Chapter 4: The Illusion

Élianor

The two weeks that follow are a waking dream, a golden, unreal reverie from which I fear waking at every moment. Raphaël doesn't just keep his promise. He embodies it.

He is everywhere.

The day after our meeting in the park, I return to school, fear in my belly, expecting fresh torment. But at my locker, a wildflower, a cornflower, is slipped into the vent. No note. Just this bright splash of color against the gray metal. My heart leaps.

In the hallway, he walks beside me. He doesn't take my arm, doesn't clasp my hand; his presence alone is a declaration. He speaks, his calm voice covering the whispers.

"Did you finish the book I told you about, Élianor?"

The looks are different. Less contempt, more astonishment. Curiosity. Even jealousy, in the eyes of some girls.

The days pass. The cornflower is replaced by a daisy, then by a small sprig of lilac. Every morning, a silent surprise awaits me. He thwarts all my plans to eat alone, sitting across from me in the cafeteria with his tray. He doesn't even seem to notice the sidelong glances, the stifled laughs that gradually become less frequent.

"Tell me," he says. "Tell me what you think of this poetry."

He listens to me. Truly. His green eyes are fixed on mine, he nods, he smiles at my thoughts. He treats me like an intellectual, like an equal. He speaks of my "eyes full of storms" and the "softness" of my voice. His compliments are lifebuoys I cling to, keeping me above the surface of an ocean of doubt.

Our secret meetings at the old mill become a habit. On evenings when I can slip away, we meet there, sitting on the cold stone, watching the river flow. He moves closer. One evening, his shoulder brushes mine. A shiver runs through me. Another evening, he brushes a strand of hair from my face, his fingers grazing my cheek. I hold my breath.

"You are so different from them, Élianor. So much more... real."

His words are balm on the scars left by "whale" and "fatso." Under his gaze, I begin, timidly, to exist. I catch myself smiling. Even laughing, a forgotten sound, foreign to my own ears. I catch myself forgetting, at times, the weight of my body. He never mentions it. It's as if, for him, this shell doesn't exist. He only sees the inside, the soul he claims to discover.

It's an assiduous, patient, bewitching courtship. He builds around me a glass palace of attention and gentle words. I settle into it, I feel safe there, protected. Loved? Hope, forbidden and crazy, germinates in my wounded heart. What if it were true? What if he, Raphaël, saw what no one else had ever seen?

One night, under the moon, as the song of crickets lulls our silences, he turns to me. His face is so close I can feel his breath on my skin.

"Élianor," he whispers.

He says nothing else. He needs no words. He leans in and brushes his lips against mine. A kiss. Light as a feather, brief as a wingbeat. The first. A spark of pure magic in my night.

When he pulls back, I am petrified, breathless, my lips burning. He smiles, a smile both sad and sweet.

"I have to go. See you tomorrow."

He leaves, leaving me alone, trembling, my heart pounding. I bring my fingers to my lips. The taste of him is still there. The taste of the lie, too, but I am too drunk to recognize it.

I go home that night floating. My sister, Liora, gives me a sidelong glance, contemptuous, but also intrigued.

"You look weird. Did you find another bag of chips to devour?"

I don't answer. I go up to my room, I look at myself in the mirror. My reflection is the same. The shapeless mass, the round face. But for the first time, I think I see, in my gray eyes, a glimmer. A glimmer that Raphaël has lit there.

I lie down, face buried in the pillow, reliving that kiss again and again. It is the most beautiful night of my seventeen years. The sweetest. The cruelest.

I do not yet know that I am dancing on a tightrope, above an abyss. I do not know that every tender look, every flower, every gentle word is a chisel blow that weakens the ice beneath my feet a little more. Raphaël is not my savior.

He is the architect of my ultimate fall. And in two weeks, to the day, he will himself push open the trapdoor.