TODAY

– « WHY? Why are you doing that? Why are doing that again? »

– « Oh, fuck, you’re not going to start all over again? Aren’t you tired? Listen, we do what we said, you take the rest of your stuff, and you leave, it’s over and you’re leaving, understood?”

There. That’s how she wants it to end, that’s how it is going to end : two years of crazy love, two years I am madly in love with her, I have done everything for her, everything, I gave her everything, I put my previous life at her feet, and that’s how she talks to me, now, with Didier who must already be heading to take my place, once again, fuck.

She is angry, and disgusted by me, I can see it, she is still as beautiful, anyway, even when she is angry, even when she’s yelling at me, leaning against the kitchen counter, in the middle of the knife and “the casserole”, with this sort of craziness or hate in her eyes.

Two days ago she was telling me she loved me, just after we made love, as I just moved in her home, with her, as we finally did it, and this time for good.

YESTERDAY

And when? Three hours later? I’m calling her from work, first at her home but nobody answered, then on her cell phone : she tells me she is at the supermarket, buying some groceries, and I know she is lying, because I don’t hear any background music or advertisement. And I understand immediately, I think, even though I try to persuade myself I’m wrong, that it can’t be. I decide not to say anything, I want to check first : I casually end the conversation, telling her I love her, and “see you tonight”, but my eyes are blurred by tears, I know she is there, with him, the day after he left and I came.

I hang up feeling sick. I must look funny, for my friends ask me if everything is alright, and I answer no, a little sick, I must go home my foreman buys it, I must look really sick, and I really rarely sick, he lets me leave.

I get into my car, but I am not going to any doctor : I speed up to Malo, hundred kilometers, easy ride, I’m going at Didier’s, I want to check by myself she is there, that I’m not wrong, even if I hope, I hope with all my soul, that indeed, I’m wrong, she didn’t go back with him, that she didn’t do this to me again, not this time, not that fast.

I am driving, way to fast, dangerously for others, but I don’t give a damn. I think about us, I think about all of this, I love her more than ever, I’m crying and I think I am even moaning at the same time.

MONTHS BEFORE

Two years ago, when I saw her at the exit of school, it’s not that I got butterflies, “love at first sight”, no, it’s that I the butterflies I got, literally, stayed, in my stomach, since, and stayed filled : those butterflies, I can still feel it now and there, driving to this asshole.

I know for exactly what I was at the time, and everything I had, but I can’t miss these things, since before, I didn’t know her.

For years I have been working, nice job, enough money. Married, to a nice woman, for almost as long, three kids, our house, well done, I loved that, and some good friends, some nice parties, no problem and quite a lot of laughter and joy.

I know all of this, but it has become, how to say it, theoretical.

Because I saw her, that day, we looked at each other, and not only did I feel an instant desire and an absolute love overflowing me, but I saw she felt the exact same thing.

We stayed for a few seconds there, a few meters away, in the street, with our kids pulling on our sleeves.

The following days, she talked to me first. We went for a drink after school exit. And we became lover, very fast, when I think about it. Madly in love.

I had never met passion, to me it was an ideal, something for intellectual people : I was discovering it really exists. I loved her with all my person. I loved her with all myself.

We were careful, at first, but it was hard to hide, and finally we were less and less careful, in a small town where everything gets known pretty fast : we didn’t care, we were seeing each other as much as possible, and we said we loved each other, and we made love.

Hotel at first, then at her place, as soon as Didier left for work, he was working in the same factory as me, luckily not in the same team : not only did our working hours followed each others, but I knew his.

We were talking more and more, of course, we confided in totally, we told everything about our two “others” lives, our couples. I quickly hated Didier. First, indeed, because he was with her, and the father of her kids. And also, because she told me he gambled all of their money, he drank sometimes too, and when he did so, he occasionally beat her.

She was fed up, she feared him, she was crazy about me, I had a lot of affection for my wife, but no love anymore, nothing compared to what I was feeling for her : really fast, we got projects, we got one project : live together. Start over our lives over  into one, restart everything, make our passion official and live it totally free. Her being happy. Everything I wanted was here.

He quickly knew I existed : rumors, my car parked in his driveway when he wasn’t home, neighbors who had nothing to do but to tell him.

Once he faked going to work, he had taken a kind of fake day off, and he waited for me, no, better, he waited for me to park and go into his house, then waited some more, and came in.

We threw hands, I beat him up, I am stronger and better built than him, and I got out proudly, when I think about it, telling him I wanted to live with his wife, I loved her, it was over between them, while she didn’t say anything, set back from the scene.

My wife knew, within 24 hours, a paper stuck on her car’s windshield, in front of our home : fine, I told her it was true, I tried to tell her about my passion, I tried to explain I couldn’t do anything, she was really depressed, of course, but she couldn’t do anything either.

I told her all the affection I had for her, that she would never need anything, that she could the house and I would still pay for the kids, of course, and that I only wished to seem them as often as possible, and I left.

I set myself in a B&B, not far from town. I was free, and also free to only think about the one I loved, the one I was about to live with, the one who made me feel like the most powerful man when I made her happy.

I explained her the following days I was now all hers, and she asked me to wait a little bit, a tiny little bit, because Didier had issues and she didn’t want to leave him by himself like that, not after all these years, and then, mainly, because there was kids, and her deep motherly feelings, the last one was still bottle-fed.

I understood, and I didn’t want to rush things, I agreed, I was waiting for her, and I would help her to be absolutely ready, do things right, to not suffer, and to not make anybody suffer : I was in love with her, and she was too, we were going to live together, yes : I was absolutely happy, and I could wait.

Our life stayed the same for a few months more : I lived at the B&B, I saw her as often as possible, she even came here by now, I was seeing the kid at home when my wife let me – she had launched the divorce process in the meantime – or “at my house”, I was working, I called her and we talked over the phone, sometimes up to fifty times a day.

She had told Didier that her and I, it was just a whim, it was over, but he quickly knew it wasn’t, and she told me he made a choice, to accept our relationship, to keep her : when I told her I didn’t understand, she answered she was getting him used, and she was about to ask him to leave, soon, we could move in together, she only wanted it to go smoothly; I didn’t care, I was bursting with impatience but I loved her, and she loved me too.

One day, she told me it was done, she had told him. My heart was beating at two thousands. Only, since I was stealing his wife, and since I was going to move in her house, but with the furniture they bought together, he agreed on leaving, but not without a counterpart, as far as he didn’t have anywhere else to live : he wanted money, a lot of it, thirty thousands euros.

I only got that she told him, and he would leave without trouble. I had a saving account in which I have been putting money for twenty years, and my car, I had given everything else to my wife, the house mainly : by emptying the first, and selling the other, I could gather enough money to pay him, and keep enough money to buy a small used car, I needed one for work.

She gave him the money a week later, and I moved in the day after, after he left the kids would stay for a few days at his mother’s house, and it was decided a shared custody would be set, since he quickly found a small home at Malo.

Three days of pure happiness, the best of my life.

Oh, of course there was the friends, from before or the owners of the B&B, who were judging the situation abnormal, who were telling me I shouldn’t have paid to get her, who were blaming me for speaking only about her, constantly talking to her over the phone, or texting her while eating; there was work, where I would often stop to call and talk to he, my colleague were also telling me I was obsessed with her and that I wasn’t interested in anything else anymore.

But I was so happy, and they saw that : even if some of them were trying to tell me my behavior wasn’t really normal, and also tried to tell me they didn’t understand this man who was okay with this situation but stayed, finally to leave for money, neither this woman, twelve years younger than me, , who did the same, while she only had to move in with me, or make him leave, neither me, who accepted all of this and stayed available for her; I didn’t listen to them, or I smiled back, saying they couldn’t understand : I loved her, she loved me. How would they understand such a thing? We were going to live together, I would introduce her, and then maybe they would understand.

And that was it : they were all going to see how much I was right, they were all going to see she wasn’t making a fool of me : we were, finally, living together!

YESTERDAY

It started raining on the way to Malo, I didn’t even notice, I was lost in my thoughts, in all this happiness.

I arrived down Didier’s house, I parked the car discretely, stopped the engine. I see his windows, of his apartment, the same as the first time. I can a shadow sometimes, then two. I thought about calling her again, but I controlled myself, I hope the second shadow isn’t her, but at the same time I know she is up there.

I am waiting in the car, without taking my eyes off the front, I want to catch her leaving the house, and then I would call her. I don’t think, I can’t. I can only remember, that’s all I have left.

MONTHS BEFORE

Those three days living together were so amazingly great and beautiful it seems like, it was just one long day, which I lived under the influence of amphetamines.

I quickly moved in with her, I had almost nothing, and we were instantly a couple : I took a bath, she cooked, we made love, I don’t even remember how many time, we ate, we drank a little, and we made love again. We went at my friend’s home, either to have a drink, or to have lunch, I had called everybody, and they all saw how joyful she was, how happy we were : all of my friends loved her too, this time, I could feel it.

We went shopping together, hand in hand, proud that people saw us and it was “for real”, we talked about traveling and went to an agency, took a huge load of brochures, bought a lobster and some expensive desserts, at the bakery she grabbed my butt and we laughed like high school freshmen when we saw other people’s faces; we went to the restaurant, we went home, we made love again, painted walls in our heads and loved each other more because we liked the same colors.

I was working in the afternoon of the third day, and I kissed her in front of her, no, “our” door, like a husband kisses his wife, and told her we would get married : she was smiling, she nodded, and I left more happy than I ever thought I could be : my life meant something, I knew I was born for her.

I can say I worked without even noticing, probably with a wide smile on my face, and then I hurried up and got “home”, this first time more than any other time, with a bottle of iced champagne on the passenger seat, yes, I was going back to her, five hours away and I was already in pain!

She wasn’t there.

And there was a note on the kitchen table.

She had written that she had loved everything we just lived, everything, but she couldn’t handle the guilt she had toward Didier, or toward living happy with me, but without her kids, away from them.

She was also stating she tried, she wanted me to be happy, but it was still too soon, and she couldn’t totally be happy.

Didier had called her, crying, threatening her to kill himself if they didn’t at least “gave it a try” : she wanted me to understand that, to her, it wouldn’t really be a new try, she loved me and she knew she would be mine, she had made her mine; but he was fragile, she didn’t want to be responsible for his death, or the loss of the father for her kids : she accepted.

She left to get back to him, and more importantly to see and take back her children : she was hoping I would understand, I would be a little more patient. But she was asking me to leave again, to let the place free for Didier, to let her come back home with her kids, to give her time, again.

She also wrote she would understand if I didn’t want to, she wouldn’t blame it on me, she would still love me but she couldn’t choose between me and her children, she didn’t want to choose because she would rather lost me, if I chose not to wait for her and live without her.

I was really depressed, now. But I agreed. There was nothing else to do anyway : I couldn’t even think about not seeing her again, my life depended on her.

I came back to the B&B, alone. And everything started all over again.

It’s true, nonetheless, that this failed attempt hurt me badly, she had broken something inside me. Everybody told it to me, and even though I protested, deeply I knew it well, I could feel it : I laughed less, I was more quick-tempered, I had always loved my job but now it started to get boring, I was seeing less people.

But we kept seeing each other, loving each other, I would call her even more than before, longer sometimes, in the evening, when Didier was on a night-shift or out gambling, I would call her to go to sleep listening to her breathing, we would talk and wished to sleep tight like she was in my bed, and I would go to sleep with the phone opened next to me.

I would eat less, my face was a little gaunt, I had become feverish; my ex-wife, when I came to see the kids, told me several times so, looking concerned, and that touched me, after all she went through, she still had feelings for me, she had told it to me, and she could see I was depressed, according to her.

It wasn’t true, I wasn’t depressed : I was waiting, and I was sick of waiting, I was in pain for not being constantly with the one I loved, not having her only for me, having to share it with a man who didn’t love her and made her miserable, she would tell me often.

I had met her children several times, now, and they liked me, I think, but I also knew they loved their father, they wouldn’t stop talking about me, I found it quite normal, by the way, but it’s true I would think to myself it didn’t help to simplify the situation, I couldn’t see how she would be able to break with them and come back to me.

So, no, I wasn’t depressed, I couldn’t be, she loved me. But I was hurt, on edge for waiting, I couldn’t think about anything but her, and this future “us” I didn’t want to forecast anymore.

We started to break into arguments, sometimes, always on this issue of course : I was trying to speed things up, she understood me she said, but she didn’t want a new false hope, she wanted things to come naturally when it would be time to, but I would ask her how that would happen if we didn’t do something, and voices would start to raise; I would walk out of these arguments really miserable, and always losing.

The feeling controlling me at the time, was that our relationship, our true love, wasn’t perfect anymore. And I couldn’t stand it.

I sank, at some point, into what the doctor called a depression, I discovered some pills that get you to sleep and some others that keep you calm and awaken. I told her sadly smiling that until they find pills that can help the one you love to make a decision, or that can make you stop thinking about the one you love who can’t make a decision, there was no way I would get better.

My doctor ended up joining my friends and siblings who were warning me, or believing they were, telling me she was playing with me, she would never get back to me for real, and that her husband needed money to gamble, that they made a fool of me and that in fact, she didn’t love me, or she would not have let me go sick, go crazy, lose everything and not be able to talk about anything else, because of her.

They didn’t know anything. They didn’t know her. I refused to hear those speeches and all those bad things about her and me, I would interrupt them or leave, sometimes shouting so that they would stop talking, stop judging our love, and realize how hard it was for her.

And when deep inside of my head, a little voice started talking to me in the same way, starting ti tell me maybe they were not absolutely wrong, I smothered it immediately, I wanted my love to stay pure, I refused to think about her in any bad way.

They got into an argument, once, bad enough for him to leave, to leave her, which he did.

She called me right away, of course, and I came back to her, her and the children. I stayed – a few days.

It was really different from the first time, it was less thrilling, less exciting, but again it was real happiness, deeper I think too, and what a relief, what a Solution!

The kids were here, too, and I would play with them and take care of them, as it would have always been so for I could see she watching us tenderly, she was also relieved that it went well between them and me.

In one day, we had built a real life as a couple, in the everyday life, at school, at work, for shopping, and everything, and I loved that, I was living it as strongly ad the first time, but more calmly.

And just, also just with a little fear : fear that it would happen again, that he would come forward, blackmail her so that she would leave again. I would ask her a lot, I would listen when she was talking over the phone, I would watch through the windows to see if Didier’s car was around.

Well, it’s true, I admit I once faked leaving for work and hid not far away, then followed her when she went shopping. She was me, we argued, she understood I was afraid, but she told me she was also afraid of me, I watched her too much, I was less caring, harder on her.

I let go, this time, but a few days later, after I found a text-message from Didier on her cellphone, sentences showing they had met, and they were going to meet again.

This time, I didn’t let go, we made an awful scene, me, since I was crazy with jealousy and pain, her because I had spied on her, and she didn’t do anything wrong, but to see her children father, which wasn’t forbidden, nothing was forbidden by the way, and I had become possessive and jealous, mean. We shouted, kids were crying, I wanted to beat her, and even more when she yelled at me that he was in bad situation, even depressed, and that he was running out of money and had asked for some : “And what about me, holy shit, WHAT ABOUT ME???”, I kept yelling back, eyes popping out of my head, and really a bit crazy at this time.

This time, we broke up, I didn’t wait for Didier to come back, I left. She, on her side, was in tears, begging me pardon, telling me she loved me, but telling me it couldn’t work that way at the same time, she couldn’t stand me wanting her to be mine, she asked me to leave, it was over.

I confirmed it was over, told her I would always love her, I couldn’t stop loving her, but I wanted her to be all mine, or not at all, that I would rather be miserable and alone, than have only a piece of happiness with her.

We broke up.

I gathered my stuff, got in the car, and left.

There was a small noise, in the back of my mind, “pop”. But I didn’t hear it, I was crying way too much.

YESTERDAY

She finally got out of Didier’s home, of course. I would have liked not to see her, but it really was her, now getting in her car, a full hour before the time I usually leave work, and headed back to the house.

I followed her, without calling her, I didn’t have the guts to make her lie to me again, pretending to go see a friend or to come back from shopping.

I drove behind her, parked in front of her house, behind her car, right after she did, and I think she immediately understood I wasn’t coming back from work, and that I knew where I was coming back from.

I was frozen.

She didn’t deny it. She only told me she couldn’t decide, she couldn’t do it, she could never do it.

So, he was going to come back.

She was asking me to leave, again. For ever.

I asked her how I would do it, I had too much stuff at her place to take everything that evening.

We agreed on two round trips : one right now, and the other the day after in the early afternoon, we were supposed to have lunch at my best friends’ place the day after, and I didn’t want to cancel, I would go alone, then take the rest of my stuff and say goodbye.

She was surprised, of course, that it was so easy, and that there was no yelling, it looked like I was alright with it. But this time, I believe we were fed up, both, simply.

My dashing was complete, I had no strength anymore, and at this point, I didn’t even try to struggle.

I felt like I already could think about anything but the day after, the early afternoon, when I was going to see her for the last time.

And the fact that I was only thinking about that was scaring me.

Because it meant that even I, already knew I had lost her forever.

I left.

WEEKS BEFORE

I was in the depths of despair.

No more now than during those two years, I figured it was impossible for me to live without her, or the hope of her, and I felt constantly guilty for leaving her, for telling her as a are I wanted her totally mine or not at all, while without her, I had nothing else.

Worse : I had learned the day after I left, Didier moved back with her. Not a week after, no, the day after. I thought she called him right after our argument, I was hoping they didn’t agree on that before, while I was watching them from my car.

I was terribly miserable, terribly sad.

I didn’t know what to do, there was nothing more to do.

What I had told her was reasonable, it was obvious. But now I wished I had never said that, or, maybe find a way to survive without her, something to live without her. But I didn’t find any. And I was getting sick with sadness, a little more each day, with my bloody cellphone flashing as it wanted me to call her, something I couldn’t dare to do anymore.

She heard, through my kids I think, who had heard it from their mother, who came to see me at the hospital, warned by the people from the B&B, that I had tried to hang myself and who took me down, some kind of adoptive parents they became to me during those long months, sorry to see me in pain, sorry to see me wasting away, and coming to see me twice a day and it’s true I tried to hang myself  a few minutes before the time they usually knocked on my door, but I swear I didn’t think about it, I think I just didn’t really want to die, or rather I wasn’t ready, not yet, not agreeing this way to lose her for ever, for real.

I was sent to the hospital, not only for my injured throat, but for my general state, I had lost much weight, and I was depressed.

She came to see me.

I don’t know how to say it. I might seem silly, but she was the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio, it had the same effect on me as when, as a child, I had seen her give life to the wooden puppet, and then, at the end of the movie, finally turn him into a real boy. I don’t know how to say it differently, even the light looked the same.

We didn’t say a thing at all, this time, not a word. We looked at each other, with sad smiles on our Face. God she was pretty. She came closer, sat on the chair next to the bed, took my hand. And we cried, for a long time, together, before she lightly took her hand back, and left.

I didn’t believe in anything, I didn’t want to think about anything. I just thought to myself, that I didn’t lose her.

And you can tell me a thousand times I shouldn’t have, or she shouldn’t have, or we shouldn’t have, because I would answer you the same thing over and over : I would do it again if I had to, despite everything that had happened, despite everything that happened then, I would do it again, because there was no other solution, no other way out : we started seeing each other again.

Loving each other again.

Doing everything all over again, cautiously first, like two convalescents, like pets who became timorous after their previous owner hit them; then it got better, less painful, and finally really happy because you can forget everything when you want to, when you really want to. And I started to be madly in love with her again, and she was to with me, I still believe it now.

It sounds incredible now, even to me, but again, time to plan the future came back very shyly too, very carefully, but we started talking about living together again, we agreed we both wanted to live this life together.

She was still suffering at home, Didier was worse than before, gambling more, drinking more, yelling more, and she told me she didn’t love him anymore; even though we told all these things with much cautiousness, with much references to the previous events, lots of “you already said that”.

But she also told him, this time, and, before coming back to me, she told him that one day, he would have to get out of his life for ever.

People would say she was chatting me up, she was playing again, with me among others, she wasn’t either sincere or certain : I don’t think so. I believe she had suffered at least as much as me, I think she really couldn’t decide, I believe she felt quite guilty for the state I was in, and also the state Didier was in, and I think at this point, she had decided to throw him away, not necessarily to give me his place.

I took it back, I agree.

A WEEK AGO.

He had left a few days ago, this time without me asking him to do so, just as if they finally decided it by themselves, they both went through the paperwork for a process, mainly for the kids issue, as I did, how many years ago?

Wisdom would no doubt have been to leave her alone, to go see her at her home, of course, as I always did, but not wanting her so badly to be mine, so quickly to live her life to the fullest.

But who said wisdom was driving me? I came back back for good, a week ago, even though she protested, but didn’t totally oppose. I wanted it so bad, I needed so bad, I trusted in it so bad, I promised her so much.

I could see that things had changed between us, I was more possessive, I spied on her even more, I wanted to talk to her all the time, more than before if possible. And I would tidy up her stuff differently, already reorganizing what, I thought, needed to be…

She reproached it to me sometimes, or just gave me a weird look, one of this look that means “I was wrong” or “he changed” but we went through so much shit : I was looking back at her, with all the sadness of the past rough times in my eyes, and the discussion would not start, she would contain herself and move on to something else, and I kept trying to wipe her previous man out of this place, and kept trying as much as possible to possess her life, to possess her as fast as possible, eager, now, for it to be a fact, eager to reassure myself once and for all.

Until yesterday.

Until I called her from work, first at her place, but she didn’t answer, then on her cellphone, and she told me she was at the supermarket, grocery shopping, and I instantly knew she was lying.

YESTERDAY

I drove to the B&B, my head empty, at the edge of exhaustion, with frozen thoughts.

I got in, and stayed there until the morning after, not eating, not moving, not sleeping, sitting on the bed, in the dark.

Nothing meant anything to me anymore.

TODAY

I left for work at the scheduled time, without washing or putting on new clothes, early in the morning my colleagues found me weird-looking, pale, red-eyed, and they suspected that once again, something screwed up with her, of course they haven’t seen me worried about anything else for the past two years. But incidentally they had stopped trying to talk to me about it.

My shift ended at noon, and I went to this couple of friends, as planned, except that I went alone.

They too knew instantly, and they tried to talk me out of it, tried to ask me to open my eyes, as if I had kept them shut all this time, as if she couldn’t dance as well in front of my eyelids than in my eyes wide open in the darkness.

I didn’t say a word, except or the only sentences I said when I arrived : “It’s over, this time time it’s over, we broke up… We’re screwed, we fucked up everything. We can only kill ourselves now”.

They talked a lot, they tried to make me feel better, to reassure me, they tried to talk me out of “doing something stupid”. What can people do, in this kind of situation, even those who really like you?

I must have made a pale smile and muttered “no, don’t worry”, before leaving, but it was enough for me to go the date when set up the day before, gather the rest of my stuff and tell her goodbye.

And that’s what I did, I went back, a last time.

She was waiting for me, rather calm, as I was.

I started gathering my stuff, clothes mostly, which were piled up where I had thrown them the day before, in the hallway near the kitchen, while she was watching me doing so and putting the in the bags I brought, mechanically.

And I saw the bags, his bags.

Suddenly, I saw his FUCKING BAGS!

“Pop”, in my head, this once I heard it, but I think when you hear it, it’s already too late.

I got up, distraught, and walked right toward her, yelling, emptying myself at once from all these months of stress, blaming her for not being able to wait for me to be out, shouting that I could have put up with the fact that she didn’t love me anymore, since I had always put up with everything; but I didn’t understand that, she was running form one to another without caring for anyone, she stole my previous life, and took this one that easily. And many other things, even though I didn’t believe them and still don’t believe them now, that she was playing with me, taking advantage of my money, gave everything to Didier, and she was taking him back now that there was nothing else to get from me, that they were waiting for it, maybe, yesterday, and the day before and the whole week, even when making love, and already knew…

That she was a bitch, I was screwed, I hated her, that I was going to kill her.

– “WHY? Why are doing that? Why are you doing that again?”

– “Oh, damn, are you going to do that again? Aren’t you tired of it? Listen, we do as we told, you take the rest of your belongings, and you leave, it’s over and you’re leaving, OK?”

There. That’s how she wants it to end, that’s how it is going to end.

She has the same hateful, mad look as me, by now.

She backed up in front how me, leaned over the kitchen counter, near the knifes.

I am scaring her, she grabs one and aims at me : “I’m warning you, don’t move! STAND STILL OR I STAB YOU!”

No, my love, and I can’t stand still, it’s too late, much too late.

I took the knife of her hands, blocking her with my hand, and I hit her, I don’t know how many times, I can’t see her now and can’t feel nothing, I know I’m taking her, all for myself, and this time I won’t give her back to anyone; I hit, she resists at first, she even manages to hold the knife and stabs me back with my own arm, in my neck and my side, but I don’t feel anything, I get free and hit at full force, and all of sudden, I stabbed her in the belly, she gets floppy, she is not moving anymore, she falls on me, on my arms, she doesn’t have any reactions.

I hit again, for a bit, but I stop. I talk to her. I tell her again how beautiful she is, how happy we’re going to be, how close we’re going to be, together, inseparable, as she is in my head, as I want her, my Blue Fairy.

I slip in the blood, there is blood everywhere in the kitchen, everywhere on us, some of mine, some of hers, mixed together.

I fell on her, we hit the floor, I let go the knife, but I don’t let her go, I will never let her go. I soften the shock with my hand under her neck, her head doesn’t hit the floor and my hand breaks, but I don’t feel it, “there, there, my baby, soft, soft”.

I lay down next to her, I stroke her hairs, I keep talking to her, telling her how we will live, soon.

I look at the kitchen’s entrance, where I see the older of her children looking at us, rooted on the spot, with a horrified face.

Shit. I jump on my feet, a sudden pain in my stomach, I push him back into the hallway, close the door of the kitchen and order him to go play outside, in the garden. He protests, he is shocked, I take him out through the door, then lock it.

Children.

I feel like I am getting weaker, I have a bad wound on my side, it’s bleeding a lot and I am starting to feel the pain.

I go upstairs, where the kids are still playing, I burst into their playroom and take them by the hand one by one, “we’re going outside, be quiet”. They are crying, I must be startling and it’s violent for them, but I want them out of here.

I rush them down the stairs, they’re bawling, but they’re following me, and I push them outside, opening and closing the door really fast, I just see the older one is not there anymore, I close the door.

I go near the stove, in the living room, I pick up the can of petrol which is always stored near it. I open it, it’s hard to lift it, I must hurry, I am getting really weak now, and I pour its content all over the living room, in the hallway and all the way to kitchen, but not on her, I stop at the blood pool; I got some all over myself and the gas gets in my belly, it makes me yell but it wakes me up, I have two more things to do.

I throw the empty can, and get back in the living room : I take a lighter, and set the sofa on fire, which burns up instantly, I poured gas on it first.

I wait a little, I want to be sure everything is going to burn, then I go back to her.

I look at her from the kitchen’s entrance, she didn’t move. Even there, even now, laying in the puddle of blood, her hairs all sticky, she is beautiful. It seems like she is smiling, her face looks peaceful. Like a dumb ass, I ask her if she is alright.

Again, the pain in my belly makes me bend.

I pick up the knife, and lay myself by her side. I put the knife in my hand, put my hand over hers, and stab myself, twice, I can’t manage to hit a third time because the pain is too intense, thanking her to take me with her, promising her we would never part away, never.

I lose consciousness.

When I open my eyes, there is a thick black smoke in the kitchen, and I can see big flames in the hallway. I get scared, I am going to be burned alive.

I get on my four, and I take her under my arms, to try and drag her to the window, try to get out of there, but I can’t move more than a few centimeters, she got heavy, way too heavy.

I’m dripping, and I’m in pain, but I get up, with a huge effort, I stagger forward to the window and break it by pushing my two forearms through it.

It bursts open and the draft brings huge flames in the center of the kitchen, I feel an awful heat getting close to me. I look at her once again, flames are close to get her, I can’t do anything about it now. I manage, I don’t know how, to fall out from the window, getting pieces of glass on me, and I fall in the garden, unconscious.

My last impression is her, touching my  hand, in the dark.

THREE YEARS LATER

The Cour d’Assises1 , just sentenced me for the second time, in appeal.

I was hoping for less, why deny it? But it’s like that, I’m not the one to choose and deeply, I don’t care.

So much things I didn’t care about happened, since the day of the event.

Emergency services found me in the grass, near the house that had burnt down , but they had manages to put the fire out before it collapsed. I was badly injured, but still alive.

They healed me, then charged me with murder and voluntary damage by fire, and put me to jail.

I explained everything as I could, but it was complicated, mainly because I was the only one who could tell everything we lived, from the inside. For most of the witnesses, who didn’t really know, I had become gradually crazy, because I loved this woman more than reason; to Didier, she had never really loved me, I had persuaded myself, to the point that I was harassing her more and more, on the phone or physically, she has told him.

I admit it, I lied at first, which didn’t help : I first said she wanted us to die together, that we both wanted to die, a passionate ending to a passionate story…

I quickly told the truth, but I was less believed : I stated I did out of anger, an anger as strong and uncontrolled as were my love and my fear of losing her, they would answer that, indeed, I wanted to keep her for myself, once and for all, selfishly – the opposite of love…

Nobody knows.

Well, yes, they knew what they could see by themselves : she was stabbed sixteen times, and , I learned with a huge relief, she died quickly, before the fire got her at least.

I had been stabbed five times in my body, none of them was lethal by itself, but I had lost a lot of blood, they were wondering how I could physically burn the house, and get out of it.

The older child had seen me starting the fire, through the window of the living room. I was hoping, and I still hope he didn’t see me kill his mother.

There are two sides, in our town, those who think I was manipulated by a couple who wanted nothing but my money, roughly, my friends; and those who think I harassed her, and I “deluded myself”, until I couldn’t bear her pushing me away for ever, and “freaked out”.

This, I know it from my ex-wife, who asked for a visit permit, and came to see me in jail, and keeps doing so since then.

She forgave me, she is sure her rival made me lose common sense, and that it took the drama to make find it back. The drama and a death.

She wants us to get back together, when I will be out, I am the father of her children and she never stopped loving me, in spite of everything.

She knows, because I told her, that I like her, that I feel some affection for her, but also that I don’t love her in the way she would like me to. I can’t, you can love like that only once, I’m sure. She is alright with that.

I met some doctors too, psychiatrists an psychologists  : they all noticed the passion, all excluded craziness, and declared me fully liable. I agree.

The only real argument, during investigations, was to know whether there was premeditation or not, the difference between a premeditated murder, and just a murder, my first lawyer told me, even though I didn’t see him much.

I always denied premeditating all of this, but there were testimonies from people who had seen me those tow days, looking weird, “not as usual”, “with crazy eyes”, and more over, even though I could see they didn’t really want to say it, but they didn’t want to lie and they were right, the testimony of this couple of friends who I had lunch with, an hour before my crime, this famous sentence I said at their place.

In the end, I was brought in front of the criminal court, charged with murder, not because the investigating judge believed me, no, but because apparently they didn’t have enough evidence of premeditation.

I found it fair, but once again, I didn’t care.

I was sentenced to eighteen years of incarceration.

My wife didn’t understand, she was hoping for much less, she persuaded my first lawyer to file an appeal. I wasn’t contesting the punishment, what did I care about it? On the other hand, it’s true that I didn’t manage to express myself during the first trial, I was afraid, I was clumsy, I wasn’t prepared, and I regretted that.

For I like talking about her, tell everything we lived. Try to say how much it was Everything.

So I agreed to file an appeal, I was hoping to manage to do it better.

My wife went to see a new lawyer, she explained him, and he agreed to come, and I saw him quite a lot during the four months we got, he found the punishment too heavy : “You didn’t kill someone walking in the street while you were robbing a bank, you killed the woman you were madly in love with and tried to follow her in death : it’s a crime of passion, it doesn’t forgive it, but they have to take it into account”. I didn’t know if he was right, but he taught me how to speak nonetheless, and we even role-played, together, several times, the questioning of the forthcoming trial.

This time, I was ready, and it’s true I talked a lot, I told everything, I think, in details, I was happy about that.

The lawyer and my wife were really disappointed by the new sentence : seventeen years, this time.

I told them I didn’t really care, I thanked the lawyer, and we set up some kind of life, with my wife, between visiting rooms, sometimes she comes alone, sometimes she brings the children, who change and grow up without me, and wait for me too.

But not as much as her.

I have her picture, on the wall, over my bed, one I took at the beginning, the very beginning.

I talk to her, very often, every night in fact.

And I tell her, as often as possible, the only thing that really matters, what keeps me alive, what makes me a man and prevents me from turning really crazy.

“I love you”.

Note : this case was twice in a public trial, and therefore became public. However, of course, I made up this monologue, which shows only what I think was the progress, the thoughts, and even the certainties of the perpetrator : I used first person in the story to underline the absolute subjectivity, and I want to say to the people reading this and who might have been really involved in this drama that I really don’t and don’t want to judge anybody, and especially the real Didier of course, the story of the same story would be quite different.

I deeply respect the immense pain caused by this crime, and I think particularly about the children of the woman I didn’t want to name, here.

I only wanted to try to tell, trying not to hurt anyone, using the point of view of the man who committed it, not to forgive him about anything, but to explain, how he got here.

1. Criminal highest court [↩]