Chapter 20 — Doing nothing

The cold pack was already beginning to melt.

I looked at it as though it had just violated protocol.

The dish towel was damp. Two drops had reached the coffee table.

Liora sat on my couch with her leg extended, her ankle wrapped in cold. She stared at the ceiling with the concentration of someone attempting not to exist in the least natural position imaginable for her.

Doing nothing.

Even her body seemed to find it offensive.

Her father stood beside the window with his phone in his hand. Her mother had returned from their apartment with a bandage, a first-aid kit, and a calm efficiency that made you want to spontaneously entrust her with crises of a much older nature.

Eugène, confined to the bathroom, meowed at regular intervals.

Not from distress.

In protest.

He had just been found, fed, carried, rescued, and then deprived of the living room for more than four minutes.

An intolerable situation.

“He’s going to tear the door down,” Liora said.

Her voice was almost normal.

Too normal.

“He doesn’t possess that level of physical commitment.”

Behind the door, Eugène scratched once.

With impeccable timing.

Liora turned toward me.

“He heard you.”

“He enjoys contradicting me.”

She smiled, then her face tightened slightly.

She looked away immediately.

I saw it.

Of course.

I would have preferred to be someone who noticed fewer things when they hurt.

Her mother sat on the coffee table on the other side of her leg.

“We’ll keep the cold on a little longer. Then I’ll put on a light wrap.”

“I can do it.”

“No.”

Liora opened her mouth, looked at her father, then gave up.

A poor strategic choice.

“Your mother is right,” he said.

“I haven’t said anything yet.”

“You were going to say you know how to wrap an ankle.”

“I do know how to wrap an ankle.”

“Not your own in that position.”

She fell silent.

Factual.

The worst kind.

I stood too quickly.

“Water.”

Everyone looked at me.

Fine.

I had announced water as a philosophical concept.

“Do you want some water?” I asked Liora.

“Yes. Thank you.”

I filled a glass, placed it beside her, then moved it a few inches.

Liora followed the movement.

“Are you positioning it according to the rules of an ancient ritual?”

“Yes.”

“I won’t disturb the ritual.”

“Thank you.”

I picked up a cushion.

“Would you like to elevate your problematic lower limb?”

“My lower limb thanks you.”

I slid the cushion beneath her calf with excessive caution. Her father was watching my hands.

Which was entirely normal.

And extremely unsettling.

“There?”

“Yes.”

“Not too high?”

“Aurèl.”

“Yes?”

“You can let go of the cushion.”

My hand was still beneath it.

“Yes.”

Logistical victory.

The rabbit slowly poked his nose out of his shelter. Liora noticed immediately.

“Oh, Demitrius.”

“Don’t call him too much. He’s already reconsidering his entire existence.”

Demitrius moved forward an inch, then retreated.

A rational choice.

Eugène meowed again.

“Maybe you could let him out?” Liora asked.

“He’ll come over to you.”

“I can avoid touching him.”

“You just fell off a wall for him. Your avoidance skills are questionable.”

The sentence could have been funny.

It almost was.

Then it wasn’t.

“Sorry.”

Liora shook her head.

“No. It’s true.”

Her mother removed the cold pack.

The ankle had swollen.

Not enormously.

Enough.

Liora’s face became very still.

“It isn’t that bad.”

No one answered.

Excellent group.

Her mother put the cold pack back.

“You aren’t putting your foot down tonight.”

“And tomorrow?”

“We’ll see tomorrow.”

“I have practice.”

“You do not have practice tomorrow, Liora.”

She looked at the window, then the rug. She was searching for an exit.

Not necessarily a physical one.

“It’s ridiculous to get injured like this.”

Her father answered too quickly.

“Yes.”

“Dad.”

He corrected himself.

“It was not prudent. But you are not ridiculous.”

She didn’t answer.

I remained beside the kitchen, my hands useless.

I wanted to replace the cold pack, move a cushion, repair the wall, reverse time, put Eugène in a box before he decided to become a community event.

None of those options were available.

Her mother put away the first-aid kit.

“We’ll leave you here another ten minutes. Then we’ll go home carefully.”

“I can go now.”

“No.”

“I’m two doors away.”

“And you can’t walk without grimacing.”

“I grimaced once.”

Her father looked at her.

“Four times.”

“You’re counting my grimaces?”

“Yes.”

“That’s extremely strange.”

“That’s parenting.”

He almost smiled.

Her mother stood.

“I’ll prepare your bed and bring another cold pack. Your father will help me.”

“I can stay alone.”

The three adults in the room, unfortunately including me in that category, looked at her.

She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.

“I’m not going to climb your couch, Aurèl.”

“I prefer not to rule out possibilities.”

Her father looked at me.

“If she tries to stand...”

“I tell her no.”

The word came out simply.

He nodded.

“Good.”

“Traitor,” Liora said.

“On this subject, yes.”

Before leaving, her father looked toward the bathroom.

Eugène meowed.

“That cat possesses a remarkable ability to create collective organization.”

“It’s his only consistent talent.”

“Keep him inside.”

“I’m planning to enroll him in a rehabilitation program.”

He hesitated.

“A strict program.”

Liora almost burst out laughing, then restrained herself.

“Dad just made a joke.”

“I have always made jokes.”

“They sound like formal notices.”

Her parents left.

The door closed.

The studio became larger.

Not empty.

Larger.

As though her parents’ presence had held the walls in a social shape, and once the door closed, everything returned to its real scale.

A couch.

A lamp.

An injured girl.

Me beside the kitchen, unable to decide whether my hands should remain visible.

Eugène in the bathroom.

Demitrius in his shelter.

The damp dish towel.

The glass of water.

The silence didn’t yet know what it was allowed to become.

Liora rested her head against the back of the couch.

“Well.”

“Well.”

“Situation completely under control.”

“Entirely.”

She turned toward me.

“You can breathe.”

“I am breathing.”

“You look like you’re waiting for medical test results on a houseplant.”

I looked at the plant beside the window.

“It has survived worse.”

“So have I.”

The sentence came out too quickly.

It revealed more than she intended.

I moved closer.

“Does it hurt?”

“I’m fine.”

I looked at her.

“Okay. Bad answer. Six. Seven when I move.”

“Then don’t move.”

“Innovative solution.”

I picked up the cold pack.

“I’m changing the towel.”

“That isn’t necessary.”

“It’s soaked.”

“Save the furniture.”

I returned with a dry dish towel and placed the cold pack back on her ankle. My fingers brushed her skin.

She inhaled.

I withdrew my hand.

“Sorry.”

“It’s cold.”

“Yes.”

“Not you.”

Fine.

Absurd information.

My brain stored it with excessive care.

I sat on the coffee table.

Liora looked toward the bathroom.

“You can let him out.”

“He’ll come to you.”

“You can stop him.”

Behind the door, Eugène meowed again.

“Our relationship is founded on illusion.”

“Open the door.”

I stood.

“You don’t touch him.”

“Yes.”

“Even if he makes that face.”

“What face?”

I looked at her.

She smiled.

“Yes. I know.”

I opened the door.

Eugène emerged with the offended slowness of an aristocrat unjustly detained, then went directly toward Liora.

Of course.

I positioned myself in front of the couch.

“No.”

He tried the left.

I extended one foot.

He tried the right.

“Eugène.”

He sat one foot from the couch.

Exactly at the acceptable limit.

Liora lowered her voice.

“Hi, criminal.”

“Don’t encourage him.”

“I’m acknowledging his legal status.”

Eugène licked one paw as though bored by the hearing.

Liora laughed quietly.

This time, she grimaced less.

The sound changed something subtle inside the studio.

The rabbit poked his nose out of his shelter again.

“Your apartment is very lively for someone who claims to enjoy quiet,” she said.

I looked at the displaced couch, the crooked table, the guilty cat, the traumatized rabbit, the cold pack.

“It’s going through a difficult period.”

“Because of me?”

She was no longer smiling.

Her fingers played with the edge of the blanket.

“Mostly because of Eugène.”

“Aurèl.”

I lowered my eyes.

“Partly.”

She nodded, as though receiving a blow she had already dealt herself.

“I’m sorry.”

The words came softly.

Amid the cold, the water, and the cat.

I didn’t want to answer with a prepared sentence.

“For what?”

She gave a humorless laugh.

“Do you want the list?”

“No.”

“Yes, you do. You like lists.”

“That’s false.”

“You wrote ‘jumping capacity exceeds projections’ about Eugène in a sketchbook.”

I froze.

“How do you know that?”

“You left it open. The sentence was sitting by itself in the middle of a balcony diagram.”

I closed my eyes.

“Fine. I sometimes like lists.”

Her smile disappeared.

“I’m sorry about yesterday. About the email. About the wall. About the way I believe doing something quickly enough counts as helping.”

She lowered her eyes to her ankle.

“I wanted to fix things.”

Eugène lay on the floor with his chin on his paws.

Still between us, but in a less active way.

“Fix what?”

Liora breathed, then began again.

She was trying.

“The argument. Your face when I read the email. The fact that I hadn’t understood. When I saw you in the hallway, I knew it wasn’t only the exhibition. Then there was Eugène, and I could act. Search. Go downstairs. Climb. Grab him. That was better than standing there with what I had missed.”

I remained still.

She was still struggling with silence, but she wasn’t avoiding the sentence.

“I think I confused helping with doing it for you.”

She didn’t look at me when she said it.

I stared at the condensation on the dish towel.

“Sometimes I confuse thinking with waiting for the situation to disappear.”

She looked up.

“Sometimes?”

“Let’s not abuse honesty.”

She genuinely smiled.

Small.

But real.

I rested my elbows on my knees.

“I was afraid when you climbed.”

“I know.”

“No.”

The word came faster than expected.

“I think you know part of it. I didn’t understand all of it immediately either. When Eugène was up there, I was afraid for him. It was simple. Terrible, but simple. One problem, one place, one solution.”

I ran a hand over my face.

“Then you put your foot on the wall.”

I saw the sleeve again.

The grate.

The sole of her shoe.

The drop.

“After that, it wasn’t simple.”

Liora didn’t move.

“I asked you to wait. You said you had it under control. I thought about your ankle, the ground, your championship, your father behind you, Eugène, you falling. I don’t know in what order.”

My voice lowered.

“I was afraid for you before I had time to decide whether I had the right to be afraid like that.”

The studio became very attentive.

Even Eugène didn’t move.

Which was suspicious.

Liora swallowed with difficulty.

“You have the right.”

I looked at my hands.

“It’s new.”

“What is?”

“Being afraid for someone outside the practical categories.”

“What’s a practical category?”

“Neighbor. Girl next door. Person allergic to my cat. Person who talks too quickly beside my coffee table.”

“I speak normally.”

“Of course.”

I looked at her.

Mistake.

Her eyes were tired, bright, much closer than they actually were.

Or the studio had shrunk.

“I don’t know where to put you.”

The sentence came out almost by itself.

Liora remained still.

“You don’t have to put me anywhere.”

Obviously.

A simple sentence.

Impossible.

Demitrius began eating again.

A small, dry, regular sound.

The world was restarting in places.

Liora moved slightly, and her face tightened.

“Six and a half,” she said before I could ask.

“Very precise.”

“I’m speaking your language.”

“My language has decimals?”

“Probably.”

I stood.

“I’m putting the cold pack back.”

“You just did.”

“It’s warming up.”

“Do you really hate doing nothing that much?”

I stopped.

She smiled gently.

“Got you.”

I took another pack from the freezer and struck it against the counter to loosen the ice.

Too hard.

The whole kitchen vibrated.

“Are you attacking it?” Liora asked.

“I’m negotiating.”

“Is it going badly?”

“It’s resisting.”

I returned and placed the new pack on her ankle. She clenched her teeth, then relaxed.

“Thank you.”

I remained standing.

“Sit down, Aurèl.”

I sat on the floor with my back against the couch.

Lower.

Less medical.

“You know there’s furniture?” she asked.

“I’m familiar with the concept.”

“You’re strange.”

“You climbed a wall to retrieve a cat who came down because he was hungry.”

“He came down because we created a motivating environment.”

“A beautiful way of saying ‘treats.’”

She laughed, then placed one hand on her ankle.

I straightened.

“It’s throbbing a little,” she said. “And no, don’t call my mother. She’ll be back soon. There’s nothing else to do.”

I looked at her.

“Okay.”

She seemed almost surprised that I agreed.

The silence returned.

Less rigid.

A silence containing a cold pack, a cat lying at the permitted limit, a rabbit chewing beside his shelter, and a lamp glowing in front of the bookcase.

Liora was trying not to move every thirty seconds.

She lasted approximately two minutes, then her fingers began tapping against the blanket.

One.

Two.

Three.

She stopped when I turned my head.

“You’re allowed to move your fingers.”

“Thank you for that generous permission.”

“Not the ankle.”

“We should write that down.”

“I can make a chart.”

Her gaze drifted toward the guitar beside the bookcase.

“Don’t you play anymore?”

I followed her eyes.

“I do.”

“I heard you sometimes. Through the wall.”

I remained still.

“Not everything,” she added. “A few chords. Usually in the evening.”

“I play badly.”

“No.”

“You’re injured. Your judgment is impaired.”

“Maybe. But no.”

The guitar was there.

In its place.

And my hands were empty.

Which was becoming difficult.

“Do you want me to play?”

Liora looked at her ankle, then Eugène, then me.

“Yes. Not to fill the silence. Only if you feel like it.”

The clarification touched me.

She was trying not to push.

Not even toward a song.

I picked up the guitar and sat on the edge of the coffee table.

“I’m not promising anything.”

“I won’t grade you.”

“Shame. I prepared an evaluation form.”

I placed my fingers on the strings.

I didn’t know what to play.

So I played the same thing as usual.

The incomplete melody.

A few simple, slow chords.

Not exactly for her.

So the air would stop trembling.

The first notes came out too hesitantly.

I began again.

The guitar took some of the noise inside me and transformed it into something that could remain outside my body.

Not better.

Less tight.

Liora didn’t speak.

Not a comment.

Not a question.

She listened.

I felt it before I looked at her.

She wasn’t still like someone forcing herself to be. She was receiving something without trying to seize it.

I played the passage where I always became stuck.

The missing transition.

Usually, I stopped there.

This time, I allowed the chord to last.

Then moved to another.

Not necessarily the right one.

Another.

The melody continued a little.

Enough.

When the last notes died, the studio retained a low vibration.

Liora was watching my hands.

“That’s where you usually stopped.”

I froze.

“What?”

“The passage. You always got stuck in the same place.”

“You really were listening.”

She raised her eyes.

“Yes.”

No humor.

No escape.

Only yes.

My heart behaved unprofessionally.

I placed the guitar beside me.

“I didn’t know.”

“I know.”

“That’s strange.”

“A little.”

“At first, you were only a sound behind the wall.”

She smiled faintly.

“So were you.”

“I made less noise.”

“You made music.”

“Not the same.”

“No. It was quieter. But it stayed.”

I immediately looked at the cold pack.

“It must be less cold now.”

“Aurèl.”

“What?”

“You can stay for two seconds before checking an object.”

I lowered my eyes.

“I can try.”

“Very ambitious.”

I rested my hands on my knees.

One second.

Two.

Three.

“With the exhibition,” I said, “I think it wasn’t only the text that hurt.”

I looked at the rug.

A strand of Eugène’s fur was stuck beside the couch.

Obviously.

He participated in everything.

“It was what the text did to my quiet. I spent years building a place where I could breathe. The studio, the images, the habits. It isn’t glorious. It isn’t impressive. But it isn’t a prison.”

I raised my eyes.

“The text said, Look, he never goes outside. Look, his quiet is a symptom. If my images are presented like that, I become evidence against my own life.”

Liora closed her eyes for a moment.

“I thought you were retreating. In my world, when you stop, you lose. At practice, at work, at college. If you don’t move forward, someone takes your place. If you slow down, you fall out of the race.”

She gave a brief laugh.

“Apparently, if you don’t wait, you can also fall off a wall.”

“New data.”

“To be incorporated into the model.”

“I’ll make a diagram.”

Her face became serious again.

“When you tried to set a boundary, I saw an exit. Not a boundary. A door.”

I looked at the studio door.

“In my world, moving too quickly sometimes looks like getting lost.”

She nodded.

Not quickly.

She allowed the sentence to exist.

Maybe that was listening.

“Our worlds are terribly out of sync,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“That’s a problem.”

“Yes.”

“You could say something reassuring.”

“I could.”

“You aren’t going to?”

“I’m looking for a less terrible formulation.”

She laughed, then grimaced.

“Ow.”

“Even my formulations can cause injuries.”

“Very powerful.”

I leaned toward her ankle.

This time, she didn’t stop me.

I lifted the cold pack slightly and checked the skin around it.

Still swollen.

Not catastrophic.

Not good.

When I withdrew my hand, Liora placed her fingers around my wrist.

Not tightly.

For one second.

My body immediately forgot most of its secondary functions.

She seemed surprised too.

Her fingers were warm.

Mine were cold.

I looked at her hand.

Then at her.

She didn’t remove it.

The silence changed.

More precise.

Eugène sighed.

A genuine cat sigh, long and burdened, as though judging the general slowness of humans.

Liora looked down at him.

“He disapproves.”

“He wanted a more efficient scene.”

“With treats.”

“Probably.”

Her hand slid from my wrist toward my fingers.

Slowly.

As though asking through the movement.

As though she had learned that evening that not everything needed to be taken through speed.

I didn’t know who moved first.

Maybe her.

Maybe me.

For once, the question didn’t matter.

I moved closer.

She didn’t move quickly.

Not only because of her ankle.

Her face remained open, uncertain, surprised.

I stopped close enough to feel her breath.

Far enough for her to choose not to.

Liora looked at my mouth, then my eyes.

“You’re thinking too much now,” she whispered.

“Probably.”

“No need.”

“Are you sure?”

She barely smiled.

“No.”

Fine.

Absolute honesty.

Disastrous.

Perfect.

“Neither am I.”

And maybe that was why I kissed her.

Or she kissed me.

I didn’t know.

The kiss was light, almost a verification. Soft, careful, slightly awkward because I was sitting too low and she couldn’t move her leg.

Very romantic.

Very us.

I barely moved back.

Liora’s eyes were open.

Mine probably were too.

I had not received the manual.

She looked at me as though she had just discovered something that had been obvious for a long time. Her fingers tightened around mine.

So I returned.

More gently.

This time, the kiss lasted long enough for the studio to recede in layers.

The lamp.

The rug.

Demitrius.

Eugène.

The cold pack.

The argument.

The email.

The wall.

Nothing disappeared.

Everything remained slightly farther away.

We were inside that small space where neither of us moved faster than the other.

That was the strangest part.

The rhythm.

Finding it at the same time.

When we separated, neither of us spoke.

Thankfully.

I could have said something catastrophic.

Statistically, it was likely.

Liora looked down at Eugène.

“He saw.”

The cat was watching us.

Very calm.

Very round.

A completely uninvited witness.

“He won’t testify for free.”

She laughed, then grimaced.

“Ow. Still your fault.”

“The ankle or the laughter?”

“Both.”

The cold pack slipped.

I put it back in place.

A normal gesture.

After.

Before.

During.

I no longer knew.

“You know,” Liora said, “I can’t run away very quickly.”

Half joke.

Half confession.

“A remarkably unathletic threat.”

“Temporary.”

“We’ll see tomorrow.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“You’re with my mother now?”

“On this subject, yes.”

“Confirmed traitor.”

Then her smile slowed.

“I’ll have to go home.”

“Yes.”

“Not yet.”

“No.”

We remained there.

Not long.

Or perhaps a long time.

The concept of duration had become unreliable.

Eugène settled beside my legs, as though the scene required his weight.

Liora looked at him.

“You’re responsible for far too many things.”

He blinked.

No remorse.

Her phone vibrated.

“My mother is asking whether I’m still alive.”

“Tell her yes, under supervision.”

She typed more slowly than usual.

“You’re writing more slowly,” I observed.

“My ankle is injured, not my thumbs.”

“And yet.”

“I’m slowing down to impress you.”

“It’s working.”

A few seconds later, someone knocked.

Liora closed her eyes.

“Already.”

Her mother entered with a new cold pack and a pair of crutches. Her gaze moved from my face to Liora’s with terrifying maternal precision.

I did my best to look normal.

So probably guilty.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yes,” Liora replied. “Really.”

Her mother checked the ankle, replaced the cold pack, and adjusted the bandage. She explained very calmly that Liora would go upstairs with help, keep her foot elevated, and that they would call the doctor the following day if necessary.

Liora protested three times.

Lost three times.

Her father returned.

“Ready?”

“No.”

“Fine. Let’s go.”

They helped her stand. She leaned against them, then briefly against me to move around the table.

Her hand settled on my arm.

One second.

Not like before.

Or slightly.

She looked at me.

Nothing enormous.

No declaration.

Only the certainty that what had just happened remained there despite her parents, despite her ankle, despite Eugène’s probable return to a career in domestic crime.

I walked her to the door.

Eugène tried to follow.

“No,” everyone said.

He stopped.

Surprised again.

On the threshold, Liora turned.

“Thank you.”

The word was too small to contain everything.

It did anyway.

“For the cold pack, the couch, the guitar. And for not letting me handle it.”

“That’s a lot of services.”

“I’ll invoice you for the inconvenience.”

“I was planning to charge you for intensive use of my emotional wall.”

“Terrible name.”

“I’ll revise it.”

Her father coughed with a certain delicacy.

Well, he interrupted with a certain delicacy.

Liora looked toward the ceiling.

“I’m coming.”

She looked at Eugène behind me.

“You and I will talk later.”

He sat.

Serene.

A cat.

She moved away down the hallway, supported by her parents.

Slowly.

The pace had been imposed on her. She didn’t like it. I could see it in her shoulders, in the way she tried to help the people helping her.

She moved forward.

Not quickly.

She moved forward anyway.

Before entering her apartment, she turned her head.

I vaguely raised one hand.

Minimal social gesture.

She smiled.

Then the door closed.

I remained on the threshold.

The hallway was quiet.

Not empty.

Not anymore.

I went back inside.

Eugène immediately rubbed against my leg.

“You are not forgiven.”

He purred.

A low strategy.

The coffee table was crooked. The blanket was crumpled. The glass was half full. The guitar rested against the table.

There were traces everywhere.

Of fear.

Of care.

Of Liora.

I straightened the table slightly.

Then stopped.

No need.

Not yet.

I sat on the couch beside the hollow left by her body. Eugène jumped up next to me and rested his head on the blanket.

Behind the wall, I heard voices.

Her father.

Her mother.

Then Liora.

I couldn’t make out the words.

Only the rhythm.

Slower.

Demitrius finally emerged from his shelter and approached his hay. The fridge hummed. So did the city below.

I remained there without turning on the main light.

The studio was quiet.

It had lost nothing.

It had simply kept something more.

A forgotten cold pack.

A chord that had continued.

A soft, slightly awkward kiss that had arrived without managing to explain everything.

And behind the wall, a sound that no longer felt like someone else’s life.