XXV

<< What are you talking about? Why are you acting like this? Since you arrived...>> she laid her hand on his shoulder, but he retracted, like he took the shock and that gesture stopped the lady's speech, which was speechless.

<< We're not meant to be together. >> He let it slip.

<< Adrien... >>

<< We're both gonna get hurt. I'll risck my life and not just me, you'll lose more and then I don't deserve you. >> He turned quickly towards her, didn't know he was close enough to lose her balance, but he still managed to grab her arm so she wouldn't back off.

They looked into each other's eyes, confused and scary ones of her were hard to look, she would want to light up with joy, always.

For the princess, the hard ones of him were even worse. He was saying goodbye to her.

<< What happened in the city today? >> She asked for serious.

She knew there was something much worse going on. Just from watching him. He couldn't hide anything from her.

<< Amelie is getting worse and what I do is not good enough. It's never enough!>> He struck away from Antoinette and, in the impetus of despair, he punched the trunk.

<< It's the little girl you told me about, isn't it? >> She tried to get closer.

<< Yes. I have to do more and... >> He had his eyes low as he grilled his teeth.

<< You can't do that if I'm here, you're more at risk, all of you. Then you're busy on watch duty.>> she whisper, understanding the situation.

<< Yeah. >> He said resigned.

He was grateful that she could understand, he couldn't tell her clearly.

<< Is that why you got drunk before you came back? When you treat that guy like that? You were a real... asshole. >>

He smiled and a little fun, but always with his head down and his fist still standing in the tree.

<< What words are those, princess? >>

<< Answer me. >>

<< David has a bad influence on you. >> He used a more arrogant tone.

<< Answer me! >> She screamed out a little.

Adrien made stone in front of all that determination.

<< Yes. No, I was just jealous and I didn't feel to have the right to be it. It's frustrating.>> he said seriously.

<< Why aren't you entitled to this? >>

<< You're really asking me that? >> He looked at her, with his eyebrow up and the usual smile that only raised one corner of his mouth. A smile of mockery using arrogance as a shield. It took off the trunk.

<< Yes. >>

<< You shouldn't. I'm telling you, I'm gonna get you back to the palace before the week ends, that I'm about to leave you in the hands of another man, who was already promised, so you were never mine, not even once, and never will be. How can you ask me why I don't feel jealous? >> he crossed his arms to the chest.

<< There's more, isn't there? >> The voice was starting to tremble. She was afraid that "they were found," it was more than that.

But how could she read it in?

He looked back, guilty. It was that gesture that filled with tears in her eyes and with distress her heart.

<< Tell me! >> She screamed, the voice even more forcefully secure.

<< When I got to the room they were there.>> It was a whisper. He was terribly ashamed.

Then he decided, if he was going to hurt her anyway, he would do it right. She would have hated him. She would have gone with joy from that clearing, she would not waited one more moment in his company and have felt happiness to let herself go into the arms of a good person like Prince Luka. She'd get married, convinced she couldn't have better.

<< They were both naked on my bed and I could blame alcohol, that's true, and maybe you could forgive me, but I didn't drink enough to reason with that. >> He keeped his head down.

<< Both... of... them? >> She was unbelievable.

Adrien tied the punchs. Her voice was so sad. It could feel the deception, the realization of a broken dream, the treason. Disillusioned. He felt only a disgraceful monster.

He should have made one last effort.

He looked up at her and smiled again with that hateful smile.

He was hating himself, seeing her like this, just because of him.

<< Are you interested in how to do a threesome, princess? >>

He wasn't very surprised to get a slap that made him bring his head tilted to the side again. He looked at her with the tail of his eye.

<< You're... you're disgusting. >>

The splinters of a broken voice from the crying were cut through his heart.

He saw her run away and his instincts made him stretch his hand but he stuck to let her go. He squeezed his fist.

She was back to talk to him formally again.

<< I'm begging you to let me go. You need to get out of my head, out of my life.>> He whisper by crawling with my back on the log.

They felt bound to each other, tight by steel chains that they didn't think they could hurt at first. The problem was, when they were together, the chains didn't hold so much, they were fine, but as they were pulling away the bite, it would increase, so it looked like a buoy ready to eat them.

She felt breathless, the grip to the chest was such, because of the distance of her eyes that she couldn't steal oxygen, for not breathing. He got lost, he got lost in the pages of his pain, he closed himself and he wouldn't let her get to it either. So what was she supposed to do? He kept everything inside and let it out by drinking and having sex. What could she do? Adrien lived like this for years, how could she change him? How could she hope he'd changed for her?

She finally went down with him.

Adrien would have wanted to start all over again. Not kidnaping her, not courting her on that damned fountain, not seeing her in the colorful flowers and made them beautiful only by her presence. No more Friday morning.

Just fucking and wet sheets.

But he closed his eyes and saw her face marking their end with that unhappy expression and he felt like choking.

He remembered an old story told by a Chinese merchant, who came to Paris to show his clothes, remembered the red one that attracked him, a beautiful red spot. So the old man told him that red was the same red as the thread of fate. Obviously, he asked for more and was enchanted by that story.

The red wire of fate has been leaning, since birth, two people destined to be together, "the soul mates" he called them. But that wire instead of being tied to the pinky of the left hand, now he felt it shaken around his neck, like she was squeezing it to remind him that there is, that she exists, that she is his soul mate and that she was leaving.

He felt like the times he tried that new drug, many of them had spoken about it, including experts and neurologists and called it a miracle substance. That shit got him paranoid. Just like now.

It was a purgatory. His whole life was an eternal, silly purgatory.

He would never be happy, but he couldn't afford to be sad and wondered if that was the real sadness. His curse. At least once in hell you could have told you dead, maybe even the heart would not have hurt anymore, the soul wouldn't have paid it back. He was forced to live between heaven and hell, burn hoping to be in her arms, but drowning in her tears. Time passed by like this and lost all sense.

And could she take him away? Could she take him to heaven again? Like an angel, like his angelic woman.

Antoinette knew that in his heart there were gates, she knew she should have been ready for such an offense as treason, she should not be surprised, too, he warned her all those past nights spent talking about them. How many times did he tell her his heart was cold and hoping for her to warm it up? That he felt like when it snowed in Paris and she, silly, said that Paris under the snow is a show for a few people.

She wondered why drinking so much was helping him. How could something so vile let love pass? Would she forget him by drinking? What about the pain? Was that passing, too?

Love...

She'd always seen it as the antidote against the pain poison. What if it was the other way around this time?

If she could grow hate and grudge against him, could she overcome love? The pain would become antidote.

But she would never get over it.

Her heart was in pieces by now. Glass. It respond to all the lies and get them into the head, enlighten it from the clouds of addiction.

They couldn't be together, they were too different, and both had priorities above them. She felt like she always comes to the finals, but she never wins.

Would they regret their choices?

Together it was heaven, separated it was hell. She should have learned to live in a middle way, without giving suspicion to the fact that the flames of hell knew them now.