Chapter 10
Elena
I was still smiling after my shower, phone buzzing with another message from Maxime—a photo of him with his friends, all making exaggerated wounded faces. Caption: "Support group for victims of aerial gymnast attacks." I sent back the laughing emoji and middle finger, which Chloé had taught me was acceptable among friends, and felt something warm bloom in my chest.
This was what normal felt like. This easy back-and-forth, this playful teasing, this sense that I could be myself without every word being weighed for hidden meanings. To him, I was just Elena—a girl who'd accidentally assaulted him and made him laugh.
Still training? Or are you actually human and do human things like sleep?
I glanced at the clock—10:47 PM, later than usual on training nights, but I'd spent an extra hour in the gym trying to work through the restlessness building in my chest. Just finished. Why?
Because I was thinking—and I know this is crazy, given that we just met and you've already physically assaulted me—but would you want to study together tomorrow? I heard you're taking International Relations. Just finished that program last year. Could help with your coursework if you want.
I stared at the message, trying to decode it the way I'd learned to decode everything—looking for hidden meanings, unstated expectations, potential traps. But there was nothing except a straightforward offer, the kind of thing that probably happened between university students all the time.
That would be really helpful actually. I have a paper due next week and I'm struggling with the theoretical framework.
Perfect. Library at 2? I'll grab us a table.
2 works. Thank you.
No problem. Just promise not to mount me in the library. People might get the wrong idea.
I laughed out loud, then quickly covered my mouth. Étienne's room was just down the hall and he'd been so strange lately, so distant and careful. The last thing I needed was him checking on me and finding me giggling at my phone.
I'll try to restrain myself. But no promises if you're wearing that wetsuit again.
Three dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again. Finally: You're dangerous. I like it.
I set the phone down and caught my reflection in the mirror—flushed cheeks, wet hair, eyes bright in a way they hadn't been in days. I looked happy. When was the last time I'd looked happy? When was the last time I'd felt this light, this unburdened?
Stop overthinking it, I told myself. He's just a boy. A nice boy who wants to help with homework. This is normal. This is what twenty-year-olds do.
But even as I thought it, anxiety curled in my stomach. That voice that sounded like Mama asking what I thought I was doing, wasting time on boys when I should be training, when I should be proving I was worth keeping. And underneath, quieter but more insistent, another voice asking what Étienne would think, whether this would disappoint him, whether making a friend—a male friend who'd said he wanted to see me again—was somehow a betrayal.
He doesn't own you, I reminded myself, but the words felt hollow. In every way that mattered, he did. He owned the roof over my head and the food I ate and the car that took me to training. He owned my gratitude and my dependence and the terror I felt at losing his protection.
My phone buzzed. I grabbed it eagerly, expecting Maxime, but it was Chloé: Tell me you're not asleep yet because I NEED to know how beach training went. Did you drown? Did you achieve enlightenment? Did you finally learn to relax???
I smiled. None of the above. But I did meet a boy.
Immediate all-caps response: WHAT. TELL ME EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW OR I'M COMING OVER.
So I told her—the wave, the panic, the surfboard that was actually a person, Maxime's easy smile and jokes instead of making me feel stupid, the Instagram messages and study date tomorrow. I left out the part about him being Étienne's nephew. That felt too complicated to explain over text, too tangled in things I wasn't thinking about.
He sounds perfect, Chloé wrote. Hot, funny, willing to help with homework, and he's already seen you unhinged so no pressure to be perfect. This is exactly what you need.
I barely know him.
That's how knowing people works. You start by barely knowing them and then you get to know them better. It's called dating. Normal people do it all the time.
I don't have time to date. I have training and classes and—
And you also have a life. Or you should. You're twenty, not a nun. You're allowed to have fun.
Was I? I wanted to ask how she could be so sure, wanted to know if other people my age felt this constant anxiety about deserving things. But Chloé's life had been so different—loving parents, stable childhood, the kind of security that let you take risks without gambling your entire existence.
I'll think about it, I typed, and she sent celebration emojis.
We chatted about nothing—her latest disaster date, class drama, a new café near campus. By the time I said goodnight, I felt more settled. More like myself. Or maybe more like the self I could be.
I was about to turn off the light when I heard footsteps in the hallway. They paused at my door. I held my breath, waiting for the knock that would mean Étienne had noticed my light, that he was checking on me the way he sometimes did when he thought I was pushing too hard or not eating enough or showing stress.
But the knock didn't come. The footsteps just stood there for what felt like forever. I imagined I could feel him on the other side, could sense the weight of his attention, that particular quality of being watched by someone who saw too much.
Then the footsteps moved away, fading toward his room, and I released a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
What was that about? But I was too tired to analyze it, too wrung out to add one more thing to the list of Étienne's inexplicable behaviors.
I turned off the light and tried not to think about tomorrow—about sitting across from Maxime in the library, talking about international relations theory, maybe making him laugh with some badly translated Bulgarian expression. Tried not to think about whether wanting something light and easy made me a terrible person, whether it was somehow betraying everything Étienne had given me.
But as I drifted toward sleep, my last conscious thought was of Maxime's smile, easy and uncomplicated and asking nothing except that I show up.
And for once, I let myself want that without drowning in guilt.