NOELLE
I’d been afraid that Alexandre’s seeming return to health would be temporary, the way it had been briefly before he’d slipped back into the fever, but it seems to hold steady. Over the next week, his strength seems to improve enough that he needs less help getting up and down and can eat and drink more. The wounds are a long way from healed, but slowly we work on him being able to move his fingers and hands more with less pain, the closest thing to physical therapy that I can think of.
After that first day, though, nothing else sexual happens between us. The intensity of it frightened me, not least of which because I’m well aware of how close I came to giving in to the urge to lose my virginity to him, and I think he knows that. He doesn’t broach the subject again, tease or entice me, even though I can tell he’s often aroused when I’m near, and he’s still not well enough to take care of it himself. Every time I notice, I feel that urge to touch him, to give him that pleasure, but I force myself not to, and he doesn’t ask. I’m afraid of where it will go if we get that close again.
Alexandre tells me where he keeps some money in his room so I can go out and buy food. One afternoon when I’m sure he’s well enough to come out to the living room for the evening, I buy a small Christmas tree with what I have left over and some decorations. I have to pay someone to help me get it to the apartment and inside, which I’m sure Alexandre would hate, but I reason that what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, and the end result will be worth it. At the same time, I can’t help but marvel at how much things have shifted in so short a time. I no longer feel like his pet or even his captive. If anything, I have more agency in the house right now than he does. From the way he looks at me sometimes, I think he’s aware of how the tables have turned. For the first time, he’s experiencing being at the mercy of someone else, and I wonder if it’s changed his perspective. From the way he acts towards me now, the way he speaks to me, I think it has.
I know he’s grateful that I’ve cared for him, even if he can’t bring himself to be grateful that I saved him. I know he still thinks I should have let him die, and I don’t fully understand why—what it is that he feels is so terrible that he can’t bear it any longer. I don’t know why he lost control with me. If I’m being completely honest with myself, the fact that he’s been in such a helpless state has meant I haven’t had to worry about it. For now, I’ve enjoyed the good side of Alexandre, the part that is all man. When he’s strong enough for the beast to come out again, I’ll be gone.
At least, that’s my hope—and my plan.
But I feel the urge to leave him with a good memory of me—ofus. I want him to have some happiness, this time of year of all times, and that was where my plan to get the Christmas tree began. Once I have it arranged in the living room, next to the fireplace in a tree stand with water and the branches fluffed out, the room already smelling of pine, I go about decorating it and cleaning the house.
I’d been more focused on caring for Alexandre than chores. While the apartment isn’t anywhere nearly in the dismal state it had been in before I’d been left here, it’s not exactly tidy, either. I spend most of the day cleaning while Alexandre sleeps, and by the time the apartment is sparkling again and the tree is decorated, a fire leaping in the fireplace, it’s dark out and time for dinner.
I do my best to make something good, following the instructions for a lamb roast that the butcher gave me. While it cooks, filling the house with the scent of herbs and garlic, I slice up a baguette and cheese, and pour two glasses of wine. I’d hesitated at the idea of the wine, remembering the shattered bottle that Alexandre had used to cut his wrists. Still, I decide to go ahead with my plan in the end. If the wine upsets him, I can take it away.
I set the wine and bread and cheese out on the coffee table in the living room and then go to help Alexandre get out of bed. I’d brought clothes down for him a few days ago. Between that and my own clothes and the books I’ve been reading that have taken up residence in the room, it’s started to feel oddly domestic in a way that I’ve never experienced before. I’ve never shared a space with a man so closely, and I know that despite how little I want to feel this way, I’ll miss it when I’m gone.
Alexandre’s awake when I come into the bedroom. “Something smells good,” he says with a faint smile. “Burning the kitchen down?”
Somewhere along the way, in the nights we’d spent next to each other, I’d told him how I’d been afraid he’d demand I cook for him and how terrible I was sure I’d be at it. Other things came out too in that conversation—how poor Georgie and I were, how hard it was to keep the bills paid and food in the cupboards, how what I’ve eaten since leaving has been the best food of my life, and how guilty that makes me feel.
“I don’t know if Georgie is okay,” I’d said quietly, unable to quite meet Alexandre’s eyes. I hadn’t wanted to see pity there, but it would have been even worse if hedidn’tcare. “I don’t know if he’s hungry or cold. I’m not there to take care of him.”
“And it is my fault,petite.” He’d gone very quiet. “I am sorry,” he’d said finally. “I was wrong to keep you. But is there no one else to care for him without you?”
“No,” I’d admitted. “Our parents are dead. Our father died a couple of months ago. He left a pile of debts—and that’s why I’m here. I tried to pay them off and ended up in something I couldn’t get out of. But since the sale to Kaito was successful, I’m hoping they left Georgie alone. As long as he’s safe, that’s all that matters.”
“But you need to get home to him.” Alexandre had gone quiet again after that, and I’d known what he was thinking—that for me to go home, I would have to leave him.
I know he doesn’t want that. And I know in the end, I will have to force the issue—and then I’ll be gone, like all the others. Sometimes at night, in the dark, as he sleeps next to me, I’m afraid of what will happen to him then—if he’ll repeat that night in the kitchen, the broken wine bottle, and the spreading pool of black.
But I can’t be responsible for that. I can’t be the only thing keeping him alive. That’s a burden no one can bear—especially not me. All I can do is give him what I can until he’s well enough for me to go. After that, the chapter has to close.
I know that, but it still hurts to think about—and I don’t want to look too closely as to why. Tonight, though, I want to make a good memory with him. Something that I, and hopefully he, can look back on when I’m gone and remember instead of the times that were bad. I want to give him this—and myself as well.
“I have a surprise for you.” I check his bandages and then help him sit up. “In the living room.”
Alexandre leans against me as I help him stand, and something about the weight of his body against mine feels good. My experience of caretaking before had been when my father was sick, and it had only driven us further apart. His guilt and anger had made him irritable, snappish, and hurtful, and I hadn’t known it was possible for caring for someone else like this to bring someone closer. I’d expected to want nothing more than to be as far away from Alexandre as possible once he was well, to resent him more deeply than ever, but it’s been the opposite. With all of his defenses down, and me too tired to keep mine up, we’ve each seen parts of the other that we wouldn’t have otherwise shared. I’ve seen a different side to him, and he’s seen me vulnerable in ways that he would never have otherwise.
I find myself wishing he could put his arm around me as we make our way slowly down the hall. I brace myself against his shoulder instead, my arm around his waist, walking in slow, halting steps. He was able to make a fist today, which was progress, but any pressure on his arms is still painful, and he can’t use his hands for long. The wounds are far from healed.
We step into the entrance of the living room, and I hear Alexandre suck in a startled breath. “Noelle—”
“I wanted to do something special for you. For both of us, really.” I guide him to the couch, helping him sit down as I arrange a blanket over his lap. The days-long fever left him weak, and he still gets chilled easily. “This year hasn’t felt like Christmas to me. Christmas hasn’t been good, really, since my mother passed, but I always did something special for Georgie and me. I didn’t want to let this year go by with nothing at all.” I bite my lip, glancing at him. “I used some of the money you gave me for food. I hope you’re not angry—”
Alexandre shakes his head, staring at the tree with a small smile on his lips. “Not at all,petite souris,” he says softly, turning to look at me. “This is wondrous.”
“I’m glad,” I say quietly, reaching for the wine. “Is this okay? I wasn’t sure, after—”
“I would like the taste of wine to not always remind me of that night.” Alexandre pauses, his blue eyes resting on mine. “Now, maybe, it will start to remind me of this night instead.”
The room is warm and cozy, the fire leaping, and I feel closer to him than ever before. I feel as if something has changed, shifted between us, in a way so palpable that it could almost start to erase everything that came before that night. The intimacy of it is almost too much—helping him to drink the wine in between sips of my own, helping him with the food. Alexandre exclaims over how good the meal I made is, once I get it out of the oven and serve it, and I tease him for lying to me. It feels sweet and normal and domestic, and the ball of guilt forms in my stomach again for enjoying anything here when I should be home with my brother.
“I always loved Christmas when my mother was alive,” I say quietly, curled up close to him by the fire. With dinner finished, the blanket ended up over both of our laps, and I know what we’re doing could only be called cuddling. I shouldn’t want to snuggle with Alexandre any more than I would cuddle with the monster under my bed if it were real. Still, nothing about him seems particularly monstrous any more. He seems like a man—a hurt one, as broken as any of the girls who were ever here before, but just a man nonetheless.
A man who makes me feel things I never felt before.