Distressed Assets #8
before he could do it, but another person inside of her, that Mulberry walk-up—it felt like a violation. Even the thought,
the thought, of another’s hands, more touch that isn’t his, makes her flinch, makes her tears come faster, because all she wants—all she fucking wants—is the shelter of him. She’ll endure his anger—she wants his anger, all his anger—for what she has done; she wants him to
break her for it, to hurt her—to hurt her with the force of how much he cares—and then, to hear her, to hear this apology
that’s agony inside of her, this regret, this incredible regret building and building past any ache, because what she had,
what they had, what she tried to exorcise with the heat of a stranger, what she tore out of herself like stitches, was something she
could shape her life around: these bright mornings and late nights, phone calls and texts across time zones, dinners and time
apart and time together, and coming back to the same bed, and how are you and I missed you and I can’t wait to see you and coffee in that home—home—with his arms around her, and What do you think of this and No, I disagree with that, and his grin against her skin and—
I didn’t see myself marrying her.
She cries out. Her fingers falter—insufficient, in this empty room, reaching and reaching, so far away from him.
It’s unbreathable: As she touches herself, trying to chase away a want in her body—because it is not a want that will burn
away, and it is not a want that is physical, that will leave her, that she can chase in others’ bodies. It is the heart lurch
in the street, and the hope that he’d call, the way her heart fucking stopped, waiting for the car in the rain after the gala.
Left hand, bare ring finger.
And it is unbearable: how much she wanted him to come after her, how much she wanted it to have been him in the late sun of the street today, that almost phone call in the din of the bar; how intensely she’d been hoping he’d do this—inexplicable, improbable, stupid—and how undeserving she is of that, but still—but still, how much she wants it, how much she wants him, through this atrocious acceptance of guilt, this burden of responsibility,
how all she wants—all she wants—is him, and it is not past tense, and it is not a thing that is leaving her, it is a thing that is only growing further,
and further, still—
The dull snap of pleasure arrives thin and hard, with the ache of her wrist, scramble of her feet against the wood, tears
hot against her face, silk rucked around her hips, and it leaves her sick, this nausea welling through her, and she feels
ruined, and she feels empty, and she has found nothing, in her own body.
The old streetlights buzz outside, as she cries, as she finally stops running.
All she wants is him, and she is not ready to let him go.
It is gray, the next morning.
Early, James is already in the apartment kitchen, making coffee.
“Hey,” he greets, glancing at her when she walks in. He’s got an old sweatshirt on, faded red, with the hood up. As he pushes
down on the French press, he yawns. “Want some coffee?”
“Sure, thanks.” She nods, a faintly grateful smile. He pours a mug, slides it over to her. The hot ceramic is comforting against
her palms.
“How’d you sleep?” he asks.
“Fine, yeah.” The refrigerator lets out a whoosh of chilled air as James gets out groceries: eggs, tomatoes, fruit, milk.
“You?”
“Pretty good,” he replies, trying to catch another yawn. He unscrews orange juice, and rips apart bread, picked up from the
boulangerie yesterday. The stove clicks as he turns it on, flicker of flame. “You feeling okay, after last night?”
She’d lingered in bed, after she’d woken up. For a half hour or so, she stared out the open window as the sky grew lighter,
a color like soft steel. Exploring the wash of exhaustion; the sense of an ache, floating throughout her body, like after
having exercised too hard, stretched too far—physically hit rock bottom.
But in that fragility, something frail—frail like surrender.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” she says, and it’s—possible. “How’s Ami?”
James gives her a sheepish grin. “Hungover,” he admits, cracking eggs into a saucepan. “She’s still sleeping. What do you
want for breakfast? I can make oatmeal, we’ve got fruit—”
Lili waves a hand. She’s already dressed for the day: a skirt, an oversized light sweater, shoes. “Don’t worry about me, I’m
headed out,” she says. “Going for a walk.”
He frowns, looking up from the stove—the sizzle of eggs, starting to scramble—and glances outside the open windows. “It’s
supposed to rain today.”
Lili shrugs, draining the rest of her coffee. “Not much, I’ll be fine.”
“We’re going to head to the Musée Picasso, maybe sit in a café for a bit, check out a few bookstores. There’re actually some
vegan places around here, I looked them up—”
“Don’t worry, really, it’s fine,” Lili says, grabbing her tote off the couch.
“Lili, come on—”
Quick, she wraps her arms around his waist, hugging him tightly.
“Really, Jamie,” she whispers against his sweatshirt. “I’m fine—I just need to be alone for a bit. I’ll come back in a few
hours, promise.”
After a moment, his body—surprised—relaxes. His arms settle around her shoulders, holding her closer. “Just text us, okay?”
he murmurs. “Whenever you want. I understand wanting to be alone, I really do. But sometimes it’s good to be alone with other
people, yeah?”
Lili holds him tighter, before she lets him go.
It’s quiet in the streets, colder than yesterday. Hushed by a soft hangover, Lili walks across the river. Under gray skies,
the city feels calmer, more sedate: a bit tired, a bit more like a home to people. There are light coats, upturned collars,
the sheen of rain on the pavement. She twists her hair into a loose bun at the nape of her neck.
Through the narrow streets of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the Latin Quarter, she wanders.
In the rain, people are sparse. Medieval ruins, the abbot mansion of the Musée de Cluny, alongside cluttered used textbook stores, the fluorescence of halal counter serve, convenience crêpe stands, empty tourist shops bursting with trinkets.
Public transit buses, dirty white and turquoise, drive past, skimming through rainwater in the gutters.
Down residential rues, she passes closed galleries, high-end boulangeries, street railings with well-kept bicycles. Behind the Cluny, the lush
trees on its grounds rush with rain: the Sorbonne, empty from students. She’d never asked him, she realizes: where he’d gone
to school, in Paris. When he was her age, in this city.
Amid on-and-off drizzles of rain, she finds a café.
She takes a table outside, under the dark green awning. Wicker chairs, with cream-and-green checkerboard patterns, waiting
empty. The wane and wax of showers persists, as she orders coffee. The clean, neat tables have ashtrays, upturned glasses
resting on napkins, little folded menus; tiny cubes of sugar, and she fiddles with the edge of one, as she watches the irregular
pedestrian traffic.
Broken, she feels broken—but temporarily quieter, calmer, just like these streets she’s watching.
She flips open her journal. She finds a blank page.
She doesn’t want to write. Instead, resting her chin in her hand, she scratches sharp, stilted swoops of her pen, lighter
scrapes into shading. Just small things, inconsequential drawings—nothing like what Amina’s capable of—but still soothing.
“Merci,” she murmurs, when the waiter leaves her coffee.
It’s burnt tasting, but acidic and grounding. It pushes back on her brewing headache. As she drinks, she glances up from her
page, looks over the café.
Several tables over, a man sits down.
It’s an almost empty establishment, with a few other diners inside. Gray light, August rain.
“Un café allongé, s’il vous pla?t,” she overhears him request.
The waiter leaves, and the man shakes out his newspaper, a copy of Le Monde.
Lili watches him, continuing to glance up from her loose sketching. The fold of his newspaper, turn of the page; his nod of
thanks, when the waiter deposits his coffee. He’s maybe fifteen or twenty years older than her: well-dressed but relaxed,
a Sunday morning. Brown hair, a thin coat against the rain—glasses pushed up into his hair. Handsome, blandly familiar in
the way that most older, good-looking men are.
“Salut!”
A woman breezes in from the street, greeting him with a big smile—and his own smile immediately grows, as she sits down beside
him, her gasp of a breathless laugh as she launches into a story, his gaze tinged with affection, a tease of a smirk, as he
listens to her, the flurry of her arriving. The waiter starts to approach, but the man knows her order—gestures at his own
coffee, silently—and she continues speaking, unaware, unwinding her red scarf.
“T’y crois toi?” the woman exclaims. Lili just catches it, under the light traffic, the hiss of the espresso machine inside the café. “Incroyable, non?”
His smile becomes conspiratorial, sly and joking, as he makes some dry remark. The woman rolls her eyes, slapping his forearm.
She leans forward, elbows on the tiny table, to steal a sip from his coffee. Her body is instantly oriented around him; comfort,
presence.
She’s beautiful, the woman. Slim, sleek—light sweater, gorgeous dark hair loose, and the man watches her, happy—clear even
through his teasing smile—to look at her.
His arm rests on the back of her chair; his hand brushes against her back, fingers running a soft, easy pattern, as the woman
discusses some plans, train schedules, a dinner, a book she picked up, something to do with work, small pieces of the week
gone and the week ahead, conversation a bit too fast and colloquial for Lili to fully comprehend; but understandable, the
shape of questions from him, remarks and thoughts, the way he listens to her, nods, like he’s interested in what she’s saying,
but also in how she says it. The quiet intimacy of two people who know each other well, who’ve gone through one week together,
and will go through another one.