Page 97 of Closer

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

FRENCH FRIES AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES

BRIELLE

After I signed my lastCD, Piaf drove us home. I could tell it was driving her insane not to ask me what had happened backstage. I decided she could afford to go crazy for pimping me out to Levi in the first place. I get changed into my pyjamas, snuggle my cat, and sit on the couch with my feet up. All I can think about is him. All I see is how pink and alive his skin was, and how I wanted to pull him close in that corridor, and never let him go. But thinking that way is dangerous.

My mother picks up the hotel key card from the coffee table and turns it over in her hands. “What is this?”

“It’s a hotel key.”

“The Shangri-La Hotel, Paris ...” Her shrewd gaze pins me to my seat. “Whose hotel key is this?”

“It’s Levi’s.”

She sits down beside me, and I squeeze my eyes tightly shut against the tears that threaten to spill over. God, I’m so sick of crying all the time. “Oh ma fille. Why are you punishing yourself?”

“I’m not punishing myself.”

“Aren’t you?”

I fold my arms over my chest, and Monsieur Chat springs away with an agitated meow. “I’m punishing him.”

“Which in turn hurts you.”

“It’s not as simple as that. He is chaos, Maman. I cannot afford chaos now. I do not want chaos. I want a man who will stand by me when life is hard, not drown himself in a bathtub with liquor and pills.”

“Brielle, do you think living with your père was always easy?”

“No, of course not.”

“There was a lot of pressure on that man for a long time. I practically had to schedule time to make love in order to conceive you, but strong and stubborn as he was, I realised he needed someone stronger. He needed me to be his rock.”

“Levi is notmon père.”

“No, but are you trying to tell me he isn’t the love of your life?”

“It doesn’t matter if I love him. I cannot be with him wondering if he’s going to take a long bath that he never wakes up from if I’m not there.”

“Then you need to tell him, you at least owe him that.”

“I do not owe him anything.”

“Brielle Kagawa, you owe him that, and a little bit more, I imagine.” Maman gives me a stern look that tells me not to mess with her, and I sigh and snatch the key card from her hands.

***

I’m bone weary. I shouldnot be here, and yet, my mother was right, I at least owe him an explanation for why we can no longer be together. I raise my hand and knock quietly. There is no answer, no noise from the other side of the door. I knock louder, worried I have the wrong room, but I try the key and the mechanism beeps, the light flashes green as the lock flicks back. I rest my hand on the knob and turn, half afraid I’ll find him indisposed or worse, naked with another woman, but when I push inside the room, all the breath leaves my lungs in a rush. Levi is on the bed, shirt off, dress pants slung low across his hips, his eyes softly closed, and the TV blaringPlus belle la vie—the French soap opera Margaux used to watch.

I don’t want to wake him, a part of me wants to leave and never have to talk to him again, but another part wants to curl up next to him, and that is a very dangerous idea.

I don’t realise I’ve moved closer to the bed until I’m standing right beside him. He looks so young in sleep, off guard, and childlike. My heart gives a painful tug, and I pull the covers up over his chest. The remote is clutched tightly in his hand. I reach for it and slide it from his grasp, only to have my wrist caught in his long fingers. I gasp. He tugs me closer, and I lose my footing and wind up sprawled on top of him.

He takes my face in his hands and stares into my eyes. “You came.”

“To talk,” I whisper. “Only to talk.”

“You’re so fucking beautiful.” His voice is thick with desire, and gravelled from sleep. The words are a knife in my gut.

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