Page 71 of Closer

I glance at Piaf, because I have been a lot harder to deal with since I returned. I am sad, and angry, and I cry a lot. A lot. “Non.”

My best friend smiles smugly, and I think it is a shame that she was not invited to Levi’s chateau to play for him instead because the two of them would get on famously.

“Has your heart become ugly and unsure?” Maman asks.

“Non.” I sigh.

“Then I assure you he still loves you, he still wants and desires you, and you need to go to him.”

For the first time in days I smile, and Piaf bounces out of her chair, her wild dark blue pixie cut bouncing with her as she dives onto the couch between me and Maman, squealing like a little piglet.

“I knew you’d fall head over heels in love with him, and I set you up.” She claps her hands excitedly. “I expect my own room at this chateau. You have to introduce me to the whole band, and when you have children, I want the first girl named after me.”

***

Ihastily throw anovernight bag together. I don’t worry about taking my cello. It’s not as if I won’t be back, and I just need to see him. I need to tell him that I made a mistake, and that I was wrong, and that he is smarter than me, because he knew. All that time he knew, and I was the idiot. I was too stupid to see that he was playing his way into my heart and head from the second I met him. And I thought I was so aloof and so clever.

Piaf drives me and Maman to the airport. Piaf should never have been given a license, and several times on the way I am convinced we are going to die. I buy a plane ticket with the money from Levi that I swore I would never touch, but I figure it doesn’t count if I’m using it just to get back to him.

I kiss my mother and my best friend goodbye at the terminal, and board the plane with jittery nerves and legs like jelly. It’s another thirty minutes before we take off, but as I wait, I write melodies in my head. Sonnets to the memory of his skin on mine, caprices and concertos to the way he moved inside me, and the way I fit in his arms. My cheeks flush with heat from my salacious thoughts.I cannot wait to see him.

The flight to Nice takes little more than an hour, but it feels entirely too long, and when it lands, my back hurts, my heart aches and my fingers long to touch him. Finding an Uber at this time proves difficult, but eventually one arrives, and when I pull up to the chateau I almost forget my bag in my haste to get to Levi. I go back for it, and then hurry towards the house, pounding my fist on the door. “Levi! Levi open up.”

There’s a dim glow from somewhere inside the house. It flickers. Likely the TV. He’s probably watching porn.Kinky bastard. I pound again on the door and a dishevelled Margaux answers in her nightgown.

“Margaux, did I wake you? I’m so sorry,” I say, as I draw the woman in for a hug. She looks a little shocked, and it takes a beat for her to wrap her arms around me and hug me back. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I was hoping the idiot rock star would come answer the door, but it seems he’s as lazy as ever, right?”

I slip by her and walk through the foyer, towards the lounge. “Levi? Did he fall asleep again at the piano?” He’s not there. Dog is though. he’s chowing down on a discarded bowl of popcorn, but he runs over and nudges my leg with his muzzle. “Hello, little dog, where is your master?”

“He’s not here,” Margaux says from behind me.

“What?”

“He left the country a week ago.”

All the blood drains from my face and I turn woozy, the blood rushing in my ears. I sit down hard on the sofa, not caring that I’m sitting on the remote and flicking a million different channels. “He left?”

“He went home to Australia.”

“But Dog ... and this house? What about me?”

“Oh,mon trésor.” She takes my hands in hers and squeezes gently. “He didn’t think you were coming back.”

I sigh. This is my fault. I should have told him I loved him, that it wasn’t his fault that I didn’t get those last few weeks with my father; it was mine. I didn’t stay for the money. I told myself that because I didn’t want to fall in love with him. I didn’t want it to be true. He might have paid me to stay, but my heart had been the deciding factor. My heart wouldn’t let me leave, until that horrible day where I accused him of costing me time with my father. Where I told him he didn’t matter.

“We’ll call him. I have his number in Sydney. We’ll let him know you’re here, that you’ve come back, and he’ll return. He loves you. He was heartbroken when you left.”

“Non,” I say, and even I hear how my voice quakes with tears. “Don’t call. He’s probably right where he needs to be, back with his family, with his band.”

“Mademoiselle, he belongs with you.”

I give a humourless laugh. “Non, he belongs to the world. I’m just a distraction. A muse for a short time. I know better than any that falling in love with a muse only works as long as you’re willing to be miserable, as long as your willing to allow your misery to engulf you and take over your life, and then she’s gone. Taking all your creativity with her.”

“Brielle—”

“If it’s okay with you, can I stay the night? I don’t think I can deal with the airport right now.”

“Of course,” Margaux smiles. “I’ll make up your room.”

“Actually, can I sleep in his?”

Her brow arcs as if I am mad. And I may well be, because that whole wing of the house is completely structurally unsound, but I have no good memories of Levi in my old room. Only ones filled with hate, and angry words, and betrayal because that is where I told him I didn’t care. “Are you sure?”

I nod. “It will be nice to be surrounded by my memories of him in there, even if only for one night. Who knows, maybe I’ll get a hit song out of it too.”

“I’ll make up the bed.”

“Merci.”

I pat Dog’s head and fight back the tears that long to spill from my eyes. Not yet. When I’m alone, then I’ll allow the tears to come, but until that time, I’ll be stoic in my misery. I’ll shove it down until I can climb into his bed and cry.

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