“I was worried there,” she murmured, giving him an impish look.
“Worried about what?” asked Milo, bewilderment inscribing itself on his features once more.
She laughed and shrugged. “That you weren’t making a move.”
It took him a moment to understand, but she turned away, this time for good, and went to the front door. A moment later, she left the house and ran the few steps along the sidewalk to her own house, while Milo stood and watched her go.
Just as she was about to reach her front door, a moped driving on the sidewalk sped around the corner. Surprised by the sudden ear-splitting appearance of the two-wheeled vehicle, Inès froze, as if paralyzed by the choice she had to make: run back toward Milo, or ahead to her front door. Her hesitation made her lose precious seconds and the moped was heading straight for her. Milo had just enough time to leap up and spring at her to pull her back as the driver of the moped swerved away. An accident had been avoided. Just. The moped sped off as quickly as it had appeared, leaving no time for the young people to express their indignation.
“Are you okay?” asked Milo, discovering Inès in his arms.
Instead of an answer, she kissed him. Disconcerted, the teenager let himself be carried away by the intoxication of the embrace. But a cold shiver ran down his spine. A retrospective fear. What if he hadn’t intervened? Might Inès have been hurt? Had she been in real danger? In his mind, the irony of such a twist of fate shot through him like an electric current, triggering an alarm. A dull anxiety thudded in his chest. It had been a close call.
Was this some kind of a warning from the depths of the curse that had imprisoned him since he was a child? Was this destiny refreshing his memory about the terms and conditions of an agreement, made with whom and for what reasons he didn’t know, condemning him to endangering anyone to whom he became attached? He felt a lump in his throat, and a sense of bleak inevitability. He clutched Inès by the waist and held her tightly against him, folding her into an embrace that he made last as long as possible.
He knew it would be the last time.
Chapter 25
On the other side of the shared wall, Tiphaine was vainly trying to reestablish the nebulous bond she had managed to establish the previous day with Nassim. To her disappointment, today the child was withdrawn, lacking all enthusiasm and warmth. One step forward, two steps back. She really didn’t like the kid. Too polite and well behaved. Always in control. He was cute, but the lack of spontaneity made him seem cold, almost unpleasant. She tried to reach out to him, find subjects that might interest him, but he responded with infuriating indifference. When she suggested they carry on reading the book they had begun together the day before, he declined with a look of undisguised boredom.
The boy’s rejection was like a slap in the face. Tiphaine felt a wave of dislike come over her, and the profound injustice of having to endure the presence of this kid in this house, this unwelcome stranger, was like a torment. Her own son was no longer there. Her sweet, funny, happy-go-lucky, bright-eyed child. Alive! The grief she had managed to suppress the last few years began growling in her guts, rising into her chest and exploding in her throat, ripping into it with poisonous fangs, torturing her. A feeling of oppression. Suffocation.
She went out onto the deck. She needed air. She took a deep breath to control the violence raging within her, a destructive storm, like a tornado of dislike. Feeling a little calmer, she glanced up and noticed an open window. It was Nassim’s bedroom window.
Maxime’s bedroom window.
A dagger. Straight through her heart, a blade laying waste to everything, sinking into her flesh and releasing the venom of guilt, perhaps the worst poison of all. The one that never leaves you. Whose fire slowly consumes you.
How she had tried. Tried to make it an ally. An obstacle to the destiny that taunted her, reopening old wounds and mocking her distress. She had done everything to defeat her demons, to keep going. To reconcile the past with the present.
She turned, went back into the house, and collared the little boy.
“Nassim, will you go and fetch a comic book from your bedroom?”
The boy was sitting at the dining room table drawing. He looked up unenthusiastically.
“You can go if you like.”
Tiphaine let out a deep sigh of irritation.
“Nassim, the reason I’ve asked you to go is precisely so I don’t have to.”
Her tone was cold, verging on mean. With a hint of malice. Nassim sensed menace. He put down his pencil and went upstairs.
Tiphaine calmly went back out onto the deck. She hesitated a moment, then stood on her toes, looked up, and called, “Nassim! Nassim!”
She waited a few seconds, then called up again, “Nassim!”
The boy’s head appeared at the open window.
“Yes?”
“Can you bring down the same comic book as yesterday?”
“What?”
Tiphaine was speaking too quietly for the boy to be able to hear. He leaned out a bit farther.
