The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V. E. Schwab Page 0,70
if she’s had enough, and the world slips, because it is unfair, it is cheating, it is wrong.
He was supposed to come, that was the nature of their dance. She did not want him there, has never wanted it, but she expected it, he has made her expect it. Has given her a single threshold on which to balance, a narrow precipice of hope, because he is a hated thing, but a hated thing is still something. The only thing she has.
And that is the point, of course.
That is the reason for the empty glass, the barren plate, the unused chair.
She gazes out the window, and remembers the look in his eyes when they toasted, the curve of his lips when they declared war, and realizes what a fool she is, how easily baited.
And suddenly, the whole tableau seems gruesome and pathetic, and Addie can’t bear to look at it, can’t breathe in her red silk. She tears at the laces of the corset, pulls the pins from her hair, frees herself from the confines of the dress, sweeps the settings from the table, and dashes the now empty bottle against the wall.
Glass bites into her hand, and the pain is sharp, and real, the sudden scald of a burn without the lasting scar, and she does not care. In moments, her cuts have already closed. The glasses and bottle lie whole. Once she thought it was a blessing, this inability to break, but now, the impotence is maddening.
She ruins everything, only to watch it shudder, mocking, back together, return like a set to the beginning of the show.
And Addie screams.
Anger flares inside her, hot and bright, anger at Luc, and at herself, but it is giving way to fear, and grief, and terror, because she must face another year alone, a year without hearing her name, without seeing herself reflected in anyone’s eyes, without a night’s respite from this curse, a year, or five, or ten, and she realizes then how much she’s leaned on it, the promise of his presence, because without it, she is falling.
She sinks to the floor among the ruins of her night.
It will be years before she sees the sea, the waves crashing against the jagged white cliffs, and then she will remember Luc’s goading words.
Even rocks wear away to nothing.
Addie falls asleep just after dawn, but it is fitful, and brief, and full of nightmares, and when she wakes to see the sun high over Paris, she cannot bring herself to rise. She sleeps all the day and half the night, and when she wakes the shattered thing in her has set again, like a badly broken bone, some softness hardened.
“Enough,” she tells herself, rising to her feet.
“Enough,” she repeats, feasting on the bread, now stale, the cheese, wilted from the heat.
Enough.
There will be other dark nights, of course, other wretched dawns, and her resolve will always weaken a little as the days grow long, and the anniversary draws near, and treacherous hope slips in like a draft. But the sorrow has faded, replaced by stubborn rage, and she resolves to kindle it, to shield and nurture the flame until it takes far more than a single breath to blow it out.
New York City
March 13, 2014
XIV
Henry Strauss walks home alone through the dark.
Addie, he thinks, turning the name over in his mouth.
Addie, who looked at him and saw a boy with dark hair, kind eyes, an open face.
Nothing more. And nothing else.
A cold gust blows, and he pulls his coat close, and looks up at the starless sky.
And smiles.
PART THREE
THREE HUNDRED YEARS—AND THREE WORDS
Title: Untitled Salon Sketch
Artist: Bernard Rodel
Date: c. 1751–3
Medium: Ink pen on parchment
Location: On loan from The Paris Salon exhibition at The British Library
Description: A rendering of Madame Geoffrin’s famous salon, brimming with figures in various stages of conversation and repose. Several recognizable personages—Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot—can be discerned among the group, but the most interesting inclusion is the three women circling the room. One is clearly Madame Geoffrin. Another is believed to be Suzanne Necker. But the third, an elegant woman with a freckled face, remains a mystery.
Background: In addition to his contributions to Diderot’s Encyclopedia, Rodel was an avid draftsman, and appears to have made use of his rendering skill during many of his installments in Madame Geoffrin’s salon. The freckled woman appears in several of his sketches, but is never named.
Estimated Value: Unknown
Paris, France
July 29, 1724
I
Freedom is a pair of trousers and a buttoned coat.