Page 5 of Saint Céline
It was clean. Polite. Safe. It said nothing about the real reason.
Sophia leaned in a little, reading over my shoulder the way only she could without making it feel intrusive. “Céline, sweetheart, is this about the lab? You worked so hard on that proposal. Katherine helped you with it, didn’t she? I remember the two of you staying up late in the library.”
I almost laughed, but the sound caught somewhere in my throat. Katherine had understood every line of it immediately. She had hunched over her desk with her hair falling around her face, chewing the end of her pen, crossing out whole paragraphs and rewriting them until they shone. I had only saved the final version and put my name on it.
Mine, I had told myself. Just once more. Just this one thing that might make me feel like I belonged here.
Anya finally looked up from her book, those pale eyes steady and unreadable. “Why pull out now? You put weeks into it, and Professor Moreau only takes a handful of students. It would be a shame to throw that away just because everything feels heavy right now.”
My fingers tightened on the edge of the laptop. “I’m tired,” I said, and it wasn’t a lie. The tiredness lived in my bones now, mixed with the guilt that pressed on me every time I thoughtabout Katherine’s careful handwriting in the margins of that proposal.
“Everything is about her. The memorial downstairs, the notes, the flowers showing up here, even though she never lived in this room. I can’t sit in that lab pretending I earned the spot when she was the one who made the work good.”
Sophia’s hand rested lightly on my shoulder, warm and steady.
“Then maybe wait a few days before you decide. Grief does strange things to the mind, and I hate the thought of you regretting this later. We’re all worried about you, Céline. You’ve been carrying so much for everyone else.”
“If I wait, I’ll change my mind,” I told her, and before either of them could say anything more, I moved my thumb across the trackpad and clicked send. The email vanished from drafts. My inbox looked ordinary again, as if nothing had happened. My chest tightened so sharply I had to breathe through it, slow and careful, the way I had learned to do when I needed to keep the mask in place.
“There,” I said quietly. “It’s done.”
Anya’s hand slipped from my shoulder with a small sigh. “If that’s what you need right now, then all right. But we’re here if you want to talk about any of it. Or not talk. Whatever you decide.”
I closed the laptop before the comfort in their voices could soften me too much. Comfort meant letting the cracks show, and I couldn’t afford that yet. My phone buzzed on the table. Thad’s name lit up the screen.
Thad:Thinking of you. Dinner tonight? My dad’s in town and wants to meet after. Could be good for us.
I stared at the message until the screen went dark. Good for us. By us he meant himself and whatever connections the Montgomerys could offer his family. By good he meant useful. Ihad always known that about him, but right now the thought of sitting across from him and his father while they talked business felt like another weight I didn’t have the strength to carry. Still, I typed back quickly.
Céline :Of course. Let me know the time.
The reply came almost right away.
Thad:That’s my girl.
I set the phone facedown and looked up to find Sophia watching me again, her expression soft but firm. “You don’t have to go to dinner with him either, you know. Thad means well in his own way, but he has never been very good at noticing when you need more than a quick hug and a pat on the back. We could order something in and watch that terrible reality show Anya pretends not to like.”
Anya made a quiet sound that might have been agreement or amusement. “That’s called being exhausted,” she said, her voice low and matter-of-fact. “Saying yes to everything that drains you because it’s easier than explaining why you can’t.”
I looked at both of them then, my beautiful, loyal girls. Sophia, with her sharp eyes and perfect calm, always ready to smooth things over and take care of everyone. Anya, with her gentle aloofness and those striking pale eyes that saw more than she ever admitted. They had folded themselves around me since the suicide, sleeping badly because I slept badly, walking the halls like quiet guards whenever people stared too long. They loved me. That should have made me feel safe. Instead, it made me feel unbearably fragile, like one honest word from me could shatter the whole careful balance we kept.
“Please don’t look at me like that,” I said.
“Like what?” Anya asked, tilting her head.
“Like I’m something that can fall apart any second.”
Neither of them answered right away. The silence stretched soft between us until a knock sounded at the door. Sophia stood and opened it with her usual graceful poise.
A girl from my contemporary theory seminar stood in the hallway holding another bouquet, pink peonies this time, the expensive kind wrapped in crisp paper. Her eyes widened the moment she saw me behind Sophia.
“Oh, Céline. I’m so sorry to bother you. I just wanted to bring these by. We’re all thinking of you right now. The whole seminar group, I mean. If there’s anything we can do…”
Of me. Not Katherine. The thought slid through me fast and ugly, but I pushed it down and stood up.
“That’s very kind of you,” I said, taking the flowers. Their stems felt cool and damp in my hands. “Thank you. I appreciate it more than you know.”
The girl’s face softened with relief, as though my gratitude had finished some task for her. “She was lucky to have you as a friend. We all saw how close you two were. You’re handling this with so much grace.”
