Chapter Seventeen.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

↠ Etienne

"And I'd choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I'd find you and I'd choose you."

―Kiersten White, The Chaos of Stars

THE clock was ticking and we all had the striking sensation that we were not going to be able to beat it.

I didn't know it yet, but New Year's Eve would be the very last time I would have the tranquillity of feeling young and relatively untroubled. There was some big party that we had all been invited to, hosted by one of the boys in our class who I'd once done cocaine with and who I knew would commonly solicit prostitutes in the Up & Leave Area.

The five of us had hurled our way into James' car in a hurry, all the while he wildly objected because the last time we had used his vehicle as a means of transportation for our drunken escapades the car's floor had ended up covered with two separate sets of vomit and a rancid odour that took two weeks to wash away.

River was at the wheel. Always sober. Always the designated driver. James was in the passenger seat, with his upper body turned towards the backseat because he was engaging in a very animated and unintentionally comical argument with Ivy. Those two had been the reason why we were running late. A prank involved a dead bird that Maeve's cat Mavis had killed, but I had not been around to witness the prank's execution. All I was able to see upon my arrival was a very angry Ivy who had a lot of complaints regarding the bird and her toiletries.

"I swear to God, James, you're the biggest imbecile I've ever met," Ivy exclaimed, smoothing down her frizzy shoulder-length hair with a sour expression that truly displayed her intent to commit murder.

James smiled. It was a sarcastic grin that fit perfectly on his face. "That's literally the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"One of these days I'm going to buy a rat just to stick it down your pants while you're asleep."

"That's animal abuse," I intervened. "And of the worst kind."

"Jokes on you. I sleep naked."

"Easier for me to shove it up your—"

"We're not gonna make it," said River, his fingers anxiously tapping on the steering wheel as he waited for the traffic light to turn green. "Sam's house is like thirty minutes away, We're not gonna make it."

An argument followed in which we considered what our following course of action could be. The problem was that all of us, except for River, were some degree or another of intoxicated. The liquor was heavy on our bloodstream, our faces flushed, our minds unsteady. River wanted to turn around and return to Cassie's apartment. James' plan to arrive on time defied the laws of physics. Cassie was sitting in between Ivy and me, lost in a little world of her own. From the complacent expression on her face and the way her fingers drummed lightly against her leg to a tune separate from the one playing on the radio, I took it that she was happy.

Cassie would hyper-fixate on her interests, be it films or novels or a particular public figure she found intriguing, which is the reason why she would sometimes be found inside her head rather than in the moment. I believed that to be the case right now, and found it oddly comforting that her thoughts were wandering down more picturesque roads and not on this bizarre reality of ours.

River had slowed down, resigned to the fact that we would certainly not be making it to our desired destination. The radio host announced that there were five minutes to go before the countdown began. The town materialised before my eyes as a beautiful composition, stained by the pretty raindrops that ran their course down the car's window.

It seemed to me that the town was moving in a way it didn't usually do, and I had the feeling that everyone except for maybe Maeve Olsen was awake at that moment. But not only awake, but so incredibly alive, as if we had all come together in agreement that we mustn't just exist, but live. If only for the night.

The rain picked up on its momentum, crashing heavily against all it came across. "Stop right here," I said suddenly, and River immediately followed my command under the assumption that it was an emergency.

"Five minutes to go. We're going to have to celebrate it here."

James took a good look at the surroundings. "Here?"

The street we had stopped in was not the most lively place to be considering what the occasion called for. Ideally, we would've been at the heart of the town, near the pubs and the commotion. But we were in a residential area, surrounded by families in their homes and a mass of people that had gathered at an Italian eatery on the corner of the street. It was not bad. I could hear the music coming from inside some of the homes and the loud laughs of the Italians.

"Grab the bottles. Let's go."

We all stepped out and got drenched in a matter of seconds. River turned the radio all the way up so that we were in perfect sync with the unrelated lives of the people around us. James brought out the champagne. In theory, this night should've been perfect, but I felt the weight of the past and the uncertainty of the future colliding inside me. I had welcomed this last year alone with Cassie while she was still an active user. The one before that, I'd had drunken unprotected sex on someone's bathroom with someone's daughter and I spent the next three months feeling nauseous. Technically, this was the happiest New Year's of my life.

And yet I worried. I worried so much that I sometimes wondered whether I had the type of anxiety that needed medicating. I worried that this little story we were putting together was too good to be true. That everything would inevitably change that summer. That everything about us was painfully temporary. I worried that I had lost my best friend because I had been stupid enough to fall in love with her.

The fireworks went off and I looked at Cassie as James lifted her from the ground. I wanted nothing more in the world than to kiss her. The feeling expanded over my chest the same way it'd done about ten years earlier. Then, I walked a section of the rooftop, now I remained frozen on the side of the street, letting the raindrops wash away the fallen tears that had escaped from my eyes. I didn't know what feeling had called for them exactly. It could've been happiness or it could've been despair. Both were plausible options. We'd never been so infinite yet so bounded by the limitations of here and now.

We returned to Millfield Road not long after. We had all been staying at Cassie's apartment for about a week or so, and the entire time I'd been an anxious mess because I feared my mother's commotion would spill into our lives. I was always looking for the screaming, for the sound of clamour, for the loud thuds that would reveal to my friends that Cassie was not my only secret. But there was always music and chatter and a multitude of other noises to drown out any sound coming from outside, and so, for a couple of hours at a time, I got to pretend to be an average teenage boy.

This time was no exception. We all sat around and talked and laughed until we felt it was time to go to bed. And, like clockwork, Cassie locked herself in her own bedroom while James and Ivy went for the room that had once belonged to Sophie. River and I stayed in the living room, as it had been disclosed in whatever agreement had been made at some previous point in time. And like clockwork again, I waited.

I waited for my sounds. They were my cue to exist, apparently. This time it wasn't the sounds of my mother I was searching for. Instead, I searched in the stillness. I made sure that there was no more bickering coming from Sophie's former bedroom. It was easy to tell when James was asleep because he snored a lot. Ivy presented a more difficult case because there was nothing that would positively indicate whether she had fallen asleep or not. I was always trying my luck with her. With River, I had only to listen to the rhythm of his breathing and follow the stiffness of his silhouette on the couch next to where I lay.

Once each set of conditions was met, I masterfully sneaked my way up from the couch, through the living room and into Cassie's bedroom. My moves were slower and more premeditated than needed. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice reminded me that I could simply walk into her room and the world around us would continue to turn.

Except that was not the case on this occasion, because my fingers had only just finished wrapping around her doorknob when River's voice travelled through the silence in a way that made it feel eerily static. A whisper coming from the darkness, a voice that shouldn't have been there. "You do know that we know, right?"

What a bizarre way to word it. But then again, I always made it difficult for River and James to figure me out. I sometimes wondered why they still liked me and then worried that someday they wouldn't.

"About you two, I mean," River clarified. "We're not stupid."

My fingers wrapped around the brass of the doorknob and squeezed it tightly, feeling its coldness dig into my skin a little unpleasantly. "Are you mad I didn't say anything?"

He just chuckled. "Your secrets are yours to keep, Etienne. What you two have is clearly complicated. Handle it however you see fit."

He had explicitly told me he did not mind the secrecy, and yet I was sure I would be worrying about being a bad friend at some later point in the near future.

Cassie was sprawled in bed wearing only a white shirt of mine and her underwear. She was awake, staring in the direction of the window, unperturbed by my entrance. Sometimes I really wished I could take a look inside her brain. It was nearly impossible to figure out what was happening there at any given point in time. It could be wonderful or it could be disastrous, and the environment she was in rarely ever played a part in that.

She turned her head slowly when she looked at me. Her eyes took me in with two prevailing sentiments. First the knowledge that she knew everything that needed to be known. And second, was that curiosity that always had her thinking about whether there could be more. Another angle, different lighting, a change in background. It was a little-known fact that Cassie was an artist. She was an incredible painter. Could breathe life into any singular drawing. But addiction had turned her into a shell of herself, and her talents went to waste on the shelf of things that made her a person.

She had painted me numerous times. I'd been her favourite muse once. And so, when she saw me, I knew she could truly see all of the lines that brought me together.

"You're not okay." It was an observation. Certainly not a question. Her tone had been flat when she'd said it and that gave me the impression that this was something she'd turned over and over inside her head until the thought had lost all edges and was smooth and undeniable.

I tried to feign confusion as I climbed into her bed. "Yes, I am."

Her features were soft as she looked at me through those thick eyelashes of hers. As soft as they could be. "I know you better than I know myself. Tell me what's wrong."

I lay next to her and ran my hand over her cheek. I knew there was no point in denying something she had already concluded. If I did, she would just keep on turning it over in her head until she went insane. "I'm just nervous about the future," I admitted. It was true but it was also vague.

I was looking at her as she looked up towards the ceiling. She didn't have an immediate reaction to my confession. Instead, she thought it over. "Hm."

"Are you not?" My hand was still caressing her cheek. The question had escaped me with palpable hesitance. I did not want to transfer my worries to her.

Thankfully, she did not seem disturbed by the train of thought that had completely run me over. "I never really thought I'd live this long. I guess it doesn't really matter what happens next, really, it's all a surprise to me," she responded nonchalantly, her hand coming to rest over mine.

It stung to hear her say that, but at the same time, there was a slight relief that she was not succumbing to all of the fears that were gripping me by the throat.

The way the moonlight was creeping in through the window, we were only half of ourselves. I was on my stomach, she was on her back, my right hand had intertwined with her left one and was mindlessly fiddling around with her fingers. For that one moment, we were a story told in its entirety. We were a finished painting. We were one singular object that did not need to exist outside of this instance.

"I feel like everything's slipping from my hands a little, ma chérie," I confessed blankly. My eyes were set on a section of the wall until she turned over to face me and I had no option but to drown in the warmth of her brown eyes.

"Just let it happen, Etienne." She said it as if her words had been an exhale of breath that required no energy and no second thought. "I know it's cliche to say that you should live every moment like it's your last and whatnot, but I've learnt that if you really want to feel free, to feel liberated, you just have to let go. The collapse is not going to feel so much like an ending as it will a beginning. Then you will enjoy life a little more. You will enjoy the moment and take it for what it is."

She sat up slowly as if I were the vulnerable one out of the two and needed to be treated delicately. Her hips slid back so that her back was pressed against the headboard. Her fingers found their way to my hair, where they moved in an almost mindless motion, tracing the shape of a wave with utmost delicacy. She looked down at me and I wanted to hide from the truth that shone so distinctly in her eyes.

"Stop being so afraid to crumble. Just enjoy the moment. Let whatever is coming come unperceived. Let it take us by surprise. Let's make the most of it until the very last second. We're going to crumble in a really bad way, you and I. You know it, don't you? We fucked up. We fucked up really bad. Hell, we possibly ruined the rest of our lives. So, really, all we have is right now. These are the moments that are going to break us. I say we make it worth it. I say we don't let all of this be in vain."

Cassie was not a fool. And what a great disservice it was to sometimes think of her as naive. Someone so broken could never be blindsided by hope. Every crack in her story came with a lesson learnt. By the time we'd made it to this point in our story, we both knew that we were not going to make it. We could feel it in our bones. It would be entirely too generous of the universe to promise us something satisfying and eternal. And we knew the universe did not thrive off of generosity. We would have to suffer to obtain what we truly wanted. It would not come to us easily. We knew that.

My right hand caressed her leg, which felt impossibly smooth under my fingertips. I did not dare to look her in the eye when I said, "I'm the worst thing that could've happened to you."

"Yes." I felt her smiling when she said that. She tugged my hair slightly so that I would raise my head and get our gazes to meet, and when I did I found nothing but pure adoration in her eyes. "And also the best thing that could've happened to me."

I felt that violent urge to cry that did not come often but that had haunted me ever since David's passing. It was like every pent-up emotion was racing to be released at once, knocking me over my feet and leaving me without an ounce of grace. But I maintained my composure this time, at least as much as I could. I felt my eyes get teary but nothing was released. I squeezed her leg and kissed her knee. "Whatever happens, just know that I'm never going to love anyone the way that I love you. It doesn't matter how many years go by, or where I am in life, it's always going to be you."

Her smile was melancholic, resigned. It had the potential to completely shatter me, but her eyes continued to shine with the most selfless love that mankind had ever witnessed. Her words were a melody that I would carry with me always. A song that I would sing to myself in the darkness of the night for years to come. "If the day ever comes where we never speak to each other again, I want you to know that I'm eternally glad I met you. Even if I'm an even bigger mess by the time you leave, don't ever carry the guilt of thinking you ruined me. That could not be further from the truth. You made me, Etienne. The memories we've made will live in me forever. I will live because of them, not in spite of them. You are the love of my life."

It hurt. It hurt that she loved me more than she loved herself. If I could, I would have taken all of the love she had for me and given it to her, even if that meant she never got to love me and our story never had a starting point. I sat up and held her face in my hands. A part of me wanted to shake her, to force some sense into her, but instead, I remained gentle as I spoke those words that came out as a mere suggestion but were in fact a plea. "You are the love of your life, Cass. And I really hope in the future you find the courage to choose yourself."

She had never chosen herself a day in her life. I could tell she was scared to start. I could tell that she wanted to exist for other people, mainly for me, and never for herself. It was easier that way.

"No one could've prepared you for what you went through," I said to her, my voice barely a whisper that brought a layer of pain to coat those infinitely expressive orbs. "And yet you're still here, lovely as ever."

She threw her head back as her lips curved with a chuckle that never came. "I am the furthest thing from lovely."

"You are the loveliest human being to ever walk this godforsaken world." Our faces were so close I couldn't help but close the distance between us for a brief instant and place a small but sweet peck on her lips. "You and me, yeah?"

She smiled. "You and me. Even if we go on to get married and have kids with other people."

I could see it. A forty-something-year-old Etienne in an unexceptional marriage and living an unexceptional life. Married to a conventionally good-looking woman who was good enough in nearly every imaginable aspect. Not great, not outstanding, just good enough. We'd have two teenage kids who would harbour a slight resentment towards me because I was never the father everyone had hoped I would be. And then I would run into Cassie one day, someday. Possibly at a place I least expected, like a supermarket or my child's recital, and we would begin again as if we were a never-ending story.

Hi. How are you? I still love you after all this time. I will leave my wife to be with you. I will become even more of an absent father. I will bring down every wall of this home I spent years building just to let you in.

I knew it would be wrong and immoral for this to happen. But at the same time, it felt as if it was only right. In my heart at least. And I was already a flawed man, so the least I could do was let my mistakes bring me pleasure.

"All the way to our deathbeds. You and me," I whispered.

You and me. You and me. I felt it running through my veins. I felt it beating inside my chest. You and me. My life, my story was nothing but you and me playing on an endless loop in the back of my head, behind my eyes, in my fingertips. I was put into this world so that it could be you and me.