Page 191 of Saint Céline
I carried the box to my room without asking and placed it inside my bedside drawer—the same drawer that had once held the pills I tried to use against him. Then I closed it.
When I turned, Vincent stood in the doorway. He did not cross the threshold.
“Do you like collecting things?” I said.
“Yes…”
“People’s things.”
“Not exactly.”
I folded my arms. “Do not start being philosophical now.”
His mouth curved faintly. Then he looked past me toward the drawer.
“I collect moments.”
“That sounds worse.”
“It is.”
He seemed to understand there was no point in making me drag the rest from him. For once, he gave the truth without turning it into a game.
“My father collected objects because he preferred things after they stopped resisting,” he said. “I preferred the instant before. The crack. The correction. The moment someone’s prepared face slips and shows the truth underneath.”
I thought of Katherine hanging over the ledge. I thought of my own face in that same instant, when I understood she would ruin me if she lived.
“You collect evidence of people breaking.”
“Sometimes.”
“That is so sick.”
“Yes, I admit.”
“Why?”
He leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, posture casual, face anything but.
“Because that is the only time most people are honest.”
I wanted to call him cruel. He was. But I also knew the truth of it. I had spent my life lying best when I felt safe. It was fear, hunger, shame, and desire that made me real. The moments I hated most about myself were the ones Vincent loved, because they could not be polished into Céline.
“What else do you have?” I asked.
His gaze sharpened. He understood exactly what I was asking. Not Katherine. Not me.Him.
After a moment, he led me to the study and opened a cabinet I had never noticed before because it looked built seamlessly into the wall. Inside were boxes, slim drawers, labeled folders.
He did not show me everything. That was wise on his part, but he showed me enough.
A chipped porcelain flower. A pearl earring. A matchbook. A cufflink edged with dried rust. A blue ribbon sealed inside a glass envelope.
Small objects. Useless objects. Beautiful in the wrong way because they had been severed from the lives that once gave them meaning.
“These are not trophies?” I asked.
“No.”
