by Zelda French
“Are you okay?”
We can hear the door, and Tony’s footsteps as he enters the toilets.
“Yes.” I gasp when Michael knee accidentally, or not, bumps against mine. “I just—I’m not feeling well. Can you give me some privacy?”
Tony’s voice sounds giddy. “You’re sick? Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“I guess we’ll have to finish our essay later, then! I’ll pack our stuff and wait outside. I love you, man, I absolutely love you!”
Tony’s footsteps retreat, and the next thing we hear is the door slamming shut. I let out a relieved breath.
Michael seems perfectly fine, crammed together with me in the small stall. He quirks an eyebrow.
“He loves you, apparently.”
“Yes, well, I’m very popular.”
Michael gives a strained laugh. I don’t feel like laughing. I can’t look into his eyes. If I look I am lost. Yet, I do.
I look up, I meet his gaze, he meets mine. How long does he think we can hold it?
No one knows, because the next second we’re kissing, his back is pressed against the stall door, and my hands, at last, are buried into his glorious curls.
I can almost hear metaphorical walls crashing down around us, but I’m too busy feeling Michael’s tongue against mine, too busy slinking down into eternal bliss.
I’ve kissed before, I’ve been kissed before. On the other hand, I’ve never been kissed like this before. I’m not frozen anymore. The Christmas tree has been set on fire. The whole forest is ablaze. Every part of me feels awake. Every nerve in my body tingles, and sings.
I have just made the most important discovery in the history of the universe, and that discovery is Michael.
We break apart, panting, Michael’s face redder than usual, his curls a proper mess, his pupils huge, dilated, and I burst out laughing. Not from derision , but from relief.
Michael runs a hand through his hair, breathless. “I thought I’d never get the chance.”
I blink slowly while recovering myself, still too amazed at what just happened.
I have to go. No. I want to stay. I want to never leave the stall. But I have to go.
“I have to go.”
“Oh,” Michael says. He fixes his expression into something much more neutral in less time he takes me to say my next line.
“Sorry.”
Fumbling with the lock because of shaky fingers, I shove the door open, fill my lungs with air. Michael remains in the stall, looking uncertain.
My heart swells until it becomes almost painful. I close the distance between us in two strides and bashes my lips against his. Michael loses balance and ends up ass first on the toilet seat.
“Sorry, I really must go.” I offer him a hand up, which he doesn’t take.
His fingers hover above his inflamed lips.
“Michael?” He nods. “I’ll, hem… call you, okay?”
His eyes tell me he doesn’t believe me, but it’s okay. Because this is not over. This is just getting started.
I run out of the toilet, skid across the linoleum around the corner, and flattened myself against the wall to catch my breath.
It was just as I imagined. No. Better. He tasted like like summer on the beachside, like Malabars eaten outside authorised hours, like my first ride on a carousel. He might be an angel. No, a god.
Deep breaths. Don’t panic. It was only the best kiss of your life.
Tony runs to me when I make it outside, wincing in the sunlight, and hands me my backpack.
“Damn, Lou, you should throw up more often. You look much, much better.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
IMPROBABLE ODDS
NOW I KNOW how victors of battles with improbable odds feel. I’m in a daze, and everything is golden coloured, and saturated with flares like in J.J. Abrams movies, and I’ve got to make myself stop when I catch myself smiling.
Oh my, the kiss. It happened two days ago, and all I can think of is the way Michael’s lips felt against mine, and when will we do it again, and if Michael will kiss me again. Or if I will, because as of now, I sure don’t know who kissed whom first, all I know is that I’m so rattled, like I’ve been pulled out of the darkest tomb and into the sunlight.
I am not undead anymore.
I am reborn.
Minor problem is: I haven’t heard from Michael since. We see each other in class and pass each other in corridors, but since Wednesday afternoon, when he blew my mind and wrenched me out of my straight convictions, he hasn’t made any bold move toward me, like, for instance, push me up against a wall and kiss me senseless like he did in my dream last night.
Second problem is, I can’t tell anyone about this, especially not Lucie, whose sight triggers the bells of guilt within me and make me feel ashamed of what I’ve done. I’ve cheated. I’m a cheater. My reason for cheating is beyond physical, I think. It isn’t etched in my flesh, but in my essence.
Lucie’s not a guy. And I’ve got to figure out the extent of my love for her. I spent last night sitting awkwardly between her and Tony as we watched a movie whose title, content and cast I will never remember, worrying whether or not they could hear the thundering of my heart.
I wake up on Saturday morning hungry for something else than Michael’s lips. What I need, what I really need, is somebody to talk to.
This is how I end up, at noon, ringing Miss Eugénie’s doorbell, my hands full of shopping bags, one of my father’s bottles of Bordeaux stuck under my arm.
Miss Eugénie eyes me suspiciously through the slither of space between the door and the safety chain.
“I’m not buying anything!”
I feel almost offended. “Do I really look like I’m selling cookies?
She lets me in. Inside her living room, the plum curtains are closed, plunging the room into semi-darkness. I draw them open to bathe the room in sunlight. Eugénie points at her binoculars.
“I was watching this beautiful blue tit. Now I’ve lost it.”
“Who cares about tits, honesty.” I drop the shopping bags on her coffee table.
Eugénie turns around. “You don’t look miserable, today.” My face splits into a wicked grin, and she feigns to step backward in horror. “Did you get laid, or something?”
My smile turns into a grimace. “I brought you lunch.”
She can’t resist the thought of food, and hurries forward to peer into the bags.
“And I brought wine.” I push the bottle into her hands.
“You should come more often, kid. Sit down.”
She goes with the bags into the kitchen, and I hear her contented sigh as she opens them up. Italian food from Amore Mio never fails to please.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” I say, dropping my coat into a chair. “Since last time I came. I thought you were dead.”
Her head appears in the doorjamb. “You don’t have the monopoly on life-threatening crises.” The head disappears and reappears instantly: “And you could have rung if you thought I was dead, little shit.”
“Perhaps I did, and you’re too old to hear me banging on your door like the outstanding citizen that I am.”
Flashing her a smirk, I make myself comfortable on her plump sofa. She walks over to me and hands me a corkscrew.
“Shut up and open the wine.”
This task requires concentration, and my hands are still shaking from excitement, which Miss Eugénie notices, but she says nothing. She serves the fresh pasta I just bought from the restaurant in elaborate plates and proper silverware, making me feel like an important guest. We clink our glasses.
Miss Eugénie takes a bite of her Pasta alla carbonara and makes a delighted face. “Do I want to know why you’re so happy? You’re gonna tell me anyway, I guess.”
About to explode from the need to get it off my chest, I nonetheless take a dignified air and offer that we should eat first. She nods in agreement and puts on a record by Nancy Sinatra.
While we eat in
silence, my eye is caught again by the insane number of framed black and white and photographs Eugénie has nailed to the wall. Just like in the corridor leading to this room, the whole side of the sitting room is covered in pictures of young and less young men and women in their best attire, seemingly having all the fun in the world.
“Are these your friends, Miss Eugénie?”
She follows my gaze, and her eyes fill with warmth.
“Friends, relatives, lovers. Now, they’re just shadows on my wall. Like ghosts.”
Her statement plunges me into silence. She waves her hand.
“Don’t listen to me. For once that you’re not miserable, I’m not the one who’s going to make you. Pass the wine, please.”
I top up her glass. I like the way she leans back in her chair. Each of her movements is fluid, yet almost mechanical, perfected after a lifetime of practicing them. That’s it. I’m getting soft on an old lady.
“Don’t you have friends at all anymore?”
Eugénie sighs. “Don’t you worry about me. I have more than enough people in my life to keep myself busy. And as of late, I’ve got my little obsession with blue tits.”
“All right…”
But a bullshitter like me knows when he’s being bullshitted. That’s all I’m sayin’.
“So, young pup,” Eugénie says after a generation swig of wine, “tell me all your grievances. As long as I have wine, I can give you proper advice you’ll like. Cut me off and I’ll be too grown-up for you to take me seriously.”
Now that the time as come to speak up, it seems like I’ve lost all notion of language, and I can only stutter incoherently until she stops me with a finger.
“We get it, you’re in love—”
“I’m not in love!” I protest, cheeks burning. “But… There was a kiss.”
Eugénie leans forward. “I’m listening.”
“The best kiss that ever happened to me. It was an out of this world experience. Something you cannot possibly understand.”
She makes a face. “Probably not, indeed.”
“The problem is… it wasn’t my girlfriend.”
“Well, I could have guess that myself, but never mind.”
“Stop interrupting. We kissed in the stall of the boys’ toilets two days ago, and I can’t think of anything else.”
Miss Eugénie’s brow furrows. “What kind of romantic notions do you have, to drag young girls into men’s bathrooms? Did the world go that mad in the past few years?”
I pinch my mouth shut. I almost gave myself up, almost confessed to the most scandalous part of my secret. Not that I don’t want to tell Eugénie. But I’m not ready to let go of my new friend, and finding out one’s acquaintance’s hardcore bible-thumping homophobic tendencies tends to ruin friendships, as Tony would say.
“My secret crush followed me there, very dangerously, so this is where it happened.”
“So, now you know. You can—”
“I don’t, that’s the problem.”
Miss Eugénie takes a large swig of red wine and shakes her head.
“You liked the kiss.”
“I loved it more than anything I’ve ever loved. Except perhaps Kaiser Chiefs.”
She puts the glass down, stuck into a fit of coughing. “Kaiser what?” She clutches her chest. “Say, you wouldn’t be a little fascist, by any chance?”
I nearly spit out wine all over her sofa. “No! Kaiser Chief’s a band, Miss Eugénie, not a Hitler Support Group.”
“You’re very blonde, after all.”
“Please stop. I’m trying to tell you about love, and you’re ruining everything with Hitler.”
She puts up her hands. “I’m so sorry. I promise. No more Hitler.”
“Right.”
“But—” she adds, and I roll my eyes to the heavens, “I thought you weren’t in love.”
“I…” Seeing her mischievous beady eyes throws me off again. I sit back and cross my arms over my chest. “I was kissed. I loved it. I wonder if there will be another kiss. I want there to be another kiss. But I can’t just throw everything else out of the window after one little kiss.”
Miss Eugénie surprises me by remaining silent, her fingers dancing over her lips as she looks out the window.
“One little kiss can change many things, Louis.”
“But everything else remains.”
She turns to me, her gaze focused once again. “What do you mean?”
“I still don’t know if there will be more than one kiss. And if there is, I can’t be sure it’s the beginning of something serious. Something worth… telling Lucie.”
“So you’re keeping Lucie in the dark, chained to you, until you figured things out.”
“No, that’s not how I see it.”
“Then you’re not seeing clearly.” Eugénie looks at me with a mixture of fondness and pity.
“But Lucie can have everyone, she’ll be fine.”
“But she wants you, apparently.”
I say nothing, glance out the window, letting out my frustration in long drawn breaths. Eugénie pours me a glass of wine.
“You really overcomplicate your life, my friend. You’re not stuck in the fifties. Grow a pair, go on a date with your crush, find out for yourself. If your … secret crush is not the one, you’ll get another, end of the story.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I believe you’re overworking yourself up and you’re in danger of getting really hurt if you keep secrets from everyone.” Eugénie takes one look at me and sighs. “You’re not in love, but you want to spend all of your time kissing this secret crush, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“So, do it. But tell your girlfriend, so she can move on. If she finds out through someone else, she might never forgive you.”
Telling Lucie is exactly what I don’t want to do. Tell Lucie and I know exactly how she’ll react. A few hours later, I’m likely to never see her or Tony ever again. I’m not going to risk it after one kiss, however amazing it was. Eugenie is wise, but she doesn’t know all the facts, and doesn’t know my predicament. She can only advise me after a fashion, using what she knows.
We go on to talk about other things. Miss Eugénie being an admirer of the Brontes, gives me some tips for my essay, and soon it’s time for us to part. When she opens the door for me. I hesitate, wringing my hands.
“Look, Miss Eugénie, you’re really okay for someone who was born before Plato.”
She looks up at the ceiling and pouts, but says nothing.
“What I mean is… you can talk to me too. If you have a life-threatening crisis. I might be young, and maybe stupid, but—”
“You’re a good kid.” She smiles. “Now fuck off. Murder She Wrote is on.
My phone vibrates in my pocket on my way up. I almost take a tumble down the stairs when I read Michael’s name. Breathless, I look over my shoulder as though expecting Lucie or Tony to jump me in my own building, and open the message with feverish hands.
MICHAEL:
Hey
Heart thumping madly, I reply:
LOUIS:
Hey
Eugénie’s right. The only way to find out if it was more than a kiss is to jump in there and grow a pair. Or grow a pair first and jump in there. Either way. I have to grow a pair.
LOUIS:
Do you want to go somewhere tomorrow? I’ll even let you choose where we go and what we do. If yes, meet me at 2 PM at Censier metro station.
Heart hammering, I wait for his answer on the edge of the top stairs. This way, if he doesn’t want me, I can jump off and break my neck, and that will teach him.
My phone vibrates. I hold my breath.
MICHAEL:
Yes! And I will choose well.
Michael has texted me an exclamation mark. He must be madly in love with me.
Elated, I stick the phone back into my pocket, a song on my lips. My phone vibrates once more as I turn the key into the lock. See? He can
’t get enough of me.
One glance at the screen and my stomach drops.
LUCIE:
What are we doing tomorrow?
I only get out of my stupor when I slam my bedroom door shut behind me. I’m sorry Lucie. You must bear with me a little while longer. My only way out of this situation is to push forward into the darkness and hope to see the light.
Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow I’ll know for sure, and then I’ll tell Lucie. Perhaps it won’t be so dramatic, that I’ve kissed a boy. Perhaps she’ll forgive me. Perhaps she won’t leave me at all.
The back of my mother’s head, blonde just like Lucie flashed behind my eyelids. She slammed the door without looking back. She forgot to call last Christmas.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE ORIGIN OF TERROR
ANOTHER LIE LATER, added to the lists of things I promised Lucie I wouldn’t do anymore when we made up, I meet Michael at 2 PM sharp outside my place, and we set off toward the train station.
As we walk slowly along the wall bordering the Jardin Des Plantes, Michael slips me the first glance. We exchange a secretive smile. Mine says: I remember and I want to do it again. Let’s sneak into the park and make out in a dark corner. His is mysterious and might be suggesting the same. Then, he speaks.
“I hope you’ll like what I picked for us.”
“Sure will.”
My head is already filling with kisses and the sweet tingling in my palms as I bury my hands in his heavenly hair.
But we don’t sneak into the gardens, we keep walking, walking. And once we arrive at Gare d’Austerlitz, my excitement has dwindled considerably. We don’t have enough time to ride a train together for a mini trip to the countryside, and I doubt that’s what he intended for us. My enthusiasm flickers out even more when we take the direction of the RER C and descend into the depths of the station.
“Are we going into the suburbs?” I ask, horrified.