In love with his gaze

In love with his gaze

Chapter 1_ The meeting

My name is Laura, I am twenty-four years old and I still believe in the stories that my grandmother told me, the ones where just one look is enough to change a life. This evening, at Sophie's, I don't yet know that everything is going to begin. Or rather, that I'm going to throw myself into the void thinking I'm flying.

The apartment is packed. Music pulses through the walls, an electro playlist that someone started from their phone. People are laughing too hard, glasses are clinking, and I, leaning against the living room wall, sip a gin and tonic while observing this human hive with amused detachment.

—Are you going to stand there all evening? Sophie almost shouts at me, appearing next to me, two glasses of champagne in hand. She hands me one of them without waiting for my response. Here, drink this, it will loosen you up.

“I'm not stuck,” I protest, grabbing the cup. I enjoy the show.

“The show is over there,” she retorts with a wink in the direction of the corner sofa.

My gaze slides mechanically towards the place she points to, and that’s where I see it for the first time. He is seated, slightly behind, one arm casually resting on the armrest. Around him, people are talking, gesticulating, trying to catch his attention, but he seems elsewhere. Not elsewhere on the moon, no: elsewhere in a dimension that no one else can reach. His brown hair is a little long, as if he forgot to cut it, and his three-day stubble casts a shadow on an angular jaw. He doesn't smile. He observes, like me, but with an intensity that belongs only to him.

—Who is it? I ask, my voice suddenly less confident.

—New to the gang. A friend of Lucas. His name is Kevin. Apparently he's a sound engineer or something like that. He did the big Parisian stages.

“He seems charming,” I murmur, taking a sip of champagne. You know, like a magnetic sociopath.

“Exactly your style,” Sophie mocks before disappearing to welcome other guests.

I should stay there, returning to my comfortable observation of the nocturnal wildlife, but a force beyond my control is pushing me across the room. I slalom between bodies, avoid a guy who is dancing as if he were alone in the world, and land near the couch. There is an empty seat right next to him. My heart beats faster than the music. Ridiculous. I'm not usually shy.

- I can ? I ask, pointing to the empty cushion.

He turns his head towards me. His eyes are dark. Not black, not brown, just... dark. Like a forest at night. He looks at me without really seeing me, and yet I have the impression that he deciphers something in me that I myself don't know.

“Make yourself at home,” he said in a deep, even voice, without any particular inflection.

I sit down. My pulse must be one hundred and twenty. I'm looking for something to say, a funny phrase, an intelligent remark, but my brain is on strike.

“I’m Laura,” I finally say.

- I know.

I stare at him.

— What do you mean, you know?

— Sophie called you when you were on the other side of the living room. I heard you answer.

Did he hear that amidst the general din? I feel a silly smile form on my lips.

—And you, is it Kevin?

—Apparently, information travels quickly.

— Sophie is an information office on legs.

He sketches what could be a smile, if smiles could be distant and warm at the same time.

— So, sound engineer? I restart.

— Among others.

- Mysterious.

— Realistic.

I laughed, perhaps a little too loudly. His gaze lingers on me for a second longer, then slides towards the crowd.

— Don't you dance? I try.

— Not this evening.

- For what ?

— Because I don't want to pretend.

His response takes my breath away. He doesn't say this with sadness or arrogance; it’s a pure observation, an obvious fact that he shares with me like we read the weather forecast. I should find that worrying, but it's quite the opposite. I find it magnetic, electric. I find that true.

“I don’t want to pretend either,” I said more gently.

He tilts his head slightly.

— Yet you crossed the room with a smile for the occasion.

I blush. He is right, and he tells me bluntly. It might be hurtful, but I take it as a challenge.

—Maybe I was waiting to find someone with whom I wouldn't need to wear that smile.

He doesn't answer. His fingers drum slowly on the fabric of the armrest. The conversation seems to float between us like a fragile bubble.

Suddenly, a tall, slightly tipsy blond guy bursts onto the couch, spilling half of his beer on my dress.

- Oh shit ! Sorry, sorry! he exclaims.

I get up abruptly. The icy liquid sticks the fabric against my thigh. I glare at the annoying person, who continues to apologize over and over again. Kevin didn't move. He simply hands over a paper napkin without even getting up.

“Here,” he said. Hydrogen peroxide for fabrics is in the bathroom.

Not a gesture to accompany me, not a word of exaggerated compassion. Just a concrete solution. And strangely, it touches me more than forced gallantry.

I head to the bathroom at the end of the hallway. I close the door behind me and lean against the sink. My reflection in the mirror gives me the image of a girl with rosy cheeks and overly bright eyes. “Calm down, Laura, he’s not the last man on earth,” I scold myself under my breath. But inside I know I'm lying. This guy is different. He doesn't play. He doesn't flirt. It simply is. And I'm already falling.

I dab my dress as best I can, powder my face, take a deep breath. When I come out, I come face to face with him, leaning against the wall of the corridor.

“Ah, you’re here,” I stammer, surprised. Were you worried about my dress?

- No. I wanted to avoid Lucas introducing me to yet another of his friends.

Obviously. It’s not me he’s running from, it’s the world. I should be offended, but I smile.

— Am I bothering you, then?

— Less than the others.

It's almost a compliment. Almost.

— Can I ask you an indiscreet question? I say, emboldened.

— If I say no, you're going to ask it anyway.

— Have you always been like that?

- Like what ?

— Lunar. Far from everything.

He pauses. His thumb mechanically caresses the edge of his jeans pocket.

—Since I understood that people are fragments. They show you one side and hide everything else. I stopped trying to put the puzzle together.

His response shocks me. She is sad and beautiful, cynical and poetic. I want to tell him that with me, he will not need to reconstruct anything, that I am whole, transparent, that I hide nothing. But it would be too much, too quickly.

“I think you have to find the right person to want to put the pieces together,” I reply.

“Falling” is the word, he murmurs.

There is a silence. Not embarrassed. Heavy with meaning.

Suddenly the front door flies open and a guy in a penguin costume — I'm not kidding, a real penguin costume bursts in, yelling "HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOPHIE" with two hours ahead of the countdown. A general tumult ensued, cries of surprise, hysterical laughter. Sophie, from the kitchen, screams with joy and rushes towards the intruder.

Kévin and I are separated by the human wave. I see him walking away, hands in his pockets, a black silhouette in the colorful crowd. I scream his name over everyone's heads, I don't even know why, I don't even know what I want.

He turns around, gazes into mine. Nods to me. Light. Almost sweet.

And he disappears through the kitchen door, swallowed up by the party.

I stay there, my heart racing, my dress stained, surrounded by people dancing around the penguin, blaring a bawdy song. Sophie grabs my arm.

—So, what is he like, the dark one?

“He’s… he’s everything,” I respond without thinking.

She bursts out laughing.

— My poor Laura, you're really hanging on.

She doesn't think she says it that well. I don't even know where Kevin comes from, where he goes, what he likes, what he hates. I just know that I want to be the person who discovers all of this. I know I just met a stranger who spoke to me like no one has ever spoken to me, with a raw honesty that makes everything brighter, even the shadows.

The evening continues without him, and each minute that passes is a little disappointment. I listen carefully in case he comes back, I watch the kitchen door. Nothing. I ended up going home at three in the morning, my feet ache, my head a mess.

Lying in bed, I stare at the ceiling. I think of his voice, of his silences, of this sentence about people who are fragments. And I make myself a stupid, immense, overwhelming promise.

I will find him.

I don't yet know that this promise will change my life, and not in the way I imagine. For now, I only see him. Just him. And I fall asleep with the image of his dark eyes engraved under my eyelids, absolutely certain that in the middle of this night which was his, a little star lit up for me.

It was only much later that I would understand: he never saw it sparkle.

To be continued.....