Under the Skin

In love with his gaze

Chapter 5 — Under the Skin

Three weeks. Twenty-one days. Five hundred and four hours that I spend existing in parallel with Kevin, meeting him between two studio sessions, receiving laconic messages that give me the effect of an intravenous dose of dopamine.

“Slept well?” »

“Think about eating. »

“This Coltrane piece reminds me of your blue dress. »

I read this last message seventeen times. I know it by heart. I could recite it under torture. Coltrane. Blue dress. The fact that he noticed my dress, that he remembered it, that he associated it with jazz. It’s ridiculously romantic and it makes me ridiculously happy.

— You're floating, Justine observes at the office coffee machine. You've been floating for three weeks. It's indecent.

— I don't float. I levitate.

—It’s the same thing.

- No. To float is to suffer. Levitating is choosing to rise.

She hands me a paper cup.

— You’ve become a philosopher too. What did this guy do to you?

I sip on my coffee, a smile on my face.

— He touched my cheek.

- Pardon ?

— With two fingers. Like that.

I mimic the gesture on my own cheek. Justine looks at me as if I had announced my departure for a mission to Mars.

— He touched your cheek and for three weeks you’ve been high?

- Yes.

— Poor thing. You are in love with an emotional vampire.

—He's not a vampire.

— He gives you crumbs and you have a feast. This is the definition of a vampire.

I don't listen. I don't want to hear. Justine hasn't met Kevin, she doesn't know. She doesn't know that behind every crumb there is a colossal effort, a victory over herself, a step away from the shadow that inhabits her.

That evening, I found Kevin at his house for the first time.

He sent me the address at two p.m.: “7 p.m. 47 Ordener Street. Code 2874. 5th floor. » No question marks, no “if you want”. A summons, always. But this time, I feel like I've reached a level in a romantic video game where he holds the controls.

The building has a white facade, wrought iron balconies. The elevator is broken, obviously. I climb the five floors on foot, panting when I arrive at the landing. The door is ajar.

- Between. It's open.

His voice, deep and familiar, reaches me from within. I push the door open and stand frozen on the threshold.

The apartment is a studio. Small, but not stuffy. The walls are covered with concert posters and framed vinyl records. A turntable sits on an upturned wooden box. Cables snake everywhere, imposing speakers frame a window overlooking the roofs of Montmartre. And everywhere, everywhere, vinyls. By the hundreds. Stacked, arranged, classified. A living library of black music.

“It’s your place,” I whisper.

—It’s my place.

—It’s magnificent.

— It’s small.

— It’s you.

He is standing near the turntable, a record in his hand. The cover is worn, the corners are dog-eared. Blue Train by John Coltrane. He slides it delicately onto the plate, places the hand with watchmaker’s precision. The first saxophone notes rise in the room, warm, enveloping.

“Sit down,” he said, pointing to an old cracked leather club chair. I'm preparing food.

— Do you cook?

—Don't be surprised. It happens to me.

I sink into the armchair which smells of cold tobacco and time. Live music fills the space, Coltrane's saxophone twists the air, and I watch Kévin busy himself in the open kitchenette. He cuts vegetables with precise movements, browns garlic in a pan, adds crushed tomatoes. The smell fills the studio.

“You impress me,” I say over the music.

—Wait until you taste it before you get excited.

— I'm not talking about cooking. I'm talking about you. Of all that. The apartment, the vinyls, Coltrane. It's consistent. It’s inhabited.

He doesn't respond right away. Pour pasta into boiling water. Wipe your hands on a cloth.

— For a long time, I didn’t have a place of my own. When I moved here, I decided that every object would have meaning. Nothing decorative. Nothing useless.

—Nothing that pretends.

- Exactly. You're starting to understand.

— I'll start.

He sets out two plates on the small folding table by the window. Pasta with tomato sauce, fresh basil, parmesan. Simple. Perfect. We eat in the dark, the only light comes from a floor lamp with an orange lampshade and the Moon peeking through the window.

- SO ? he asks.

- Excellent.

—Are you saying that to please me?

“I promised you I wouldn’t pretend. It's excellent. Really.

He sketches this half-smile that I collect like a treasure. We end the meal talking about everything and nothing. His childhood in Vaucluse before the death of his mother. The cicadas, the lavender fields, the sky that burns in summer. My childhood in Nantes, less tragic but just as lonely. My divorced parents, a mother who rebuilt herself, a father who faded away.

— We are two solitudes, I notice as I push my plate away.

— Maybe two solitudes can be the start of something.

I look at him. His black eyes are less dark this evening. More velvet than asphalt. Fatigue softens his features, or maybe something else. Perhaps the confidence that grows gently, fragile like a shoot in spring.

— Kevin?

- Yes ?

—Thank you for inviting me.

—Thank you for coming.

Coltrane was silent. Silence falls again, but it is not empty. It is full of what has just been shared: a meal, stories, knowing silences, and this exhilarating feeling that we are building a bubble.

“I’ll clean it up,” he said.

—I’ll help you.

- No. Stay seated.

He picks up the plates. Suddenly, his hand grabs an empty glass which falls to the ground and explodes into shards.

- Shit.

He crouches down to pick it up. I get up instinctively.

—Wait, I’ll help you, let’s see.

— No, it’s okay, leave it.

— Kevin.

— I said leave it.

His voice is harsh. Harsher than he ever was to me. I freeze, halfway between the chair and him. He picks up the debris with his bare hands, his teeth clenched. A shard cuts his palm. A trickle of blood runs down his wrist.

— You're bleeding.

— It's nothing.

- Show me.

—I said it was nothing!

He stands up abruptly. His gaze is black. Really dark this time. Farm. Hostile. It was no longer Kevin who touched my cheek. He's a stranger. A block of marble cut in a hurry.

—Kevin, what’s going on?

- Nothing. Everything is fine.

— You're screaming because I want to help you pick up a broken glass. Obviously all is not well.

— I'm not screaming.

— Yes. You're screaming.

He looks down. His hand is still bleeding, the drops fall on the floor. He takes a long breath, exhales slowly. His jaw relaxes a few millimeters.

“Sorry,” he said in a lower voice.

“I don't want an apology. It’s understanding. Why does a broken glass put you in this state?

He doesn't answer. Place the debris in the sink. Grabs a clean cloth and wraps it around his hand without a word. I approach slowly, as one approaches a wounded animal.

— Kevin. Look at me.

He raises his head. His gaze returned to that forest at night. Except this time, I can see something between the trees. Fear. Real fear. Not that of broken glass. That of what lies behind.

“My mother broke a glass,” he said at last.

His voice is no more than a hoarse whisper.

— Just before the diagnosis. She broke a glass in the kitchen and started crying. Not because of the glass. Because of what the doctor had just told him on the phone. I was there. I saw her hands shaking, I saw blood flowing, I saw my father come and take her in his arms. And that was the day that everything changed. Broken glass is the sound of the end of the world.

My eyes fill with tears. I don't remember them. He doesn't want pity, okay. But he didn't say he didn't want emotion.

— I didn't know.

— Nobody knows. I never talked about it. Not even to Lucas.

I take a step towards him. Then another. I'm very close now. I could reach out and touch his chest.

—Why are you telling me?

- I don't know.

— I think you know.

He places his good hand on my shoulder. Lightweight. Hesitant.

—Maybe I'm getting tired of carrying this alone.

—Then carry it with me.

—It’s heavy, Laura. Very heavy.

—I'm stronger than I look.

He looks at me. His eyes shine. No tears, I'm not sure he knows how to cry, but a shine. A wet shine that transforms asphalt into wet velvet.

— You are not afraid.

— Not from you.

—It’s the same.

- No. I'm afraid of losing you, I'm afraid of hurting you, I'm afraid of not being enough. But I'm not afraid of you. You, I want you.

He removes his hand from my shoulder. Lifts it to my face. His cut palm, surrounded by the red-stained cloth, brushes my cheek. Like the other night. But stronger. And more fragile.

“You’re the only one,” he said.

— The only one what?

—The only one who doesn't back down.

— Because I won't back down. Even if you scream. Even if you break a thousand glasses. Even if you tell me all the worst days of your life.

He places his forehead against mine. Our breaths get tangled. The music has stopped, but I could swear I heard a saxophone in the distance, somewhere in Montmartre, playing a blue note for us.

“Stay,” he whispers. This night. Stay.

— I'm staying.

No kissing. Not right away. Just two foreheads leaning against each other, two breaths finding their rhythm, two solitudes touching.

Later, he will lend me a t-shirt that is too big. I will slip into his bed one place, against the wall, and he will lie down next to it, on the duvet, without touching me. We'll talk in the dark. From his mother. Of her laughter, which he has forgotten. Songs she sang while cooking. From my father, whom I call twice a year. Things we lose and never find again.

And then, in the middle of the night, his hand will seek mine. His cold fingers will intertwine with mine. He won't say anything. Me neither.

But that will say everything.

In the early morning, I will wake up before him. I will look at his sleeping face, peaceful for the first time. His relaxed features. His breathing slow. Her black eyelashes resting on her cheeks. He will look like a child who has finally stopped fighting sleep.

I won't move. I will keep his hand in mine. And I will make another promise to myself, even crazier than the first.

I will stay. Whatever happens.

I don’t yet know to what extent this promise will be tested.

To be continued...