Chapter 6 — The Echo of Longing

Éric

The office oppresses me.

More than ever.

Yet I came here to flee. Flee the bedroom. Flee Clara. Flee the memory of the previous night, of her voice soft as a verdict, of her measured breath in the dark. Flee above all Jade. Ironic sordidness: it's her I find again, as soon as I cross the threshold.

Not in flesh. In spirit. In scent. In poison.

Everything reminds me of Jade. Even here.

The smell of coffee, usually reassuring, burns my throat. The noise of keyboards, distant calls, slamming doors… everything assaults me. My body is here, sitting, impeccable suit, tie well knotted. But inside, it's a desert.

I think I've become a shell.

An illusion of a man.

Colleagues greet me, talk to me. I respond automatically. I smile sometimes. I've learned to pretend. I'm a good liar now. But my hands tremble a little when I sit down. And my stomach twists every time a phone vibrates.

Because I'm waiting for a message.

Hers.

And because I dread it arriving.

I imagine her, behind her screen, cigarette between her fingers, leg folded on an armchair. She wouldn't doubt. She would dare. She wouldn't need to write then erase a thousand times.

But me, I'm still suspended.

Between two worlds.

At eleven, I crack.

I close my office door. I lower the blind. I lock it.

And I go looking for her: Jade.

Her I*******m profile. A few photos, cold, controlled. But in every image, there is something of me. Or maybe it's me putting something of her everywhere. Her latest photo is there. A glass of red wine. A white marble table. A warm light.

"Between two cities, between two truths."

I read it again. And again. And again.

I type a message.

"I miss you."

I erase it.

I start again.

"I'm thinking about that night."

I erase it.

I sigh. I close the app. I reopen it. Again.

I hate myself.

I'm supposed to love my wife.

I'm supposed to go home without this strange hunger in the pit of my stomach.

But I think of Jade like a man thinks of his last breath.

And Clara…

Clara is becoming a habit. A soft shadow. A silence that annoys me.

I spend the afternoon wandering between open and never-read files, professional messages I reply to without reading. I'm there, but absent. Everything I do is empty.

At 5 PM, I can't take it anymore. I leave. I flee.

But I don't go home immediately.

I walk down the street. I stop in front of a bar. I wonder if she's there, somewhere, waiting for me. Maybe in another hotel. Maybe naked under a robe. Maybe already laughing at me.

And yet I don't call her.

When I get back to the apartment, it's almost night. Clara is in the kitchen. She's cutting vegetables slowly. Too slowly.

I stop on the threshold.

She doesn't turn around.

— Want a glass? she asks.

Her voice is soft. Mechanical.

I say yes.

I pour it myself.

She smiles at me. A tiny smile. Polite. Distant.

And I understand that this smile is the beginning of the end.

Clara

I sense it even before he enters.

I sense his fatigue, his absence, his smell foreign to the house. When the door opens, it's as if the air changes around me. As if the love I've tried so hard to preserve is withering with every step he takes towards me.

I'm in the kitchen. I'm cutting carrots. He used to like that, before.

I pretend.

I cling to gestures, to recipes. I cling to what's left.

He says good evening to me.

I barely hear him.

I offer him a glass. Because I don't know what else to say anymore. Because asking him a question would be forcing him to lie. And I don't want to hear him lie.

Not tonight.

He looks at me. I see him, out of the corner of my eye. He doesn't know what to do with his hands, or with his silence. He wants to fill the void. But he has nothing left to offer.

So he smiles at me.

And I return that smile.

A goodbye smile.

While he drinks his glass, I think of all the times he really looked at me. When his gaze sought me, undressed me, wanted me. Those looks have disappeared. Replaced by this awkwardness, this feigned guilt, this cowardly restraint.

I know it.

I know he's thinking of her.

Not because of a read message. Not because of a heard word.

But because he no longer sees me.

I'm here, in front of him, and he looks through me.

I found a trace of lipstick on his shirt two days ago. A dark red, almost burgundy. Me, I only wear neutral tones. He knows I saw it. I put it back in a ball in the laundry basket. I said nothing.

And he said nothing either.

I woke up that night. He was breathing hard. His forehead was damp. I watched him. I wondered if he was dreaming of her. If, in his sleep, he found with her what he no longer seeks with me.

And that's when I understood.

He hadn't left.

He had evaporated.

Decomposed.

And me, I was there. Alone with a ghost. A man I loved. That I still love. And that I am losing, without even having the strength to hold him back.

I didn't scream. I didn't cry.

But since that night, I mourn him in silence.

And I prepare myself. Not to make a scene. Not to beg him.

But to let him choose.

I want to know if he's still capable of seeing me.

Me, Clara.

Not the woman he shares an address with.

But the woman he loved. Maybe.

Once upon a time.