Chapter 50
Maxime
Instead of her glasses, she now wears contact lenses. It's as if she thinks she can conjure up the old days. Aurora looks at me expectantly, her face now filled with hope. But a part of me already feels that it was wrong to give in. I should have turned around and walked away.
She lovingly stows the memory chest into one of the saddlebags on her bike, locks it with the security chain, and then reaches for my hand. "Come with me," she says breathlessly, and a split second later, she pulls me with her onto the grass beside the gravel path.
I immediately release my fingers from hers. We are not a couple. We are strangers, and that won't change as we walk toward the rock that juts steeply into the bright blue sky in the middle of Parc des Buttes-Chaumont.
What does she want here?
When we reach the base of the rock, she turns to face me. Her expression carries an air of expectation, yet it cannot hide the fear I see beneath it—a kind of fear I've never seen in her before. "Are you ready?" she asks.
I shrug. "For what?"
"For a memory," she replies, her eyes gleaming.
A memory? What does she mean?
Caught between the knowledge that I should run away from here quickly and the curiosity of what awaits me inside, I follow her until an entrance of sorts opens up in the rock. A gust of cool air greets us, and I also hear the sound of running water.
Surely she wouldn't…?
No. She probably doesn't even remember. And it was nothing more than a daydream, a joke, not a real plan.
However, a short while later, we stand before a waterfall fed by an otherworldly stream. Sunlight filters through the opening through which the water enters, bathing the interior of the cave in magical light.
Is this her way of trying to convince me to give her another chance? She can't be serious. Has she understood anything at all?
"Listen, this…" I don't get to finish my sentence because at that moment, I turn to Aurora and see that she has stripped off her backpack, pants, and shirt.
She stands before me in her underwear. I look at her, shocked. At our reunion, I already suspected it, but seeing it so clearly now is something else. Her hip bones jut out sharply, as do her shoulders, collarbones, and knees.
Is she suffering from an eating disorder?
"We both have suffered in these past years," she says, and it's only because I have the proof before my eyes that I continue the thought.
What if she was really so convinced she was doing the right thing that she was willing to break herself in the process?
A frightening thought. Still, it changes nothing. She should have trusted me.
She smiles wistfully while I stare at her in disbelief. "And because of my mistake, we missed out on so much," she continues, uncertain, more so than I have ever seen her before.Then she points at the waterfall behind her. "You remember, don't you?"
"To shower under a waterfall," I say, trying to sound dry and push my chaotic emotions aside.
I fail, and to top it off, memories of the moment when this dream was born come flooding back.
It was our last evening together.
My God, we had so many plans. Much more than just showering under a waterfall.
Aurora's tense facial muscles give way. "Let's do it," she pleads with me.
No. Doing it now would be foolish. Besides, it won't change anything. It would only scratch the surface of the problem, and that's ultimately what drove us apart back then.
Earlier, when she wanted to leave the decision up to me, whether I should stay or go, for a moment, I thought Aurora might have actually understood something. And although I see with my own eyes the marks her escape has left on her, I know I must pull the emergency brake—immediately.
Defensively, I raise my hands. "It won't change anything." I want to sound determined, but my tone is as fragile as thin glass.
