Page 176 of Saint Céline
33
Céline
That evening, I had become calm enough to be dangerous.
Vincent had left for work earlier with a kiss pressed to my forehead, the kind of casual affection that made my stomach twist because it felt real. I spent the afternoon pretending to work on Katherine’s proposal while the same sentence glowed back at me from the screen.
Cells do not merely endure stress; under repeated pressure, they learn to organize survival around it.
I read it until the words lost their meaning and became something I could almost touch.
Stress. Pressure. Survival. Organization.
Katherine had written science like she was trying to explain my own body to me, and maybe that was what made her a genius. She could explain me brilliantly in her own way. Maybe that was what made me monstrous.
I had taken her work because I needed a door. I had let her fall because I needed the door to stay open. And now Vincent had Katherine’s phone tucked in a drawer beside his bed, proof that he had been close enough to the terrace to know what everyone else did not.
He knew. He had known. Maybe not the exact thought in my head as my fingers loosened around Katherine’s wrist, but enough. Enough to look at me after the funeral and see something other than grief. Enough to blackmail me with her proposal. Enough to touch the ugliest thing inside me and call it fascinating instead of unforgivable.
I do not believe he could love someone like me. He just enjoyed having something dangerous under his control and possession. A pet snake he could tame.
Miss Astoria slept on the window ledge, her white body curled neatly against the grey rainlight. Every few minutes, she opened one blue eye, watched me pace the room, then closed it again, apparently deciding that human moral collapse was beneath her unless it involved dinner.
Dinner.
The thought steadied me.
I searched recipes until I found something delicious enough to look like surrender. Not Thai food this time. That was his move, and I refused to repeat anything he had given me. I chose pasta with cream and herbs, roasted vegetables, bread warmed in the oven, and a salad dressed lightly enough to look effortless. Nothing complicated enough to invite suspicion. Nothing messy. Nothing that looked like desperation.
I was a good cook because I had taken over my mother’s chores at the cottage almost as soon as we arrived. She worked long hours keeping the Montgomery house spotless, so I learned early how to chop onions without crying, how to season a sauce until it tasted like comfort, how to make simple ingredientsstretch and shine. Those afternoons in the small kitchen with the ocean roaring outside had been the only time the world felt manageable. I had cooked for my mother then to make things easier for her. Now I cooked for Vincent with the same steady hands, only this time the intention was different.
I showered before I cooked.
I washed Vincent from my skin with water hot enough to leave my shoulders pink and stood beneath the steam until the mirror blurred completely. The marks on my throat did not disappear. They sat there faint and unmistakable, less visible than last night but still present enough to make me feel claimed whenever I looked down. I covered them with a high-necked black dress.
Then I took the small prescription bottle from the inner pocket of my bag. It sat in my palm, ordinary and almost weightless. I did not think about dosage. I did not think about the method. I did not let the act become detailed enough to frighten me. I only thought about Vincent’s drawer, Katherine’s phone, the way his eyes had looked at me for weeks with knowledge sitting behind them like a locked room.
He couldruinme. Not with the proposal. Not anymore. That was nothing compared to what the phone meant. He could say he saw me. He could say he knew I had let go. He could say Katherine Montgomery did not jump, did not simply fall, did not leave the world through the neat, tragic story everyone had accepted because the dead could not contradict it. Vincent could contradict it, and they’d believe the esteemed professor easily.
By the time he came home from work, the apartment smelled like garlic, butter, rain, and something dangerously close to domesticity. The kitchen had become warmer from the oven. The table was set. A candle burned near the window because I wanted the scene soft enough to insult him. Miss Astoria sat onone of the chairs, watching me with grave suspicion, as if even she understood I was behaving too pleasantly to be trusted.
Vincent stopped just inside the doorway. His eyes moved over the table first. Then me. He said nothing for several seconds.
I smiled. “You’re late.”
His gaze stayed on my face. “I wasn’t aware we had plans.”
“We didn’t.”
He removed his coat slowly and hung it by the door. “You cooked.”
“I have eyes, Vincent.”
“That does not explain why you used them in my kitchen.”
I turned back to the stove. “You fed me last night. I’m returning the gesture.”
“That sounds unlike you.”
