of drifting so far from where she came from that she would forget it entirely.

But she didn’t.

That wasn’t for Gisèle. She wouldn’t understand. No one would — why Izzy had run across the ocean. Who, in their right mind, would leave their hometown, friends, a good job, cut off every possible tie to make sure there was no way back?

Of course, sometimes it felt like a mistake. Something could have been fixed, pieced back together.

But every time, Izzy remembered how quickly she had agreed to move to Canada. Her father had barely finished mentioning a new position at Université Laval, and in her mind, she was already drafting her resignation letter.

More and more often, she wondered how quickly Thomas had made the same decision once.

But no one ever let her think about it for more than a minute.

Thomas Delcourt 17:02

figured out open banking?

Isabelle Keller 17:03

working on it

will deliver on time

Thomas Delcourt 17:05

you’ll manage by the end of the day? need help?

Isabelle Keller 17:05

i’ll handle it

After working in Switzerland, Izzy had thought it would be hard to surprise her with a difficult topic. She had always prided herself on persistence — the ability to process large volumes of data, make sense of them, even become something of a specialist.

But all of that collapsed against Canadian startups.

Fintech, data centers, big data — a set of concepts she had never dealt with before and, frankly, hadn’t planned to. Her father often said she had a technical mind rather than a humanities one, but Izzy refused to believe it.

Apparently, Thomas wasn’t thrilled either when Gagnon assigned him those pieces — so he passed them on to his “student,” while also making sure she actually understood the material instead of just consulting AI. Izzy still couldn’t figure out his attitude toward her, but she was certain he was venting years of accumulated irritation on her.

“Surprised?”

Thomas practically pulled her out of the article. Izzy blinked and looked up at him, genuinely confused. Why that question? Surprised by what? That he had come over from the other side of the newsroom? Or that he was wearing a normal suit — in a completely abnormal color?

“Is there something wrong with my face?”

“There’s always something wrong with your face when you look at me,” Thomas mimicked her. “Leave my jackets alone.”

“You asked if I was surprised. The jacket is normal. The color is terrible.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbed them, then let out a restrained laugh and dropped into Gisèle’s chair. When had she left?

“What’s so funny?”

“Sorry. Really, sorry.” He wiped his face and exhaled. “I asked if you were tired. T’es tanné,” he said slowly, articulating each syllable.

Izzy repeated it silently, but it still didn’t make sense.

“Wait. It still sounds like étonner — to be surprised. You should have asked if I was fatigued. And why are we even talking about this?”

“Even in France, I wouldn’t phrase it like that,” Thomas said, shaking his head, resting his cheek on his fist. “Too formal. Quebec French is softer. T’es tanné is… — » he leaned back, snapping his fingers a few times,” — more like concern. You’re nodding off, time to wrap up. Everyone’s already gone. Otherwise, Gagnon will go full mother hen again and start complaining I’m exploiting you. Send me what you have — we’ll go over it tomorrow.”

Izzy stood up immediately and looked around. The newsroom really was empty. Even Antoine, Gagnon’s deputy, had disappeared — and he was usually the last to leave. She checked the time twice and clicked her tongue in irritation: she should have been home by now. In ten minutes, her father would start calling.

“Scheiße,” she muttered, then froze and looked at Thomas. “You didn’t hear that.”

“Jawohl.” He smiled, running his fingers across his lips as if zipping them shut.

“Not funny,” she grimaced. “My father and I have a rule — no German. Especially at home. Otherwise, we’ll never adapt.” She sent the file, shut her laptop, and began clearing her desk. “Thanks for pulling me out of it. I usually track the time, but I got buried. My father worries because I walk home through the park. I try not to be late.”

“I gratefully accept your most sincere thanks, Mademoiselle Keller,” Thomas said in exaggeratedly formal tones, giving something like a mock bow.

Izzy frowned and slung her bag over her shoulder.

“Are you going to keep bringing that up? I just wanted to write a proper French email. Because you’re French.”

“Here’s a terrible secret: no French person actually likes formal emails — except maybe arrogant Parisian universities,” Thomas said more quietly, staying where he was. Not leaning in, not moving closer. Just… staying. Most men didn’t behave like that.

Or maybe Izzy was simply tired. Especially tired of reacting to him.

“What’s wrong with them?”

“Parisian higher education values its uniqueness so much that it expects students to praise it in motivation letters more than their own achievements.”

“I don’t want to know anything else. My brain’s about to shut down,” Izzy exhaled. “I have to go. It’s late.”

“Want me to walk you home? You can tell your father you weren’t alone,” Thomas asked carefully.

Not in the tone Izzy expected. No invitation, no real flirtation — maybe just a trace of it, but she wasn’t entirely sure. He looked at her without evaluation, without planning how the walk would go or how it might end. Still kept his distance. Didn’t imply anything. At most, he was thinking about the route.

“Oh no, that’s exactly what he shouldn’t know. Gagnon would have you quartered,” Izzy laughed. “But I don’t mind. I’ve never left this late before.” She tightened her grip on her bag strap.

Thomas sighed, gave a small smile, nodded, and gestured toward the exit.

Only then did Izzy notice that he was tired too.

The walk home took between twenty and thirty minutes, depending on the pace. Izzy liked walking. More than she disliked crowded buses and their unreliable schedules.

Strangely, Thomas didn’t reach for her. His words flirted, maybe, but his hands stayed to himself. Always in his pockets. He didn’t try to touch her, didn’t move closer. He kept the distance on a long leash.

Izzy couldn’t understand why — but part of her was relieved. No closeness meant no painful attachments. No memorable touches.

Only part of her.

Because she wanted to touch him so badly, she had to clench her teeth.

She needed to know how soft his jacket was — she couldn’t tell just by looking, no matter how many times she had studied it over the past two weeks. The sweater, too: soft or slightly scratchy? That thick collar had to be stiff to hold its shape.

And his hands.

She wanted, unbearably, to take his hand. To understand the texture of his skin, whether it was rough or dry. The need was so sharp it made her fingers tingle.

But Thomas never took a single step closer.

And Izzy felt so comfortable in that distance that she was afraid to break it.

Thomas

Thomas drove home on autopilot: turned the music up, shut his brain off, followed a familiar route.

He only exhaled once the apartment door closed behind him.

When you try very hard not to get close to people, you inevitably start noticing when they move toward you. Small details. Movements. Half-hints.

Izzy moved toward him — and pulled herself back every time. Not even halfway. At the level of thought.

Thomas had learned to see it in her gaze. In the way she didn’t look at him as a whole, but at separate parts. Izzy seemed to perceive people in fragments — remembering details rather than the full picture. A useful trait for a researcher. Less so socially.

He took her behavior apart piece by piece while changing, reheating dinner, even when he finally put his phone on charge and went to bed.

How many editors had approached him? Four? And all of them had backed off once they realized nothing beyond work was going to happen.

But Izzy seemed to hold onto that. As if that was exactly what she wanted — for nothing to happen.

“Then why do you fight it so much?” Thomas muttered into the empty room.

He had come to Quebec precisely to avoid questions like that. To spend time on nothing but work. He had crossed an ocean, moved into another world so he wouldn’t have to fit in — just work and stay focused.

And now he didn’t fit in with Izzy.

A girl from a world of neutrality, forced into a foreign language and culture. Who, in their right mind, moves from German-speaking Switzerland to Canada?

Thomas wanted to ask her about it. How she and her father ended up in Quebec. Why such a move? Where her mother was. Why did she keep fidgeting with her hair or jewelry — it’s slightly irritating. Why her gaze always drifted to things she could touch.

And you don’t?

It was something cynically professional — seeing someone’s armor and wanting to break through it. Izzy’s was so strong that even brushing against it resonated for days.

Strong enough that Thomas was afraid to even think about touching her.

Which only made approaching her more interesting.

Not because of any forbidden-fruit nonsense. Nothing forbidden about it — show him a journalist who hasn’t slept with a colleague. With other professions, your schedules simply don’t align.

Usually, that line carried a certain implication.

But not with Izzy.

She was the editor-in-chief’s friend’s daughter. A girl who reached for everything — except, for some reason, she forbade herself from reaching.

And that mystery was far more compelling than why she always wore a sweater over her shirt.

step / the closer a person gets, the less intact they are

Thomas

Letters refused to turn into numbers. Numbers wouldn’t turn into letters either.

Thomas had made a deal with Gagnon: one day a week when neither he nor Izzy would be buried in routine work — unless the world suddenly caught fire or they found themselves on the brink of World War III. He’d negotiated that mostly for himself, just to have one day when no one hovered within a two-meter radius.

Except Izzy.

At first, she irritated him immensely. Because of her, he’d been dragged into mentoring again, and on top of that, Gagnon had fully saddled him with the quarterly magazine. Thomas disliked commercial pieces for their lack of freedom, but they were the only thing bringing money into the newsroom — and the reason he’d been hired in the first place. A name, without the need to show his face too much.

If Thomas could, he would erase himself and write himself anew. But in the modern world, that kind of luxury was out of reach.

And then there was Izzy. Smart, capable, but very particular. He hadn’t really been surprised by the way she reacted to his shirts or whatever else bothered her. Izzy was the embodiment of every stereotype about Switzerland: dressed strictly, almost perfectly, muted or dark colors, even her hairstyle looked more put together than the entire newsroom combined. Still, Thomas knew women who, with that level of restraint, managed to look elegant and sensual. Izzy wasn’t one of them. Even if she wore a fitted shirt, no one would ever see it — she always layered herself in sweaters, sweatshirts, vests. Pure yin and yang of the fashion world.

And yet, unexpectedly, she was comfortable working with. No unnecessary invasion of personal space, both of them — or at least one — always in headphones, no pointless questions, no digging into each other’s souls.

Perfect.

Too perfect.

And that, in itself, was exhausting. As much as Thomas enjoyed gathering material in silence and supposed solitude, his eyes would drift, then burn, then start seeing zeros and ones instead of Latin letters.

“Alright, enough.” Thomas snapped his laptop shut. “Get up, or we’ll rot here.” Izzy just blinked at him, confused. “God, Izzy, don’t just stand there. Grab your things. We need a walk.”

She hesitated, but obeyed, packing up and following him out without a word.

Autumn Quebec greeted them with wind again. The hardest thing to get used to was the weather forecasts — after a year and a half in Canada, Thomas had learned not to trust them, but still hadn’t figured out how to interpret them properly. Wind and humidity distorted everything. Back home, he would never have wrapped himself in a coat this early — usually that came closer to December.

But Quebec in autumn was brighter, and you didn’t have to go far to see it. Thomas led Izzy to the nearest park — the perfect place to look at something other than black text on white.

“Want a poutine?”

He pointed at a small stand selling fries with cheese curds — Quebec’s most famous street food and, in Thomas’s opinion, the greasiest thing on the planet.

Izzy followed his hand with unmistakable hunger in her eyes, but only tightened her grip on her bag strap. Embarrassed? Tired?

Thomas rolled his eyes and went to order without another word. He came back with two cardboard boxes.

“You’re obviously hungry, and working on an empty stomach is a bad idea.” He held one box out insistently, and this time, Izzy gave in. Not surprising — the smell alone was irresistible. Even after a year and a half, Thomas still wasn’t fully used to the squeak of cheese or the sauce threatening to spill over the edges, but hunger didn’t care about details.

Izzy held the box awkwardly, like she didn’t quite know what to do with it.

“Turn it sideways and support it with your palm,” Thomas demonstrated. “Time to pick up the habits and default settings of another country. Otherwise, you’ll always feel out of place.”

“It’s hard to feel at home holding what looks like an insult to cheese in a country that barely understands fondue,” Izzy scoffed. “Thanks.”

“You can get used to things. You can find things that didn’t exist in your old world.”

“Sure. Or things that are missing. I distinctly remember we managed to invent words like ‘sixty’ and ‘ninety’ without using multiplication tables.”

“That’s Belgium!”

“Switzerland too! Ow!”

A drop of hot sauce landed on her fingers. She jerked her hand and shook it.

“Burned yourself?”

“I’m fine,” Izzy waved it off, though Thomas caught the brief flash of pain on her face. “Hold this.” She shoved the box into his hands and hurried to wipe her fingers with a Kleenex.

“You sure? Let me see.” Thomas stepped closer but kept his hands apart, holding the food away.

Izzy immediately pulled her hands in, as if his touch — or even his gaze — might make it worse.

“It’s nothing. That’s why I don’t like eating on the go. I don’t have a yellow sweater to match the sauce.” She stepped toward a trash bin, then came back and took the box again. “Anyway… I don’t know about you, but it’s still hard for me. And this — » she lifted the poutine slightly,” — this is too simple. The default setting of any Quebecois. Liking fries with cheese doesn’t make you one of them. And I know my cheese and potatoes — this is a disaster.”

Thomas thought for a moment.

“Alright. Fair point. But everything is in the details. For example — chocolatine.”

“Did we come out to eat, or are you giving me a crash course in Canadian assimilation?”

“I was in your place a year ago. No reason for you to repeat my mistakes if you can avoid them. So eat and listen. Again — chocolatine.”

“What is that?” Izzy asked, already tired.

Thomas stopped and looked at her expectantly. He’d been waiting for sarcasm, irony, anything — not a genuine question.

“You only know one name for a chocolate pastry?” he tried.

“That’s pain au chocolat,” Izzy said confidently. “Yours must mean something smaller. I’d guess it’s some kind of chocolate candy.”

Thomas held it together for three seconds, then shook his head and laughed.

“Your French is too proper! Even for me! That’s not how this works, Izzy. Alright, sorry,” he raised a hand. “There’s an ongoing linguistic war over that pastry in France, and in Quebec, one side clearly won. But you need to know both.”

“Are we seriously still talking about pastries?”

Thomas scoffed theatrically.

“Just remember: chocolatine. Say it differently, and everyone will know you’re not from here. Once, in a bakery, they made me go to the back of the line and order again. Hard to switch overnight when you’ve spent your whole life on the other side of the barricades.”

“Oh, you should never go to Switzerland,” Izzy suddenly laughed and tossed her empty container into a bin. “You won’t survive past your first breakfast.”

“Oh, really?” Thomas raised an eyebrow. He caught himself stepping closer, then just as smoothly corrected the distance.

Izzy seemed to notice, but didn’t comment.

“If you ask for a croissant, no one will give you one.”

“I don’t believe you don’t have them.”

“We do. They’re called gipfel. And they’re shaped like little crescents.” She gestured with her hands, and Thomas immediately noticed how her voice shifted with that brief slip into German.

“So your country has three official languages and still dares to lecture others on culture?” Thomas tried to sound serious. “Never say that word again,” he added with mock offense. “But that’s exactly why I like working with you. You notice details I’ve already stopped seeing.”

“You like working with me because you’ve forgotten how to talk to people. For starters, you could look them in the eye and stop trying to run away.”

Thomas stopped. How had she noticed that? He’d only taken her along once for an interview. Or had she figured it out from the way he interacted with her?

“I don’t like pressuring people.” He cleared his throat and looked away.

“An interview is intimate by definition. You know that,” Izzy said, stepping ahead of him and catching his gaze. “It’s not just a list of questions. It’s something alive. You adapt, improvise, and ideas come to you that weren’t there during prep. That’s the real art of conversation. Art, power, control.”

“You’re quoting your blog,” Thomas narrowed his eyes. “All you need is a banner and a barricade.”

“Actually, that’s my thesis,” she smiled.

Izzy glanced at her smartwatch — several notifications at once. She grabbed her phone.

Her eyes widened.

She froze.

Panicked.

“Oh no, no, no! The weekly pitch meeting! I was supposed to prepare! Thomas, sorry — I have to run!”

Thomas stayed in the middle of the park, unsure whether to move at all. Technically, he should’ve been at that meeting too, but two hours in a room full of people — relevant or not — drained him and got in the way of actual work. Gagnon didn’t mind, as long as Thomas sent ideas in advance.

With Izzy, everything felt too easy. That wasn’t how things worked. They’d started absurdly, yet somehow found a rhythm. Izzy didn’t chase emotional closeness, didn’t flirt, didn’t try to push things beyond work. They had grown closer — naturally, spending that much time together — but it wasn’t quite friendship. Something lighter, hovering on the edge between camaraderie and overfamiliarity. And even then, they maintained distance.