by Clelie Avit
“Elsa, please. I know you can hear me. I don’t know anything about what it’s like to be in a coma, but I know you’re here. Please…”
The door to my room opens with a lot of noise, but the sound reaches me muffled. I hear my father. I hear footsteps moving toward me. Or actually toward Thibault, because next they are pulling him off me. The sounds are growing more and more colorless. I can just make out the voices in the midst of this noisy, but also curiously silent throng. The consultant, the junior doctor, my father. My mother and my sister are hysterical. Steve is here, too. He’s talking to someone, screaming over them, even.
I feel light and heavy at the same time. I don’t know where I am anymore. Everything blends into everything else. So I go back to my exercises. Only once, though. Only once before everything fades away.
Chapter 26
I ignored everything going on around me and just concentrated on her. My movements were automatic, my mind was focused exclusively on two things: getting myself free from Steve’s iron grip, and watching her, watching Elsa.
If she stops breathing, I think I’ll stop with her.
Now that I’ve stopped reasoning with them, all you can hear are grunts, breathing, and murmurs. Some tears as well. Several of these may be coming from me. Who cares. But all of these sounds are regulated by the slow, terribly slow, beeping of the monitor.
The luminous curve hypnotizes me. My eyes move from it to Elsa, conscious that for the first time I am hearing her breathe naturally. She seems slowed down, fragile. With all the people surrounding me, watching me, I don’t dare say a word. There are so many things I want to say to her. And at the same time, they could all be reduced down into a few words. I relax my shoulders; Steve’s grip gradually loosens.
“You’ve got to let her go.”
My head drops forward and my eyes fill with tears. My mouth endlessly repeats Elsa’s name, so quietly you can hardly hear it, then I find my voice again with a last hope.
“Elsa, show them!”
I feel everyone’s gaze turn to me.
The beep continues in time with her slowing pulse. My fists are so firmly clenched that my hands are completely white, and I begin a silent countdown. Ten… Nine… Elsa, wake up… Eight… Seven… Come on, I know you can hear me… Six… You reacted when I… Five… Four…
“What the…?”
The young woman’s voice wakes me from my reverie. She must be Elsa’s sister. Even though they look hardly anything like each other, there is something similar about them.
“It looks as though her heartbeat is picking up…”
I raise my head. She’s right: the numbers on the screen are higher than they were the last time I looked. I turn my head to the doctors on my left. There’s one who I recognize, the one who explained about all of Elsa’s gadgets. They both look puzzled, but I think I can see a glimmer of hope in the eyes of the younger one. His superior shakes his head and whispers something in his ear. Then the junior doctor turns to the family.
“Random.”
That’s all he says. I never want to hear that word again for the rest of my life.
Once. Just once.
It takes all the strength I have left in the active part of my brain.
I don’t hear anything else. There’s only one thing I want.
Just once.
I want to turn my head and open my eyes.
My heart stops beating precisely as hers accelerates. I plunge into that stare, into those eyes I’ve only seen once. My lips find themselves engaged in a communal intake of breath with everyone else in the room. Everything is suspended.
I know that the hands on my watch continue to move, but the total motionlessness of everyone around me, including Steve, seems to stop time. I feel privileged; I am the only one who moves toward her.
I close my eyes. There was too much light. I open them again slowly and, at that moment, he is in front of me. I can’t tell whether I preferred him as a rainbow or not, because my brain hasn’t managed to distinguish all the visible colors yet. I just know that I’ve managed it, and his words echo my thoughts.
“You’re here.”
I’m here.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing my English acknowledgments was a dream… and now it’s happening! Thanks to all these people who were here for me and for my book:
To my mom, Annie, and my best friend, Hélène, who believed in me since the beginning.
To the wonderful team at Hodder and Grand Central, who successfully took care of this story.
To a certain wizard at Hogwarts and his creator in the UK, who taught me English because of the dreadful six months’ delay of the French translation. Without them, I would never have been able to write these words without the use of a dictionary!
And, curiously enough, to a platform C at some train station near the sea…
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CONTENTS
COVER
TITLE PAGE
WELCOME
DEDICATION
CHAPTER 1: ELSA
CHAPTER 2: THIBAULT
CHAPTER 3: ELSA
CHAPTER 4: THIBAULT
CHAPTER 5: ELSA
CHAPTER 6: THIBAULT
CHAPTER 7: ELSA
CHAPTER 8: THIBAULT
CHAPTER 9: ELSA
CHAPTER 10: THIBAULT
CHAPTER 11: ELSA
CHAPTER 12: THIBAULT
CHAPTER 13: ELSA
CHAPTER 14: THIBAULT
CHAPTER 15: ELSA
CHAPTER 16: THIBAULT
CHAPTER 17: ELSA
CHAPTER 18: THIBAULT
CHAPTER 19: ELSA
CHAPTER 20: THIBAULT
CHAPTER 21: ELSA
CHAPTER 22: THIBAULT
CHAPTER 23: ELSA
CHAPTER 24: THIBAULT
CHAPTER 25: ELSA
CHAPTER 26
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NEWSLETTERS
COPYRIGHT
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Éditions Jean-Claude Lattès
Translation copyright © 2016 by Lucy Foster
Cover illustration by Hanna Barczyk
Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: August 2016
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ISBN 978-1-4555-3761-7
E3-20160607-JV-NF
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Clelie Avit, I'm Still Here (Je Suis Là)