What I saw next . . . I felt my whole life fall apart. If it was true, it would explain exactly why I had always felt like an outsider. Why Papa had always treated me the way he had. Because I wasn’t really theirs. And there was more: I glimpsed a line, something about my real mother, but I couldn’t read it because my eyes had blurred with tears—
I froze. Then I heard footsteps outside, approaching the door. Merde. I slammed the laptop closed. The key was turning in the lock. He was back.
Oh God. I couldn’t face him. Not now. Not like this. Everything was changed between us, broken. Everything I believed in had just been shattered. Everything I had ever known was a lie. I didn’t even know who I was any more.
I ran into the bedroom. There was no time . . . The closet. I yanked the doors open, slipped inside, crouched down in the darkness.
I heard him put a record on the player in the main room and the music streamed out, just like the music I had heard every hot summer night, floating to me across the courtyard. As though he had been playing it for me.
It felt like my heart was breaking.
It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be true.
Then, over the sound of my own breathing, I heard him entering the room. Through the keyhole I saw him moving around. He pulled off his sweater. I saw his stomach, that line of hair I had noticed on the first day. I thought about that girl I had been, the one who had watched him from the balcony. I hated her for being such a clueless little idiot. A spoiled brat. Thinking she had issues. She had no idea. But at the same time I was grieving for the loss of her. Knowing I could never go back to her.
He paced close to the closet—I cringed back into the shadows—and then moved away again, stepping into the bathroom. I heard him turn on the shower. All I wanted, now, was to get out of there. This was my moment. I pushed the door open. I could hear him moving around in the bathroom, the shower door opening. I began to tiptoe across the floor. Quiet as I could. Then there was a knock on the front door to the apartment. Putain.
Back I ran, back to the closet, crouching down in the darkness.
I heard the shower stop. I heard him go to answer it, greeting whoever it was at the door.
And then I heard the other voice. I knew it straightaway, of course I did. They talked for a while, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I opened the closet door a crack, trying to hear.
Then they were coming into the bedroom. Why? What were they doing in the bedroom? Why would those two come in here? I could just make them out through the keyhole. Even in those snatched glimpses I could see there was something strange about their body language—something I couldn’t quite work out. But I knew that something was wrong . . . something was not how it should be.
And then it happened. I saw them move together, the two of them. I saw their lips meet. It felt like it was happening in slow motion. I was digging my nails so hard into my palms I thought I might be about to draw blood. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real. I sank down into the darkness, fist in my mouth, teeth biting into my knuckles to stop myself from screaming.
A few moments later I heard the shower start again. The two of them going into the bathroom, closing the door. Now was my chance. I didn’t care about the risk, that they might catch me. Now nothing mattered as much as getting out of there. I ran like I was running for my life.
Back in my room, back in the apartment, I fell to pieces. I was sobbing so hard I could hardly breathe. The pain was too much; I couldn’t bear it. I thought of all the plans I had made for the two of us. I knew he had felt it too, what had been between us in the park that night. And now he’d broken it. He’d ruined it all.
I took out the paintings I’d made of him and forced myself to look at them. Grief became rage. Fucking bastard. Fucking lying fils de pute. All those horrible, twisted, lying words on his computer. And then he and Maman, the two of them together like that—
I stopped, remembered what I’d seen on his computer. I had called her Maman, but after everything I had read I wasn’t even sure what she was to me now—
No. I couldn’t think about that. I wouldn’t, couldn’t believe it. It was all too painful. I could only focus on my anger: that was pure, uncomplicated. I took out my canvas-cutting knife, the blade so sharp you can cut yourself just by touching it to your thumb. I held it to the first canvas and I sliced through it. All the time I felt like he was watching me with those beautiful eyes, asking what I was doing, so I punched holes through them so I couldn’t see his eyes any longer. And then I ripped into all of them, stabbing through the canvas with the blade, enjoying hearing it tear. I pulled at the fabric with my hands, the canvas rasping as his face, his body, was torn to pieces.
Afterward I was trembling.
I looked at what I’d done, the mess, the violence of it. Knowing that it had come from me. I felt like I had an electric current running through me. A feeling that was kind of like fear, kind of like excitement. But it wasn’t enough.
I knew what I had to do.
Jess
“I have to go,” Irina says. A nervous glance out at the dark, empty street beyond the windows. “We’ve been too long, talking like this.”
I feel bad just letting her wander off into the city on her own. She’s so young, so vulnerable.
“Will you be OK?” I ask her. She gives me a look. It says: I’ve been looking after myself for a very long time, babe. I trust myself to do that better than anyone else. And there’s something proud about her as she walks away, a kind of dignity. The way she holds herself, so upright. A dancer’s posture, I suppose.
I think how Ben promised to take care of her. I could make promises, too. But I don’t know if I can keep them. I don’t want to lie to her. But I make a vow to myself, in this moment, that if I can find a way, I will.
As Theo and I walk toward the Metro I’m reeling, running through everything Irina told us. Do they all know? The whole family? Even “nice guy” Nick? The thought makes me feel nauseous. I think of how he told me that he was “between jobs,” how it clearly didn’t make much odds to him. I suppose it wouldn’t if you don’t need an income, if your lifestyle is being bankrolled by a load of girls selling themselves.
And if the Meunier family knew that Ben had found out the truth about La Petite Mort, what might they have done to prevent a secret like that from getting out?
I turn to Theo. “If Ben’s story had printed the police would have to act, wouldn’t they? It wouldn’t matter if the Meuniers have some high-up contacts. Surely there’d be public pressure to investigate.”
Theo nods, but I sense he’s not really listening. “So he really was onto something, after all,” he mutters quickly, almost to himself. He sounds very different from his usual sardonic, downbeat self. He sounds . . . I try to put my finger on it. Excited? I glance at him.