by Harper Bliss
Claire wiped a tear from her cheek and looked at Juliette. “One of us should probably go to work today.”
Juliette put a hand on Claire’s back. “Me, of course. Try to get some rest. You can stay here as long as you like.”
Claire bit her bottom lip and shook her head again. “I’ll go home to freshen up and come in later. I’ll go mad sitting at home.”
“Whatever you prefer.” Juliette kept her hand on Claire’s back.
Claire rose, and Juliette’s hand fell abruptly on the sofa behind her. “I’ll see you both soon.”
They all hugged and after Claire had left Nadia wanted nothing more than to fall apart in Juliette’s arms, but, as it turned out, there was a huge elephant in the room and Nadia didn’t really know how to address it. Juliette was not someone who would just ignore having Dievart thrust in her face like that, no matter the circumstances.
They looked at each other in a silent stand-off. Neither one of them had gotten any sleep. Emotions were raw. All the wisdom Nadia had gathered over the years pointed towards postponing the inevitable conversation to a time when they were both more rested, both more able to empathise with the other’s feelings.
“I’d best call Steph and Véro,” was all Juliette said. “Let them know Claire and I will be late.”
“Sure.” Nadia craved human contact, though, if only for a second—just the briefest of touches, a quick reminder that, no matter what, everything would be okay—but she was afraid to instigate it, afraid of what it might lead to. “I’m going to take a shower and lie down for a bit.”
Juliette was already looking around for her phone. What was going through her head right now? Nadia could guess all she wanted, she wouldn’t know until they talked. But she knew Juliette, knew a thing or two about her thought processes and how volatile they could be.
She stood immobile for a few seconds, and listened to Juliette tell Steph about Margot. Poor, poor Margot. They should focus on her instead of on their own dramas. Claire was right about one thing. For Margot to have taken the wheel with too much alcohol in her blood could only mean one thing: she’d been suffering immeasurably. Another something Nadia ought to feel guilty about. She’d gotten past the fact of introducing her to Claire—and not fighting tenacious board member Leclerq harder when he wanted to hire his niece Inez—and feeling responsible for their breakup, because people were people and she could not be held accountable for what happened between them and how they went about their lives, but perhaps she should have checked in with her friend last night. A quick phone call could have made the difference. A text message even. But, yesterday morning, Nadia and Juliette had gone to city hall to arrange their wedding date. They would be married four and a half weeks from now, and they’d celebrated with a night in, after which their happy news had been completely drowned out by the evening’s events. And that was before her soon-to-be-wife had come face to face with the woman Nadia had cheated on her with.
“Steph’s got things covered this morning and Véro is moving my appointments,” Juliette said after she finished her phone calls. “I’ll go in this afternoon.”
“We should probably try to get some sleep, if only a few hours.”
“When are you going back to the hospital?”
What fazed Nadia most was how completely unaffected Juliette seemed by the whole Marie Dievart business. From experience she knew it could only mean that it was stewing inside of her, leading up to an inevitable explosion later.
“After lunch, I think. They’ll call me if there’s any change in Margot’s condition.”
“Did you get to speak to her at all during the night?”
“No.” Nadia remembered how utterly vulnerable her friend had appeared. “They operated on her leg and she wasn’t awake when I left. Her sister and brother-in-law arrived soon after you and Claire left. They all stayed, waiting for her to wake up. She has the support of her family, so at least she’s not alone.”
“What about, erm, the neurosurgeon, did she stay long?” Juliette leaned her hip against the backrest of the sofa.
“No. She wasn’t on call and Margot’s brain scans didn’t show anything, thank goodness.”
“Yeah, I guess, all things considered, it could have been much worse.”
“I guess.” Nadia approached the sofa cautiously. “Sorry you had to meet her that way, Jules.” Nadia tried to keep her eyes on Juliette but failed.
“I just don’t really understand how she ended up with her claws in Claire, you know? How on earth did they meet?” Juliette’s voice still appeared calm, with no signs of imminent combustion.
“I don’t really understand, either, but I do know when they met. Last week I had lunch with Claire not far from Saint-Vincent and Dievart happened to pass by so I had no choice but to introduce them.”
“They met through you?” The first edge to Juliette’s voice. “You never said.”
“I didn’t think it important enough to upset you with.” Nadia now leaned against the other end of the sofa, the piece of furniture lodged between them like a barrier that needed to be crossed. “They only met for a minute or so, and certainly no numbers or anything were exchanged.” Nadia was dying of awkwardness. At least Claire hadn’t said anything to Juliette about meeting Dievart, not that it mattered one bit now.
“How could she do that? She’s supposed to be my best friend.” Apparently, Juliette’s budding rage would be aimed at Claire to start with. “And I couldn’t even give her an earful because her ex was in an accident.”
“I’m sure there’s an explanation.” Nadia felt like the biggest coward that ever walked the earth.
“What good’s an explanation going to do me?”
“I don’t know, babe. I’m so sorry.”
“And fuck, that woman is gorgeous, Nadz.” Juliette’s voice was starting to break. “The thought of you and her, and then Claire not being able to resist her either. What does that make me? Do I even matter to the people who love me? I already don’t fucking matter a whole lot to my own family, and now Claire goes and screws me over as well? I can’t stand for that. I can’t have her do that to me. Not her. Not after all we’ve been through.”
“Oh, honey.” Nadia couldn’t bridge the sofa-sized gap between them quickly enough. She knew everything she said now wouldn’t be heard because Juliette had reached that headspace where she felt the entire world was against her and only time passing would help her snap out of that. For once, Nadia totally understood why she would feel that way. She folded her arms around her fiancée and let her cry on her shoulder.
“Oh jesus christ,” Juliette said after a sort while, “I don’t want to cry because of that putasse.” She pushed herself away from Nadia’s shoulder. “She has done enough damage.” She wiped some of the wetness off her reddened cheeks. “There’s something more important we should talk about.”
There is? Nadia thought, but couldn’t possibly say out loud.
“You know I’m not a religious person, Nadz, not even a spiritual one for that matter, but in the taxi to the hospital, when we were still fearing the worst, I struck a deal with… I don’t know who with… with something or someone out there.” She huffed out a weird chuckle while curling her fingers around Nadia’s wrists. “I promised to visit Bertrand if Margot made it out of the crash alive.”
Nadia nodded. “Okay.” She pulled Juliette closer again. “If that’s what you want I’ll be there every step of the way.”
MARGOT
Margot woke to strangely familiar surroundings. She fluttered her eyelashes and spotted her sister on her left. She blinked again and her parents were huddled in two chairs on her right. Her head felt like someone had taken a hammer to her skull, and what was that unbearable tightness in her leg?
“Margot?” Sophie asked. “Are you awake?” Her sister hurried to her side. She was definitely in the hospital, she knew that much. At Saint-Vincent, her home away from home.
Margot tried to speak but her mouth was as dry a
s sandpaper, and then it all came flooding back, in waves of the most frightening images, the stuff her nightmares were made of. The bottle of wine. Scooping her helmet off the cabinet. The speech she was going to deliver to Claire. The Boulevard Gouvion-Saint-Cyr. A blur of white followed by blackness. Oh fuck, what on earth had she done?
“Don’t try to speak, honey,” her mother said. Margot looked at her father, a frail old man who could barely walk without his crutches. “Here.” Her mother handed her a sippy cup with water. The tepid liquid slid down her throat but Margot had trouble swallowing. She was a doctor, she should be able to assess her own situation without asking too many questions.
“Knock, knock.” Someone in a white coat rapped their knuckles against the door. “Damn, Doctor de Hay, you gave us all a good scare.” Doctor Dievart nodded at Margot’s family as though they were all acquainted by now. Had she treated her? Was her brain all right? “Doctor Stavos will be in soon. He performed the surgery on your leg. Your other injuries should mend on their own given time.” Dievart tilted her head. “Not to worry, everything is fine up there.” She tapped two fingers against her right temple. “I checked thoroughly. Thank goodness for excellent helmets, eh?” Was this her usual bedside manner with patients? Margot cringed and wanted to pull the covers over her head. “We’ll move you to a private room on the third floor soon. Technically speaking, your family wouldn’t have been allowed to wait in here, but there are some perks to working in this hospital.” She actually winked at Margot, who didn’t want special treatment. She hardly deserved it.
“Was anyone…” She tried to speak again. No matter how much her throat worked against her, she needed to know.
As if reading her mind, Dievart shook her head. “The driver of the van that hit you only has a mild concussion and some flesh wounds from the shattered glass. The impact mainly occurred on the passenger’s side, which was empty.” The van that hit her? Margot could have sworn she was the one who’d done the reckless driving and slammed her motorcycle into another person’s car.
“Don’t worry about that now, Margot,” her mother was quick to say. “Everything will be sorted and no one was fatally injured.”
That intolerable thought again. What had she done? Of course having killed someone would have been infinitely worse, but the fact that she had drunkenly driven her motorcycle into someone else’s vehicle would be forever inexcusable, leaving a permanent stain on her soul.
“Just for your information.” Dievart lowered her voice and leaned towards Margot a fraction. “Nadia and Juliette and Claire were all here during the night. I’m sure Nadia will be back soon.”
Claire? She had come? Margot couldn’t immediately decide if that was a good or bad thing.
Too exhausted to speak, she just nodded at Dievart, who turned to her family, gave them a quick nod and headed towards the door. “She’s in excellent hands,” she said, and left the room.
“We should probably let you rest,” Sophie said.
“We could do with some food,” her mother agreed. “But we’ll be back soon.”
Margot just wanted to close her eyes and sleep for days; and wake up to find out it had all been but a horrible dream.
“I’ll stay with her,” her father said. “I’m not hungry.” Margot glared at him from under her lashes. The tiniest movement she made caused the pain in her right leg to flare up, but she didn’t mind. She knew she deserved far worse than what she was getting.
“I’ll bring you something,” her mother said to her father. Her father just nodded absentmindedly.
“I’m sorry,” Margot tried to say as soon as her sister and mother had left the room, but it sounded more like some vowels strung together at random, with no real meaning.
Her father turned his face away from the window he’d been looking out of since she’d woken up.
“It should be me lying there,” he said, his eyes wet with tears. “I have the age for it. You… you’re so young and smart. You still have so much to do.” He usually wasn’t a man of many words, but these ones had apparently been brewing. “When we got the call.” He hung his head, and Margot was glad she couldn’t see his eyes anymore. “That’s something I hope I never have to go through again.”
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Margot screamed in her head. She could probably find a few reasonable sounding explanations for the stupidity she had committed, if only to placate herself, but Margot had never been the rationalising kind. She needed to be punished for this. Suspended at the very least; perhaps even fired. It would be on her hospital record forever. Drunk driving. The results of which she had treated in this very hospital numerous times. On top of that, Saint-Vincent was Margot’s place of work. The news would spread quickly amongst her colleagues. How could they ever respect her again? Or trust her for that matter, if she was stupid enough to drive under the influence?
Yet, she’d been so lucky. It could have been far, far worse, and the fact that it wasn’t, that she was lying here able to ruminate on these thoughts, to see the pain in her father’s eyes, was a twisted sort of blessing.
“Try to get some more sleep. You need to rest.” Her father put his hand on the bed, but didn’t try to find hers. He was probably afraid of hurting her.
Margot stopped straining her neck to catch a better glimpse of him and let her head fall back into the pillows. If she asked for it, a nurse would give her something stronger for the pain, but she needed to endure it. Instead of trying to make things better on a silly whim, she had made things so much worse. She had basically destroyed her professional career. At least Claire had been here. Claire. What must she be thinking? Margot blinked twice and slipped back into sleep.
CLAIRE
“I was with her when she got the call, Steph,” Claire said. “I was literally minutes away from jumping into bed with Marie Dievart when the hospital called with the news about Margot.”
“Fuck.” Steph sat in the sofa in Claire’s office.
Claire wanted Steph to scold her. She needed someone to yell at her for what she’d done. Poor Jules, she’d had to take Claire home with her, while the news sunk in about her best friend and Dievart, and comfort her on top of that. Juliette had to put it all aside to make Claire feel better, as if that was even a possibility.
“Is that all you’re going to say?” she asked.
“I don’t know. In light of what happened to Margot, it seems sort of insignificant.”
Claire huffed out a breath. “Maybe you’re right, but I doubt Jules will feel that way about it.”
“Nothing happened, right?” Steph asked in all earnestness.
Claire had to stop herself from bursting out into the most inappropriate giggle. “It’s hardly about what actually happened, more about the intention and what was about to happen.” And the only reason why it didn’t happen in the end, she thought.
“And Jules didn’t say anything?” Steph scratched her eyebrow.
“She was upset, of course, but then again, so was everyone. The accident happened on our street. She heard the crash. It must have been such a shock.” Claire wanted to bury her face in her hands and cry for a few hours. “And to have me walk in with Dievart. I’m so ashamed.”
“Do you mind if I play devil’s advocate for a minute?”
“Be my guest.” Claire leaned back.
“Do you still want to sleep with her?”
Claire couldn’t suppress the chuckle that followed. It was more a giggle expressing how utterly ridiculous she felt. “I doubt she could still offer me the sort of comfort I was looking for. Everything is different now.”
“Everyone has met her. I’m quite curious myself.” That old-Steph grin appeared on her face.
“She’d probably hit on you as well. The woman makes a pass at everyone. I know she was not subtle about it when she and Margot were first introduced. Obviously, she successfully seduced Nadia. Who knows, maybe she’ll try to get her claws into Jules at some point as well.”
“Sh
e must be quite something.” Steph knitted her eyebrows together. She still had that sneer on her face.
“She’s highly attractive and doesn’t lack in confidence. What can I say?”
Steph sighed. “You and Jules have been through a lot worse. She’ll get over it. She’s getting married soon. She can focus on that.”
“I doubt she’ll still want me as her witness.” Claire shook her head. “After the conversation you and I had about Dievart, I did have second thoughts, but when I was home alone after, I was so easily able to convince myself of the fact that meeting up with her wouldn’t be that bad.” She puffed some air out of her cheeks. “Well, that has seriously backfired. But if only that was the worst of my sins. I know full well that I didn’t pour the wine down Margot’s throat and instruct her to mount her bike, but she was on her way to see me, to tell me something she couldn’t say over the phone, and she must have been feeling like hell if she’d been drinking so much that all her good judgement went out of the window. How do you think that makes me feel?” She shrugged helplessly. “But my current situation, no matter how guilty and ashamed I feel, is not half as dire as Margot’s.”
“Are we comparing grief now?” Steph sounded unexpectedly stern. “Yes, this is a shit place to be in, both for you and her, but you broke up. The decision had been made.” If both Steph and Juliette were telling her the same thing, there must be some truth to it.
“I feel so sorry for her. If they’d let me, I’d go to Saint-Vincent now and take back all the things I did and said. I was so mean to her towards the end.”
“Because it wasn’t working.” Steph shuffled a little closer. “Please, Claire, do check your motives before you make any hasty decisions. You can’t give Margot false hope. I imagine it’s the last thing she needs.”
“I was getting even.” With everything that had happened, Claire hadn’t realised fully yet. “We broke up and I was going to sleep with someone else. If she’d found out I’d slept with Dievart she’d surely have been upset. Not half as much as I was when I found out she’d fucked Inez, but still. It would have made a dent.” Claire finally let her head drop into her cupped hands. “I’m an awful, awful person.”
