Something snaps inside of me, some last tether of sanity, and I lunge for the Christmas tree, ripping it away from the corner where Noelle set it up. I throw it to the ground, the cord tearing free, stamping on the ornaments as they fall to the carpet. I upend the coffee table, smashing the wine glasses, breaking the wood, and knocking over the sofa. It feelsgoodto rage, to let myself go, to become the animal, the monster, thebeastthey always claimed I was. To let go of it, because what matters now that she’s gone?
Nothing can save me, without Noelle.
In my hopeless, grief-stricken rage, I begin to destroy it all. All the years of accumulation in the apartment—the books, the art, all of it. I tear paintings from the walls and shred them with my nails, toss furniture aside, throw statues and artifacts into the walls and break mirrors. I clear the shelves of books with a swipe, grabbing one and opening it to rip the pages out, only to freeze, my hand hovering over the weathered paper.
She’d never forgive me for destroying a book.
I throw it to the floor, stamping on it instead, my rampage continuing throughout the apartment. Somewhere in the midst of it, my wrists start to bleed again—not enough to stop me, but enough to soak through the bandages, dripping down my hands and staining my fingers, adding swipes of blood across everything I touch to the carnage of my apartment. I tear through my office, her bedroom, and upstairs, my own room and the library, ripping books from the shelves until the floor is strewn with them. Everything I touch, I tear apart, break, shatter, just as I feel shattered and broken beyond repair inside, except the books. Those, I don’t tear apart.
When there’s nothing left to destroy, surrounded by a sea of books and shredded paintings, upturned furniture, and broken things in the library Noelle loved, I turn inwards on myself. I tear at my shirt, my flesh, falling to my knees and bowing over as I roar out my grief, again and again, until I taste blood from my torn throat. There’s not enough air or strength left in me to sob as I collapse against an overturned chaise, exhausted and sick, my bandaged wrists soaked through with blood.
She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone.
There is no going after her, no getting her back. I learned that lesson well with Anastasia. If she left, it’s for a reason. Going to find her will only cause me more misery and pain. I did the right thing in letting her go, but in doing so, I tore myself to shreds.
I am nothing without her. Ihavenothing. None of this matters. I spent my whole life searching, collecting, and trying to put together enough broken things to make myself whole again. Yet, the only woman who could ever heal me was one who was never broken to begin with.
And she was kind to me despite it all.
I believe, to the very depths of my shattered soul, that shelovedme.
I can feel exhaustion dragging me down, pulling me under as I collapse among the detritus of my wasted life, my eyes closing for what I wish would be the last time. I have no wish to wake up, to go on, to keep hurting. There is nothing left for me, no matter what she or the priest would have me believe.
The sickness is coming back to claim me, the fever teasing at the edges of my consciousness, ready to burn me up like the flames of Hell where I belong. I groan feebly as I spin headlong down into the darkness, the heat swallowing me as I see myself in my dreams surrounded by flames, and Noelle standing in the center of them, tears sliding down her face as the books burn up all around us. I hear her calling for me, her hands outstretched as thorny vines wind their way around her legs, roses bursting out from them only to be charred in the flames as the ashes of the burnt pages fall all around, along with the petals.
Alexandre! Alexandre!
In the dream, I can’t go to her. I’m mired down in something thick and black, winding around my hands and feet. When I look down at my forearms, I see that the wounds are open again, a thick black poison spilling from the gashes instead of blood, forming the thick substance holding me down, wrapping around me and binding me in place so that I can’t go to her as the flames draw closer, the vines encircling her. The thorns pierce her, tearing at her flesh, blood streaming from her shredded skin as she screams my name again, and the blood runs across the floor of the library, soaking the layers of pages between us, writing scrawled across them as they soak in Noelle’s blood.
I cannot be far from you any longer
To love another person is to see the face of God.
I cannot be far from you
Far from you
To love…
The black poison of my blood meets hers, spreading through it, racing towards her until I see what will happen, that I will be the one to poison her, to destroy her. I see it, the way the thick blackness envelops the thorns, withering them away as it seeps into the wounds they made, black veins running through Noelle’s skin as she begins to scream and scream, the flames coming ever closer.
She begins to vomit black, crumpling, her skin flaking away like shreds of paper, and on the pieces I see every word she ever said to me before they char to ash, as her body is consumed by the poison, destroyed by it, and then—
Then there is nothing but endless blackness and the horror of knowing that, in the end, there is nothing but empty loneliness and dark, for all of eternity.
24
NOELLE
For a few days, I manage to keep thoughts of Alexandre mostly at bay. Returning the flat to a livable state is foremost in my mind, and that’s what I throw myself headlong into. Georgie is on break from school for the holidays, and he stays close to me no matter what I’m doing, as if he thinks I might disappear at any moment. It’s hard to blame him—he’s lost both parents and then me for a time. I know there’s probably deep-seated trauma to work through there, abandonment issues that could likely use the help of a professional to manage. But that’s a worry for another time.
For now, I focus on getting the unpaid utilities turned back on, topping up the power and heat, so we don’t have to worry about either for some time, and filling the refrigerator and cupboards with groceries better than any that have ever graced our kitchen. As I’d said I would, I stash a couple months’ worth of bill and food money away in a box under my bed, since my waitressing job has indeed replaced me, as I’d feared, and it might take some time to find something new. But even with that, there’s plenty of money left over to spoil Georgie a little and enjoy a better Christmas than we have in some time.
I buy a Christmas tree and decorations for the flat, ignoring the pain in my chest when I remember doing this hardly a week ago for Alexandre, and put on Christmas music while I decorate it with Georgie, dancing around the living room as we do the way our mother used to. My happiness isn’t entirely forced—I am genuinely happy to be back with my brother, sharing the holiday with him. After fearing I’d never be home again, the relief I feel at being back in the shabby little flat I used to hate is palpable. It’s just that I feel as if something—orsomeone—is missing. I can’t stop picturing Alexandre struggling alone in the apartment, sitting by an unlit fireplace, looking at the Christmas tree I’d bought for him, looking ahead to the lonely days in front of him.
I want him to move on and be happy. I want him to see what happened as a chance for a new start.
But do I? I picture him with another woman before I can stop myself—not a pet or someone he feels he needs to fix or save, but just a woman he might meet somewhere in Paris, elegant and beautiful and wealthy, and a flare of jealousy so hot and sharp pierces me that it brings me up short.