by Katia Rose
“I’m wasted,” she announces happily. “I am like, soooo wasted.”
Her friends frog march her past us and into the elevator. Jacinthe gives me a nervous look.
“I swear it’s not going to be like that, Stéph. Like I said, people are here to network. If you want to go now though, just tell me.”
I shake my head. “Jazzy, ҫa va. I’m fine. I told you already; I don’t go to parties anymore because I don’t like them, not because I’m scared they’re going to send me into a downward spiral.”
She nods, but she doesn’t look convinced. “Say the word and we’re out of here.”
I step ahead of her and pull the apartment door open. The place is so busy no one even notices us as we walk inside. The crowd is too thick for me to guess how many people are here, but almost every surface in the sprawling, open concept loft has someone standing or sitting on it. In true Montreal style, the guests seem to range from intimidatingly chic to mind-bogglingly eccentric, and I can see why the wasted girl’s friends were so quick to get her out of here. Everyone is milling around like they’re in a 19th century drawing room, sipping from long-stemmed glasses and laughing politely with whoever they’re talking to as their eyes scan the rest of the room. The atmosphere is cutthroat and heavy with ulterior motives.
“C’est fou,” I mutter to Jacinthe, leaning in close to her so she can hear me over the music. “This is silly. They call this a party?”
She grabs my arm. “Come on. We have to find that agent I came here to meet.”
There’s an actual bartender mixing drinks on the long kitchen island. Jacinthe strolls up and weaves her way through the crowd to lean against the black marble countertop. I hover behind her. She has a drink in hand in under a minute and passes me a second glass filled with red liquid.
“Vodka cran,” she shouts near my ear, “without the vodka.”
We circle the room, sipping our drinks as Jacinthe searches for the agent while simultaneously trying to pretend she’s not looking for anyone. I spot plenty of people who aren’t hiding the fact that they’re looking at us. I feel like I’m playing pretend, swanning around this room full of powerful, beautiful people. I used to dream about life as a professional dancer. I used to think about coming to parties just like this.
It sounds conceited, but I know if my path in life had only been decided by my skill in dance, I could have had whatever I wanted. As a child, I pushed myself harder than any other kid at the studio. What held me back were the competition fees...and the costume fees...and the class fees, the application fees, the price of new shoes, the travel expenses, and my lack of parents who could drive me all around the province every weekend. They make movies about dancers who come from nothing and somehow make it to the top just because they believe in themselves, but the truth is that’s just not enough.
It takes a village to raise a prima ballerina. All I had was a tiny apartment and a mom in a wheelchair who had to glue herself to a call centre headset just so we could eat. I think it took both of us years to realize just how much we lost that day she lost her legs, in an accident that never should have been allowed to happen.
“C’est lui! That’s him!”
Jacinthe’s eyes light up. She lifts a hand to point out the agent to me, but then thinks better of it and drops her voice to a whisper.
“In the grey blazer, talking to the guy in the leather jacket.”
The agent looks more like he is a model, not someone who represents them. He has a perfectly coiffed mop of dark curls and black-framed glasses that compliment his face too well for me to believe they’re not worn solely for fashion purposes. The guy he’s talking to looks like he just walked off the set of Indiana Jones.
“Are we going to say hi?” I ask.
Jacinthe vehemently shakes her head from side to side. “Non, non, non. Certainement pas. We’re going to stand near him, and then he’s going to say hi to us.”
I let her carry out her devious plan, and soon enough the agent lowers his glass and flashes us the hint of a smile. Jacinthe glances at him, then leans in and tells me to pretend like we’re talking to each other for a moment before we head over.
“Bon soir,” the agent says. “Parlez-vous franҫais?”
Jacinthe and I nod, and we continue the conversation in French. There’s some small talk exchanged about how we all know Léon, and then the agent asks us if we’re models.
“Dancers, primarily,” Jacinthe answers, “but I model on the side, and I’ve done a bit of acting.”
“That’s a relief,” the agent comments. “Tom here is looking to cast a dancer for a new music video, but this place is crawling with models.”
He jerks his head towards Indiana Jones, who smiles at us. “I’m shooting a Sherbrooke Station video, and we’re on a tight schedule. We even brought the band out tonight to try to lure some talent in. Are you fans?”
“We love them!” Jacinthe interjects, as I feel my head start spinning.
“Sherbrooke Station is here?” I ask.
“In the flesh,” Tom assures me. “I could introduce you if you want.”
“That would be merveilleux!” Jacinthe chirps, but I feel her hand wrap around my wrist and squeeze as she spares me a concerned look.
“You’ll have to excuse me for a few minutes,” I find myself saying.
Jacinthe doesn’t let go of me when I turn to leave.
“Are you okay?” she murmurs, tilting her body away from the men.
“I’m fine. I just need to use the bathroom.”
After another squeeze on my wrist, she releases me. I wander through the party. I finished my vodka-less vodka cran awhile ago, and I set the glass down on a side table I pass by. The music is just a dull throb in the back of my head. The faces around me are a blur.
Ace is here. Ace is here. Ace is in this room right now.
I don’t need the bathroom. What I need is air, and there doesn’t seem to be any of it left in here. I aim for the door we came through, and I’m just about to push past the last group of people separating me from the quiet of the hallway when he appears by my side. I sense him more than I see him. I don’t even have to turn my head.
“Stéphanie.” I slow down but don’t stop at the sound of his voice. “Wait.”
If I look at him, I’ll never leave this room. I fling the door open and draw in a huge breath the second I’m out of the apartment. I take a few faltering steps down the hallway and hear the door close behind me. I spin around to find him standing there.
He’s wearing black, like he always does: black skinny jeans and a thin, clinging black t-shirt. Black ink on his skin. He doesn’t bother asking what I’m doing here. He doesn’t bother with small talk or greetings or jokes.
“I have something to say.”
His chest heaves. A glass smashes behind the apartment wall. A few people scream. I don’t move.
“I want you in my life. I don’t care how. I don’t care if I only see you once a week for an hour in Parc Lafontaine. I don’t care if you can only give me a drop of yourself when I am dying to have your whole storm. I’ll leave now if you want me to and you won’t ever have to see me again, but please, Stéphanie, please tell me I can have something. Anything. I don’t want to give this up.”
Something is breaking inside me. Whatever is splitting apart at the core of me should not be ripping itself to pieces like this.
I bury my face in my hands.
“What is happening to me? What the fuck is happening?”
“Stéphanie...”
He’s closer now. I stare through my fingers at the carpet on the floor.
“Nothing has made sense since I met you. Nothing. I had it all worked out. I had it under control. J’ai travaillé pour—”
I stumble over the French words spilling out of my mouth and realize that I’m crying. Hot tears seep into the creases of my palms. I continue speaking anyway.
“And then you came along, and suddenly it just all seemed so fragil
e, so ready to explode, and I just felt so stupid because I realized all along I was just pretending. It’s still there, inside me. All the anger. All the rage. All those bad, bad decisions. Sacrement!” I let out a sob. “I sound like a crazy person. You must be thinking I’m crazy.”
Two firm hands wrap themselves around mine. I expect him to pry them away from my face, but he just holds them there. I can see the tips of his shoes just a few inches from mine.
“Stéphanie, breathe. Just breathe.”
So I do what I’ve told him to do countless times. I breathe. What feels like several minutes pass before I’m ready to talk again.
“You...You stir things up, Ace.” My voice is thick and trembling. “You’re the kind of person who sets fire wherever they go.”
His fingers grip mine even harder. “And you’re—what? Afraid I’m going to burn you up?”
I pull our hands away from my cheeks just enough that I can tilt my chin up to look at him. “I’m afraid you’re going to ignite me.”
Right now, he looks like he could do it so easily. He could trail fire across my skin with his fingertips until I burned for him like gasoline kissed by a match.
He doesn’t, though. When he pulls me close and wraps his arms around me, there’s only tenderness in his touch. I collapse into him like I’m nothing more than a doll.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says quietly, as my face rubs against his t-shirt. “This party is bullshit. Let’s just go somewhere.”
I nod, and we break apart. I don’t know whose hand reaches for whose first, but by the time we get into the elevator, his calloused palm is gripping mine.
“Your hands are rough,” I tell him, suddenly feeling the need to fill the silence.
“Blame the guitar.”
I tell him that I should probably text my friend before pulling my phone out, typing out a message to Jacinthe with one hand while the other stays wrapped in Ace’s. I tell her I’m fine and I’m safe, but that I decided to leave the party. I’m sure now that she’s made her entrance she’ll be okay on her own.
When we get out to ground level, Ace and I just start moving without stopping to decide where we’re headed. I feel like we’re poised on the edge of something, like the street we’re walking on is a scale that could tip either way.
We head up Rue Peel, walking past rows of empty office buildings and into the heart of downtown. When we get to Place Bonaventure, Ace steers us toward the entrance to the metro station.
“I’m not making you walk any farther in those heels,” he explains. “By the way, you look very pretty.”
He says the word ‘pretty’ like it’s part of a foreign language, a strange sound he can’t quite figure out how to pronounce. The compliment is so unlike anything I’d expect from him that I laugh.
He grins. “Hey, don’t laugh. I’m trying to be a gentleman.”
That makes me laugh even harder.
“But I’ll confess,” he adds, putting an extra layer of husk in his voice, “that dress of yours is making it difficult, Mademoiselle.”
“Now you’re just being—”
He cuts me off by lifting our joined hands and tugging me into a twirl. My body responds without even thinking about it, and I turn a graceful spin in my heels. I’ve never seen Ace smile so wide. He looks relieved, like someone told him the sun was never going to shine again and he just caught a glimpse of the dawn.
He pulls me toward the metro gate.
“Let’s get on a train!”
I clatter along beside him. “Which train?”
“Any train!”
We end up taking the orange line. It’s Saturday night and every metro car is packed, but somehow we find an empty seat. Ace gestures for me to take it, but I push on his shoulders until he sits down, and then I perch myself on his thighs. The panic I felt in at the party has subsided, but the rush of adrenaline it brought is still circulating in my system. I feel like I could do anything.
Ace rests a hand on my knee and brings his lips close to my ear. “You okay?”
I wrap my arm around his shoulders. “I’m okay. I know I’m all over the place tonight, but I just want to be with you right now.”
The train lurches and we ride the next few stops up the line, strangers arriving and departing all around us until the crackly voice on the speakers announces Sherbrooke Station is the next stop.
“Let’s get off here,” I tell Ace.
We get swept up in the crowd of exiting passengers. I point out the black and white ‘SHERBROOKE’ sign on the wall as we pass by.
“Does it make you feel weird, being here? I’m not even in the band, and it kind of gives me chaire de poule.”
His arm slides around my waist. “Yeah, it gives me goose bumps too. It’s like...this reminder that we started from nothing and we’ve come so far. They’ve erased it now, but I was in here one day and saw someone had written some lyrics from ‘Digging Holes’ on the wall.”
“I like that song,” I tell him. “It’s sad, but it’s...hopeful.”
So much of his music is heartbreaking.
We make it out onto the street, and again, we start walking without any real destination in mind. I don’t realize we’re heading towards Parc Lafontaine until we’re right on the edge of it. We find a bench and sit down, thigh to thigh.
I exhale. “This feels much better.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I thought I was suffocating in that fucking loft.”
I lean forwards so my hair covers most of my face. “I’m sorry I freaked out like that.”
The side of his calf rubs against mine.
“I’m sorry if you felt like I was cornering you. I just...I had to let you know.”
I nod. A pair of hardcore, late-night joggers run past us, covered in reflective spandex with safety lights bouncing on their hips.
“I’m glad you did. I needed to hear it. I guess what I was trying to say in the hallway is that I’ve had some rough patches in my life. My teens were...difficult, to say the least. I was difficult. I had no grasp on my priorities. As the years went on and life got messier, it started to interfere with dance. I realized I’d have to get my shit together, or I’d lose the most important thing in my life. Meditation really helped me. I found balance...or at least I thought I did. Maybe I was just burying things. Ignoring them. For some reason, you made it harder to do that, and it scared me shitless. It still scares me shitless, but maybe part of me needs it.”
I swallow and force the last words out. “Maybe part of me needs you.”
He’s silent for so long I’m scared he’s waiting for the chance to make a run for it, but then he props a finger under my chin and turns my face towards him. When he speaks, his voice is low and husky, but this time he’s not faking it.
“Do you know what I think about you, Stéphanie Cloutier-Hébert?” He traces my mouth with his thumb. “I think you’re a paper lantern.”
I stare, waiting for him to elaborate even as my lips part just slightly under the weight of his touch.
“When people look at you, they just see the soft glow. The ballerina. The pink Keds. The pretty girl who smiles a lot and volunteers in her spare time. The girl who collects donations in a coffee can. You’re...comforting, like a lantern hanging on a porch, but I don’t think even you can hide the fact that underneath that soft glow, you’re a naked, open flame. You’re passionate and unpredictable. You’re wild, powerful, and yes, you’re a little dangerous, but you are so, so fucking beautiful, Stéphanie.”
I make a soft sound against his skin. He presses his thumb against my mouth, like he’s telling me to hush.
“Here’s the thing, though: if you want a flame to go out, you don’t wrap it up in paper. When you do that, you’re just giving it something to burn. I think that’s what you’re afraid of; you’ve made this little life for yourself, and you spend every waking minute terrified that you’re going to send it all up in smoke.”
“So what I do?” I whisper, e
ntranced.
He trails his thumb down from my lips to my neck.
“Find something you can burn. Don’t be afraid of your fire.”
I grab his hand and pry his fingers open, then move them so they’re wrapped around my throat.
I want to tell him that I know he’s not the best person to be giving this kind of advice. I want to tell him that I know I shouldn’t trust his words, or the flare of my pulse, or the heat of a summer night. I’ve never found anyone who understands this part of me, though, and right now Ace’s whole face is blazing with same kind of fire he says he can see in me: a little dangerous, and so, so fucking beautiful.
“Tonight,” is all I can rasp out. “Now.”
I feel his fingers twitch.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “Are you sure you want this? With me?”
“Tellement.”
So much.
His hand squeezes hard enough to make me gasp, and then his mouth is on mine.
13 Late Night || Foals
STÉPHANIE
When I’m a panting, wild mess on the bench, and Ace looks like he’s ready to take me then and there, we get up and run to his apartment as fast as my heels will allow. He asked if we could go to mine, but I don’t want to spend this night worrying about my roommate. I want whatever is going to happen next to be loud and fast and hard.
“I don’t”—Ace struggles to get the words out as I kiss him up against the wall of his building—“have very many people over..."
“I don’t mind a mess, as long as we can clear a spot on the floor.”
He laughs deep in his throat, a sound that’s both menacing and hungry. “God, you’re something else.”
His apartment is in a large, two-storey house that’s been split into a few units inside. He takes my hand to pull me through the entryway and up a flight of sagging stairs. I can smell weed in the hallway and the mix of sweat and spilt vodka that seems to cling to all student housing.