Chapter 10 #3
He nodded. It released a knot between her shoulders, and she took it upon herself to sink deeper into the chair.
Balac and al-Anezi, who had been quietly conversing, turned to survey them. Al-Anezi watched Dorotèa with that kindness in his deep, dark eyes that Oste always sang praises about, but it was Balac who proved to be the louder of the two, and he spoke.
“Someone will be by each hour, Mademoiselle Galoup.”
“Very good. Thank you.”
The two men stepped out and left the door open.
Despite the room being just as loud from all the hallway noise that leaked through, Dorotèa felt peace and privacy for the first time since arriving.
Her exhale spilled from her in a shaky rattle, and she about collapsed onto his chest from her belabored slouch.
“Do be careful, Mademoiselle,” Oste uttered in a scratchy voice. “You’re giving off the impression that you’re worried about me.”
Dorotèa squeezed his hand and scoffed. “You wretched little man. I’ll have etched onto your tomb, ‘here lies Docteur Oste Lézin, who was hilarious’. I will. I swear it.”
“I am not little.”
“No,” she groaned, “you’re not.”
Dorotèa wondered how long she’d have him like this.
Even though he was using his voice more than earlier, she wasn’t blind to the fatigue finding a home in his eyes and making every blink and movement appear heavy.
He’d doze off soon, she was sure, and figured he’d be better for it; his condition couldn’t be comfortable with or without the treatments they’d given.
“Your family needs to know about this,” Dorotèa started up again. “Eflamm and Jeanne, too.”
“I do not wish them to worry. They’re all worriers.”
And you’re not? “I understand, Oste, but tomorrow is a Sunday, and they’ll all notice that you aren’t at Saint-Sauveur. They’ll certainly worry then.”
Oste angled his head to face the ceiling again. “I’d forgotten.”
“May I inform them?” Dorotèa asked, and gave his hand a little shake for good measure. She needed to get this out of him while he was awake. “With a request for them not to come if you wish, but may I do so?”
He sighed, but had to draw in a couple rapid breaths to make up for his muted displeasure. “As you wish. But tell them I— I prefer no visitors on account of the bad airs passing by, and that I will have word sent if I am in dire straits.”
Dorotèa frowned. She felt certain this was dire straits, but compared to the pieces she was gathering from the evening that left him like this, she knew how easily he could claim to have endured worse. And he’d be right.
“I will see to it,” she nodded. “But if you do decide to waste and die, you must give at least an hour’s notice; it should take that long for them to arrive here.”
“I’m the funny one?” he mused tiredly, with a smile on his face. She’d not noticed the dimples beneath his stubble, and she found them unexpectedly charming. Oste’s eyes had drifted closed again, so she felt comfortable staring and inspecting him so closely.
“I could call you that and more. Some of my proclamations are far from fit for a lady’s mouth, and about half of those are additionally rude, on account of how put out I am about all this.
However, I’m certain you have already divined into my mind or are clever enough to make an educated guess about exactly why that is, so I’ll not say a thing.
What’s done is done. All I care about now is seeing you back on your feet. ”
Oste drew in a deep breath, then said something wholly unexpected. “I’m sorry, Dorotèa.”
“Don’t apologize. Please don’t.”
“It takes me a long time to grasp things,” he uttered, “so yes, I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I could be.”
“For what?”
“Putain, are you going to make me pull out a list?”
“If you please.” His voice trailed off in a whisper. She knew sleep was taking him. “It’ll be like counting sheep.”
“Sadist,” she protested without mirth. Dorotèa crossed her legs and sat back in the chair, where she allowed herself to exude a most dramatic sigh.
“Hmm. I’m sorry for coming into this deciding to do things my way, and sorry also that I think so highly of my ideas, which makes it difficult for me to stop. ”
“You don’t say?”
“Let’s see… I suppose I’m also sorry for implementing most everything by being loud and irritating, and also being hard to silence. My brothers have likened me to a tapeworm before. They say, if I may quote, that I ought to ‘give some things a rest’.”
Oste snorted quietly. “You’re pretty for a worm, Dorotèa.”
“Dear Lord!” she guffawed. “I’m currently sorry that I happen to like you, because I think I’d be well within my rights to smack you for that one, Docteur, sick or not.
Alright, yes, I’m sorry for it, because I think it makes me more irritating, because I happen to care more, and because I care more, I—yes. ”
He quirked a crooked smile at that.
Dorotèa set her chin on her folded hands and continued. “And… I’m sorry that you’re here now, because I really think we were getting somewhere, and nobody likes being laid up.”
“Mmh.”
“Which also brings up the point that… that I’m sorry if it seemed like I doubted you through all my fretting and managing, which I do admit that I went about wrong.
It wasn’t that. It was the opposite—is the opposite.
I don’t doubt you at all. I told you, Oste, that I find you extraordinary, and I meant it.
It’s because I think you’re destined for so, so very much that I…
I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted the path there to be easier, so you’d get to all those important things quicker, with less trouble.
I never wanted to make you feel small. You’re anything but.
You make my messy heart feel reverent for something. ”
Dorotèa swallowed, afraid, then, that she’d said too much.
She hardly knew what to make of what was spilling out of her mouth unhindered and uninterrupted, and she wondered if at some point she’d drowned herself in glasses of wine to make her procure all her mortifying statements that she labeled as such because she knew when they came out that they were true.
Red-cheeked, she peered at Oste again, but found that his breathing had slowed and leveled out, and that his lips had parted just barely to bear the suggestion of sleep.
She didn’t know at what point he’d drifted off, but now that he had, she decided on one last apology.
Dorotèa didn’t know yet if she intended to truly tell it to him or not, but if she was to, she knew she needed a practice run.
“And I’m sorry,” whispered Dorotèa, “for deceiving you.”