Chapter 25 #2
The concept was ridiculous. He had never been in love.
And yet, he had never obsessed over someone like this either.
Everyone bored him after a month. Socialites with nothing better to do, cabaret waitresses who looked for tips, burlesque girls who continued the performance after the show had ended—all ended up on that list of names Bastien couldn’t recall or that he mixd up, and whose faces he remembered vaguely.
Few of them had been in love with him, but Bastien had cut off the ties before their tears could hit the floor.
And now, he wouldn’t be allowed even that abatement.
Now, two months straight of Celine’s nagging and poking and ordering around, and he couldn’t have enough.
Perhaps that meant something. He had started feeling different lately.
He had found a sort of peace in the afternoons at the old house, listening to the whirring of the sewing machine and Celine’s mumblings to herself.
He had even stopped checking his watch to see if it was seven yet.
The dance halls, when he went afterwards, were fun and all, but the company lacked—the women annoyed him when they came draping over him.
He had even stopped going to the Ga?té to see Elana.
And maybe that meant he wanted only one girl. One that wasn’t even his.
But Bastien had found himself wanting to be hers.
“Maybe I do,” he muttered after a while, voice muffled by his hands.
There was a whirlwind of emotions that was burdening his heart for the first time in years and Bastien wasn’t sure how to deal with all of them, or where to begin.
“I haven't the slightest clue. I have no idea what love feels like.”
Juliana hummed. “Let’s conduct a quick experiment then.”
“Experiment?”
Returning to him, she set her plate down on the coffee table, along with two wide-rimmed glasses filled with amber liquid, and gracefully knelt at the foot of his chaise. “Do you think of her incessantly?”
Bastien dropped his hands to his sides and leaned back. “…Maybe.”
“Bas,” she warned. “Be truthful.”
“Fine. Yes.”
“Good. How about sick? Do you feel sick?”
“Are you suggesting I should feel like retching every time I look at her face?”
She smacked his knee. “No, you idiot.”
Bastien let out a disgruntled noise and reached for his drink.
The first sip burned its way down his throat.
The second eased the words out. “I feel…strange when I’m in the same room with her.
But also pleasant. She makes it easy being her friend,” he said.
“You know, she’s never tried to reform me?
Not once. I can’t even count the number of people who have tried to reform me.
Every single one of them pathetically failing. Celine doesn’t care about that.”
There was a glint in Juliana’s eyes. She brought her plate over, drumming her nails on the bottom of the porcelain while she considered his words. “Anything else?”
“Ah, I don’t know.” He raked a hand through his hair for the thousandth time in the last twelve hours.
Any more, Bastien thought, and he would be pulling it out by the root.
He took another sip. “She is different than what I thought her to be like. She had always been Ana?s’s best friend, and then Jacques girlfriend.
Occasionally she was the girl from the scandal columns who wore really short dresses.
Now she is Celine—she is fun, and pert, and so beautiful. ”
“Interesting,” Juliana muttered, munching down on the bread.
“I am glad my torment has turned into a source of amusement for you, Jules.”
“Your torment relegated me to bread and butter. Amusing me is the least it can do.”
Bastien winced. “Fine, amuse yourself all you want.”
“Thank you,” she said and took another bite. “And how do you feel when she mentions Jacques?”
“Murderous,” replied Bastien. “But I feel murderous towards Jacques all the time, it isn’t anything new.
” Though he wasn’t being fully truthful.
Deep down in his heart, he knew that another emotion broiled every time Celine mentioned she couldn’t stay longer at the old house because she had to meet Jacques.
“And jealous,” Bastien admitted, cradling the drink in his hands.
“And maybe a little more murderous than usual after…” he trailed off, certain that this final confession would be pivotal in Juliana’s conclusion. “After that second kiss.”
Bastien scoffed at himself. Surely, he was overreacting.
This abrupt infatuation with Celine would abandon him as quickly as it had possessed him.
But something inside him twisted in response, as if to say that if the situation wasn’t this serious he wouldn’t have driven around all night in a strange daze.
At some point, a cool spring drizzle had started, and Bastien had gotten out of the car to walk in it, hoping the rain might compel all thoughts of her out of his mind.
But then the rain had stopped, and he had drawn himself short in front of a Morris column, where a cosmetics poster with Celine’s face fluttered gently against the darkened city, and all thoughts of Celine had returned, along with the wave of unexplainable emotions that rippled through him.
He had stared at the poster until the sun had come up.
Before returning, he had even considered ripping it off and taking it with him.
Not one of his proudest moments.
“I have to break it to you, my darling,” Juliana said, dragging him into the present. She patted his knee and supported herself on it to get up. “I fear the Bastien Ménard has fallen in love.”
He didn’t deny the allegations this time. After all, hadn’t he left the LeBeau residence so quickly last night because he had feared it?