End

On the day of the exhibition, I changed T-shirts three times.

The first was black.

The second was also black, with a slightly different cut, which could justify a crisis if the anxiety cooperated hard enough.

The third was gray.

I kept it.

A decisive choice.

The rabbit calmly chewed his hay, untouched by the violence of human wardrobe decisions. Eugène sat on the couch, watching me lose with dignity to a clothes hanger.

“What?”

He blinked.

“It’s an exhibition. You wouldn’t understand.”

He licked his shoulder.

Fine.

Contemporary art had no influence over his schedule.

I returned to the mirror.

The gray T-shirt worked.

So did the jacket.

My shoes were clean.

I still had enough time to flee, change my identity, or become a lighthouse keeper.

None of those options were adult.

Several had a certain logistical appeal.

My phone vibrated.

Liora.

“Are you still home, or are you already hiding under a table at the gallery?”

I smiled.

“Haven’t left yet. I’m looking for an outfit that says ‘artist present, but unavailable to explain his relationship with light.’”

“I recommend gray. Black says ‘I suffer in silence.’ Gray says ‘I suffer, but I submitted my artist statement.’”

I looked at my T-shirt.

Deeply concerning.

“Are you inside my apartment?”

“No. I’m reading your textile soul.”

Then:

“Do you want me to stop by first?”

I remained there with the phone in my hand.

She could come in, sit on the couch, joke about my jacket, perhaps kiss me.

Then we would need to leave.

And part of me would want her to stay here instead of going into a room full of people looking at my work with lukewarm white wine in their hands.

“No. I’m going to go alone.”

The three dots appeared.

“Okay. I’ll meet you there. Reasonably late, to preserve your dramatic autonomy.”

“Thank you for this highly structured support.”

“I’m improving.”

I put down the phone.

My heart was beating too quickly.

Not only because I was about to show my drawings.

Because she would see them there.

Out in the world.

The artist statement had been approved. The general text still discussed domestic spaces, withdrawal, and inner worlds. Certain words made me want to cough slightly.

But beneath my name were my words.

A shortened version.

The right one.

“Aurèl draws quiet, inhabited places, even when no one appears in the image. A table, a window, a hallway, or a studio retains the traces of ordinary gestures. His work is concerned with modest refuges, habits, and what remains after bodies have passed through.”

It wasn’t perfect.

It was faithful.

A major distinction.

I checked the balcony, the window, the door.

Demitrius.

Alive, suspicious, motionless.

Eugène.

Drinking with the appearance of an innocent animal.

I picked up my keys.

Then returned to check the balcony.

Closed.

The window.

Closed.

Eugène watched me come back with the weary expression of someone witnessing an unnecessary administrative procedure.

“I’m really leaving this time.”

He sat down.

Fine.

Vote of no confidence.

In the hallway, Liora’s door was closed.

At the beginning, there had been that wall.

Quick footsteps.

Laughter.

A life beside mine without a face.

Now there were messages, injuries, kisses, and sentences that still hadn’t been properly put away.

And tonight, she would come.

Not to push me into the room.

To be there.

I went downstairs.

The subway seemed louder than usual.

Or perhaps I had less skin.

A man was watching a video without headphones, a contemporary crime punished far too lightly.

I kept my phone in my pocket.

Major victory.

At the next stop, I almost checked my messages.

I didn’t.

Second victory.

No one applauded.

Every conversation brushed against me. A woman loudly explained to her friend that she no longer wanted to “waste her energy on unaligned relationships.” A child asked every thirty seconds whether the subway had arrived yet, despite clearly already being inside it.

The world had decided to be especially present.

The exhibition space occupied a former storefront beside the canal. A large window, polished concrete floors, white walls, and a table where the cookies would probably become soft before 8:15.

Through the glass, I could already see people moving.

Mathilde.

Two artists I had met during installation.

A man in a beige jacket.

A woman wearing enormous red earrings.

Very brave earrings.

I remained on the sidewalk long enough for the door to notice my cowardice.

Then I went inside.

Warmth closed around me.

Soft light.

Voices.

The smell of fresh paint, wine, and printed paper.

Mathilde saw me immediately.

“Aurèl! You’re here.”

A strange sentence.

Obviously I was there.

Except no.

That was precisely it.

Several versions of me would not have come.

“Yes.”

Brilliant answer.

“A little bit no, but mostly yes?” she asked.

“Exactly.”

“Perfect. That’s often the normal state at an opening.”

She gestured for me to follow.

“Your pieces are in the back. The label has been printed with the approved version.”

I saw them before I was ready.

Which was logical.

Artwork did not wait.

They hung in an uneven line, with enough space between them to breathe.

The table.

The window.

The hallway.

The corner of the studio.

The displaced chair.

And the last one.

The one I had added later.

A room seen from inside, the glass door open onto a railing. Warm light across the floor. A pair of running shoes beside the entrance. A crumpled blanket on the couch. A forgotten glass on the coffee table.

No figure.

No one.

But something had just entered.

Or left.

Or stayed.

I only knew I would not have drawn that image before Liora.

Not like that.

Mathilde stopped beside me.

“They look good.”

My images were there.

Under lights.

Not on my screen.

Not inside my studio.

Not protected from me.

I looked at the label.

My name.

Aurèl.

Then my words.

The sentence was still accurate.

It had not transformed into betrayal during printing.

Technical relief.

“Thank you.”

“You were right to insist,” Mathilde said. “The text is more accurate.”

Spoken there beside the images, the sentence carried more weight than it had in an email.

“Thank you for changing it.”

“It was only right.”

She looked at the series.

“People find their way into them easily. They’re accessible without being easy. Well, not simplistic.”

“I’ll take accessible and not simplistic.”

“Very reasonable.”

Someone called her from the entrance.

I remained alone in front of my work.

Mistake.

Or not.

I didn’t know where to put myself.

Beside the images looked pretentious.

Far from them looked cowardly.

Between the two, I obstructed traffic.

Fine.

I had become a badly positioned piece of furniture.

The room filled.

Glasses.

Coats.

Laughter.

Shoes on concrete.

I immediately identified several categories of visitor: those who read every label with religious seriousness, those who nodded at every piece as though art were a meeting requiring approval, and those searching primarily for the drinks table with poorly concealed affection.

I didn’t yet know which category I belonged to.

Probably the artist pretending to be a visitor in order to avoid being the artist.

Two women stopped in front of my series.

I pretended to look at my phone without turning it on.

Very subtle.

“It’s gentle,” the first said.

“A little sad too.”

I stiffened.

Sad.

Possible.

Not forbidden.

“I don’t think so,” the other continued. “More like after someone has left. But not abandoned.”

I breathed.

Not abandoned.

I wanted to offer her a soft cookie in gratitude.

The man in the beige jacket arrived next.

He looked at the table for a long time.

“It’s very post-lockdown generation.”

Oh.

The old monster.

My stomach tightened.

The person beside him read the label.

“Maybe. But I think it’s more intimate.”

The man shrugged.

“Yes, well, it’s the era.”

A useful phrase.

You could place any work that refused to defend itself immediately inside it.

He had the right to see that.

I couldn’t enter every person’s gaze holding a red pen.

This time, my words were beneath my name.

He could project something else.

He couldn’t erase me completely.

I remained standing.

Slightly straighter.

Not much.

Enough.

My phone vibrated.

“I’m outside. Walking slowly for a responsible dramatic entrance.”

I looked toward the window.

Liora was there.

Dark jacket.

Hair tied back.

No crutch.

She looked through the glass, saw me, and smiled.

Then she entered.

The sound in the room changed.

Not because everyone noticed her.

Because I did.

She walked toward me more slowly than she had at the beginning.

Her body hadn’t lost its energy.

She held it differently.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

In the middle of a room full of people, we had to decide how two people who had kissed several times without receiving any relationship forms said hello.

The answer was: awkwardly.

She hesitated between hugging me, kissing me, nudging me with her shoulder, or giving me a military salute.

I did nothing useful.

Eventually, she placed two fingers against my wrist.

Briefly.

Discreetly.

Enough.

“You’re here.”

“Yes.”

“Actually here.”

I looked around the room.

“For now.”

“It counts.”

She wasn’t joking.

I lowered my eyes toward her ankle.

“And you?”

“Three.”

She smiled.

“See? I answer directly now.”

“Major progress.”

Her gaze moved behind me.

Toward the work.

The speed left her face.

She said nothing.

Rare.

Therefore important.

She moved toward the wall.

I remained slightly behind her.

It was difficult.

Watching her look.

A new category of discomfort.

She read my name, then the label.

Quiet places.

Inhabited spaces.

Traces of ordinary gestures.

Modest refuges.

What remains.

She moved from one image to the next.

In front of the window, she tilted her head slightly.

In front of the hallway, her face softened.

In front of the corner of the studio, she almost smiled, as though recognizing the lamp, the table, and something else without a precise name.

I watched her read the images.

An activity far too intimate for a public place.

Then she reached the last one.

The glass door.

The shoes.

The blanket.

The glass.

The light.

She remained motionless.

For a long time.

Long enough for my heart to rise into my throat.

She had understood that she was there without being there.

Not a portrait.

A trace.

The way the world had shifted after she passed through it.

Liora turned toward me.

Her eyes were bright.

Not dramatically.

Enough to make me immediately want to check the label.

“Is that my mess?” she asked softly.

“It isn’t a mess.”

“My shoes.”

“Shoes inspired by shoes.”

“My blanket?”

“It’s my blanket.”

“Moved by me.”

“Probably.”

She looked at the image again.

“There’s no one there.”

“No.”

“But you know.”

I didn’t answer.

She had found the sentence again.

Deeply irritating.

Extremely important.

“You know someone just came in too quickly,” she said.

“Maybe.”

“And that the room didn’t hate it.”

She was looking at the drawing.

Thankfully.

“No,” I said. “It didn’t hate it.”

Liora reread the label.

“This works.”

“What?”

“The text. It begins in the right place.”

I looked at my name, the images, the words.

“Yes.”

Her fingers searched for mine between us.

Briefly.

Long enough for me to feel their warmth.

Her parents arrived a little later.

Her father wore a dark jacket, held perfectly straight, obviously. Her mother wore a colorful scarf and possessed the quiet gaze of people able to cross a room without trying to control it.

“Good evening, Aurèl.”

“Good evening.”

Her mother kissed me on the cheek.

I hadn’t anticipated it.

I survived.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

Her father went directly to the series.

He read the label, then examined each image with greater seriousness than some clients who had possessed the power not to pay me.

In front of the last one, he noticed the shoes.

Of course.

His eyes lowered toward Liora’s ankle, then returned to me.

“It’s precise.”

Two words.

From him, possibly a complete embrace.

“Thank you.”

He reread the text.

“It’s easier to understand what you meant.”

I chose not to laugh, minimize, or hide.

“That was what I hoped.”

His wife looked at him.

“He was right to ask for the text to be changed.”

He nodded.

“Yes. You were right.”

Liora didn’t say anything.

I felt her presence anyway.

She was allowing me to receive it.

Without translating the approval for me.

Her father then asked a genuine question about technique.

About the lines, the gray values, and the way I removed certain details rather than adding them.

I answered badly at first.

Then better.

He listened without interrupting, which was almost more impressive than his compliment.

“So it’s very constructed, despite the calm appearance,” he concluded.

“Yes.”

“You can see that.”

Another simple sentence.

It counted.

His wife smiled.

“With him, ‘constructed’ and ‘precise’ are practically enthusiasm.”

“I know how to formulate a compliment,” he replied.

Liora murmured:

“You said ‘precise.’”

“Precise and constructed.”

“Oh, yes. That’s almost obscene.”

I smiled.

A little.

The evening continued.

I spoke to people.

Actually.

Not many.

Not well every time.

But I answered.

A woman asked whether the places were real. I explained that some began with the studio, while others came from memories or reconstructed places.

A man spoke to me about solitude.

I didn’t close myself off.

I said there could be solitude in them, but not necessarily as an absence. Sometimes as a space where traces became visible.

Perhaps he understood.

Perhaps he mentally noted: slightly complicated young man.

Both were acceptable.

Another visitor stopped in front of the final image.

“It looks like someone has just put down their things and is going to come back.”

I looked at the drawing.

“Yes.”

Simple.

Enough.

Some people passed quickly.

Others stood too close.

Someone mistook a window for a photograph.

Someone brought up lockdown again.

One woman remained in front of the hallway for a long time, then stepped backward to see it from farther away. She said nothing. Strangely, that silence reassured me more than a comment would have.

Gradually, the room became warmer and louder.

The glasses emptied.

The cookies did, in fact, grow soft.

Mathilde moved from one group to another wearing a professional smile that must have exhausted her cheeks.

I lost sight of Liora inside the room.

Not really.

I always knew where she was.

Beside the sculptures.

With her mother.

In front of my series with a girl I didn’t know.

She pointed at the label and said something.

I couldn’t hear her.

She wasn’t explaining for me.

She was saying what she had seen.

A distinction.

Again.

Around nine, I needed air.

Not escape.

A break.

Important.

I stepped outside into a small courtyard between two buildings. One high window, stacked crates, a potted plant, two stone steps.

The gallery noises passed through the closed door.

Muffled.

Glasses.

Voices.

Laughter.

Not entirely against me.

I sat on one of the steps.

The air was cool.

My body remembered it existed after two hours spent maintaining an approximate social posture.

The door opened.

Liora.

Obviously.

“Can I?”

“Yes.”

She descended the steps carefully.

I stood by reflex.

“I can handle two steps.”

I remained standing until she sat down.

“You can sit again now.”

“Thank you.”

Our shoulders did not touch.

Not yet.

“You okay?” she asked.

I considered it.

“Yes. Tired. Nervous. But yes.”

“A real yes?”

“A real yes.”

She smiled.

“You didn’t run away.”

“I technically left the room.”

“To breathe. That doesn’t count.”

“Thank you for that regulatory decision.”

Silence arrived.

Calm.

Not empty.

Liora looked at her shoes.

The real ones.

“It was strange seeing them.”

“The shoes?”

“The piece. The blanket. The light. It isn’t me, but it’s after me.”

I looked across the courtyard.

“Yes.”

“When did you draw it?”

“After the cold pack.”

She laughed softly.

“A great romantic moment.”

“The condensation was interesting.”

“Obviously.”

I raised one shoulder.

“And everything else too.”

She didn’t fill the silence.

I was grateful.

Through the door, someone laughed too loudly. A glass clinked.

The world continued.

“I like seeing your world here,” she said. “Even with the noise, I recognize your quiet.”

The sentence could have been too beautiful.

It wasn’t.

She said it like an observation.

“I wasn’t sure it could be recognized outside.”

“It can.”

Only that.

Dangerous confidence.

I breathed.

“I think I like it when you’re here.”

She immediately turned her head.

Fine.

The sentence was out.

I like it.

I ran a hand over my face.

“No. Wait.”

She waited.

I hated and loved that.

“I like it when you’re here,” I said. “And now, when you aren’t here, I notice.”

I kept my eyes on the plant.

“Not only as one less sound. Not only because the wall is quieter. I actually notice.”

My voice was low.

Not steady.

Acceptable.

“There.”

A sweeping emotional conclusion.

There.

Liora placed her hand over mine.

“I think I stopped pretending I only came over because of the cat a long time ago.”

I turned my head.

Her eyes were gentle.

Still bright.

Still her.

“Even when it was because of the cat,” she added.

“He’ll be unbearable if he finds out.”

“He already is.”

She moved her shoulder closer to mine.

“I notice you too. Even when you barely make any noise.”

The sentence entered softly.

It found room.

I turned my hand beneath hers and took her fingers.

At our scale.

“What are we?” she asked.

“You’re really asking that now?”

“Yes.”

“In a courtyard during my opening?”

“It’s good neutral territory. The crates aren’t judgmental.”

I smiled.

Then she became serious again.

“I’m not asking for a perfect label. I just don’t want to pretend it’s nothing because we don’t know how to do everything yet.”

She had slowed down all the way to this.

To a difficult question.

Without running ahead of the answer.

I tightened my fingers around hers.

“I don’t want to pretend it’s nothing.”

“Okay.”

“And I don’t know how to do everything yet.”

“Neither do I.”

“It shows less with you.”

“That’s because I speak faster.”

“Yes.”

Her gaze lowered toward my mouth.

I noticed, obviously.

I moved closer.

So did she.

That kiss wasn’t checking whether a door existed.

It opened it gently.

It remained awkward because we were sitting on uncomfortable steps beside a tired plant while thirty people drank wine next to my drawings.

But it was more certain.

Not spectacular.

Only enough to confirm what the sentences had left standing.

When we separated, Liora remained close.

“For a declaration, ‘I notice’ is extremely you.”

I closed my eyes.

“I know.”

“I like it.”

“Is ‘like’ permitted now?”

“For me, yes. For you, I’ll monitor it.”

She rested her forehead against my shoulder.

Inside, someone opened the door.

We moved apart slightly.

A man appeared holding a glass.

“Oh, sorry.”

He hesitated.

“Do you know where the bathroom is?”

A truly grand romantic scene.

“On the left, down the hallway,” I said.

“Thank you.”

He disappeared.

Liora burst out laughing.

“Perfect.”

“Very consistent with the general tone of my life.”

We remained outside a little longer.

Then we had to go back in.

Together.

Inside, the noise struck me less forcefully.

Dense.

Warm.

Imperfect.

Liora’s mother was speaking to an artist beside the photographs. Her father stood in front of my final image again, as though conducting one last inspection of the world’s precision.

Mathilde crossed the room carrying a stack of cups.

No one had stopped because we had spoken in a courtyard.

The opening had continued without us.

That was reassuring.

Liora walked beside me.

Not ahead.

Not behind.

Beside me.

Her shoulder brushed my arm.

I returned to the work.

A young man was reading the statement.

“Are you the artist?”

I still felt that movement inside me toward the exit.

Less strongly.

“Yes.”

“I really like this one,” he said, pointing at the last image. “It looks like something just happened, but we’ve arrived afterward.”

I looked at the image.

Then Liora.

She didn’t say anything.

She let me answer.

“Yes. That’s something like it.”

“It’s calm, but it isn’t still.”

I felt Liora smile.

“Thank you.”

He moved on to the next piece.

I remained there.

Present.

Still uncomfortable.

But present.

A little later, Mathilde stopped beside me.

“Still doing okay?”

I looked around the room.

“Mostly, yes.”

“A perfect opening answer.”

She followed my gaze toward the series.

“See? The text doesn’t close down the responses. People go elsewhere, but they begin from somewhere more accurate.”

I nodded.

Perhaps that was exactly what I had wanted without managing to say it.

Not to control the interpretation.

Only to prevent its direction from being decided too soon.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You already told me that.”

“I can stop.”

“No. It makes a change from artists who discover the existence of deadlines on installation day.”

She left before I found an answer.

The evening continued.

I didn’t always answer well.

I lost track of a question about my influences.

I said “um” too often.

Someone asked why no bodies appeared in the series.

I replied that they might already have passed through, or were simply outside the frame.

The answer seemed to satisfy them.

It satisfied me too.

I drank a glass of water believing it was apple juice.

A disappointing experience.

Sometimes Liora remained beside me.

Sometimes she was elsewhere.

She didn’t hold on to me.

She didn’t push me.

She talked, laughed, came back. Sometimes she looked at the images as though they still had something to tell her.

Each time she returned, the noise did not become quieter.

Only less against me.

Toward the end, the visitors began to leave.

Empty glasses accumulated on the table.

The other artists spoke to one another with the strange exhaustion of important evenings, that mixture of relief and an inability to immediately understand what had just happened.

My images remained on the wall.

They looked calmer than I felt.

Liora’s parents left before she did.

Her father shook my hand.

“Good exhibition, Aurèl.”

“Thank you.”

He paused.

“And a good text.”

Her mother kissed me on the cheek again.

This time, I almost anticipated it.

“Get some rest,” she said.

“Are you saying that to me or Liora?”

“Both of you.”

“I’m in perfect condition,” Liora protested.

Her mother looked at her.

“Four?”

“Three and a half.”

“Then not perfect condition.”

“You are all extremely irritating.”

“Precise,” her father corrected.

They left.

Liora turned toward me.

“Do you want to go home?”

I looked around the room.

My images would remain there after I left.

Without me being able to control who looked at them tomorrow.

Or how.

The thought still frightened me.

It no longer made me want to take them down.

“Not yet.”

“Okay.”

We stood in front of the series.

The gallery was nearly empty.

Mathilde was clearing glasses. A chair scraped against the floor. The street shone beyond the window.

Liora stood in front of the final image.

“Eugène should receive credit.”

“Absolutely not.”

“‘With the involuntary participation of a legally dubious cat.’”

“Too long for the label.”

“Shame.”

She slid her hand into mine.

Naturally.

As though the gesture had found its place.

I looked at our fingers.

Then the wall.

Then the images.

I thought about the beginning of all this, though life never properly announces its beginnings.

A sound behind a wall.

A cat on a drawing tablet.

A girl’s voice.

Footsteps moving too quickly.

A balcony.

A hallway.

A father standing in a doorway with Eugène in his arms.

Back then, my world had seemed small because I had built it to fit me.

I believed making it larger would mean losing it.

Tonight, my images hung on a public wall.

People sometimes read them incorrectly.

Sometimes accurately.

Liora was holding my hand in a room that wasn’t my studio.

Her laughter existed beside my silence.

And nothing had collapsed.

The noise had not disappeared.

It was in the room, the street, the glasses being cleared away, Liora’s footsteps beside me, my own still deeply unprofessional heart.

It was no longer only something that entered my home without asking.

It had a face.

A rhythm.

A choice.

Liora rested her head against my shoulder.

“So?”

“So what?”

“Is it over?”

I looked at the images.

Then her.

“No.”

She smiled.

“Good answer.”

We left the gallery a little later.

Out in the cool street, she walked at my pace for several yards.

Then I slowed to hers.

Neither of us commented.

The canal reflected the city lights.

Someone laughed farther away.

Liora slipped her hand into mine.

I kept it.

We walked without speaking.

That silence asked for nothing.

It didn’t try to protect the evening, define what we were, or transform the opening into a perfect victory.

It simply moved forward with us.

And for the first time in a long while, I didn’t think of my world changing size as a threat.

It was growing.

Simply.

With noise.

With quiet.

With someone beside me.