The first week with Laurent had gone so well, I barely noticed the time passing. I could move most of my hand by now, though not with much strength. My toes wiggled more easily, but they’d take more work. I could say a handful of sounds when I wanted to, but couldn’t yet say words well. Most importantly, I was feeling more refreshed and connected than I ever have in my life. It was strange to imagine the years I had spent isolated and exhausted just for a week with someone like Laurent to transform it all. I still had many of those negative thoughts and emotions, but it had become easier to stave them away when they arrived. I worried this was just a temporary phase; That the depression would fall back onto my shoulders with a force greater than ever before, as it had when I returned from rehab.

Laurent was helping me into the elevator to see Gael in his office. He’d been wanting to chat with me for a while. Gael had even offered to come up, but Laurent insisted it would be better for my mental health to get out of the apartment. He arranged the meeting at the office. I recalled the text messages he had sent me earlier in the week, asking to discuss music with me and the song he’d recorded as I slept.

My palms sweated, my chest aching just a bit. I was nervous to see Gael. Since I thought about them in new ways, my feelings for him hadn’t tortured me as much as they used to. Finally, a part of me realized we would never be together and started letting go of him without my conscious effort. I worried that if I saw him again, I might become entranced by those eyes all over again and sink deeper into hopeless love.

Laurent stopped me, moving ahead to open the frosted glass door to Gael’s office. As he passed, his floral smell wafted to me, today the scent of lilacs and lilies. I had been curious about where that scent came off of him. In the bath, I noticed his shampoo had no scent at all. He owned no colognes or perfumes I’d ever seen. Perhaps it was his laundry detergent that smelled so nice, but then how did it always change from flower to flower?

I shook the thoughts away, squeezing the arms of my wheelchair with both hands, though the right wasn’t doing so well as the left at the task. My eyes rose to where Gael sat at his desk, Laurent returning to the back of my chair to guide me in. Gael looked up at me, his eyes as focused as they often were, but warming at the sight of me. It seemed strange how ice made such heat that it would melt me from the inside, yet I melted.

“I’m glad to see you!” He exclaimed, though he still sat calmly in his chair.

I waved, loosening the fingers on my right hand to remind myself to relax as my left returned to my lap.

“I’ve gotten lots of emails from Laurent this week, and I’m glad recovery is going so well!” He said, optimistic and uncharacteristically bubbly.

It was strange, like Gael was talking to someone he didn’t know very well and wanted to be flattering. It left me uneasy.

“I wanted to discuss the music we found when we were cleaning your apartment after the, uh…” His eyes darkened, “event.”

I tried to hold his gaze, but he wouldn’t look at me as he spoke. It was isolating to see how alienated he acts when the subject of my attempt came up, even if talking about it was uncomfortable for me as well. I never used to think people would care so much about my life that they’d become so deeply affected by even the mention I may have died.

“I’ll be honest, some of it was very good and impossible not to record. I know you… didn’t really seem thrilled that I had recorded the ones I did….” He was briefly sheepish, but the mask of cold drifted back onto his face as he became ‘Gael the Band Leader.’

“I wanted to apologize for that, first and foremost,” Gael continued. “I wasn’t sure if you’d ever wake up and to be honest, seeing new songs you’d written made me feel you couldn’t really be gone. Playing them, singing them, made me close to you in a way was impossible otherwise. Digitalis would visit you in the hospital every day, but I…”

He got a little pale and averted his eyes from me again.

“I hated to be in that room. I was too afraid to face you in your sleep.” He admitted.

I reached my hand out to touch his, and he met my eyes again. Beneath the aloof face he put on, his eyes were shimmering with vulnerability and the threat of tears.

“I understand it was a breach of your boundaries.” Gael continued. His voice softened and his eyes got a little drier from my comforting touch, “I didn’t even plan on releasing them, but really, Asya… They’re amazing songs. The lyrics are good, but even the composition is so raw and unlike almost anything you’ve ever shown me. I barely had to do a thing to make it sound perfect. Hardly a thing…”

Gael’s eyebrows came together, the cold genius within him visibly at war with his emotions.

“Asya, I wanted to have this meeting with you, not only to apologize, but to ask your permission to do something. It’s difficult to ask for, because I know how sensitive those songs are to you…”

My stomach twisted into a knot. As much as I adored him, would I really let him take what I feared he’d ask for?

“I wanted to ask if you’d allow me to record and release some of those songs. I even found a bassist who worships your work who can fill in for your parts. Not to replace you, I’d never…” His eyes grew distant. “Just to be the instrument that you can’t be for now. I… I really hope you recover so we can play again. I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying to…” He trailed off, those knit eyebrows tightening.

I squeezed his hand, reassuring. I nodded slowly, though I wasn’t really ready to accept all of this. It wasn’t even the other bassist that bothered me. I would have expected him to hire someone. It was the songs…. They were so loaded up with deep and personal feelings, fears, and desires. To let the world hear them would be the same as showing up on stage wearing nothing at all.

Gael offered a tense smile and held my hand in return. He squeezed my fingers with his, still clammy from his anxious speech.

“Would you like to meet the bassist I chose?” He asked, “I really think you’ll like her. She’s young, but she’s modeled her entire play style off of yours. I guess you’re her Cyrus Blake.”

We both laughed nervously at that, but the sound added some levity to the air. Even the fact that Gael remembered my huge fan crush on Cyrus was a little funny to me.

“I think it would be good for you to meet someone new, especially someone who shares the same interest.” Laurent chided, coming out of the silence he’d placed himself into as Gael spoke.

I nodded, though I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to meet someone who was so fixated on me. What if she came on too strong? What if she had a crush on me as I had for Cyrus in my youth? Even worse, what if she bombed her entire career by focusing on my style too much and never came into her own? I didn’t want the guilt of bringing down a potential talent…

Yet Gael vouched for her. He was such an elitist about music… She must have something that caught his attention aside from just copycat skills from my work…

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“I can have her come to visit in the next few days, if it’s okay. She’s signed to join the label either way. I just hadn’t decided if she’d fill in for you or have her own independent situation yet. So, she’s also got one of the upstairs apartments.” Gael interrupted himself with a light chuckle, “Though no one really seems to enjoy living in them…”

“Yeah, it’s a bit of a ghost town in those halls.” Laurent added, the two both sharing a laugh over his comment.

“Well, now that that’s all done…” Gael started fishing for something in his desk drawers. “If I might have awhile alone with Asya, Laurent? Maybe you should relax upstairs?”

Laurent took a step past me, reaching out as Gael produced an envelope to give him. Perhaps his paycheck?

“If it’s alright, I’d like to go out and do a few errands. I need to pick up some more groceries for the week.” Laurent offered, folding the envelope and sticking it into his trouser pocket.

“That’ll be fine. If Asya needs anything in the meantime, I can take care of it.” Gael closed the desk drawer. “Remember to charge anything for the apartment to the label’s expense account. I’ll need the receipts for my accountant.”

“No worries. I’ll have it all ready when I come back.” Laurent shook his hand, squeezed my shoulder in a friendly manner, and left.

I turned my full attention to Gael, tilting my head. I didn’t expect him to have anything more for me today. His eyes were closed, and he folded his hands.

“Asya,” He started, “I don’t know how to talk about this, but if I don’t then I won’t be able to stop thinking about it.”

Tension formed a knot within me, my left hand seeking my right where it lay on my legs to squeeze it.

“I’ll be honest, when you admitted to me you had attempted suicide, I didn’t understand it. I still don’t, really.…” His face was lined with discomfort, his eyes pensive. “We’ve done events for suicide awareness in the past. But imagining something like that would be so… relevant…. I suppose I never expected it. I never took the time to ruminate about it, though I should have…”

I shifted in my chair, my hands getting sweaty like his were only minutes ago.

“When I was young, my dad always made me watch operas. You remember that?” He asked, his eyes meeting mine.

I nodded slowly, studying his eyes carefully.

“I loved many of them, but some of them I didn’t really like. A few because of the story, some because of the music, and a couple just because I didn’t understand the characters. One of those operas I never really enjoyed whenever I watched it was Madame Butterfly. Don’t get me wrong, the aria in it is unbelievable, but…. No, I’m missing the point.” He held his temples for a moment, took a deep breath.

“The reason I brought up Madame Butterfly, the reason I never connected to it, was because the protagonist did everything I wouldn’t do.” He continued, “She completely dedicates her life to a man who is clearly just using her to flatter his ego; Who obviously never wanted to come back to her once he left and never cared for her in the beginning. Yet, she latched on to him and turned down opportunity after opportunity to improve her situation. She was certain he’d return. She even changed her religion for him, which was a big deal to her family who swiftly abandoned her when they found out.”

He met my eyes, but his gaze was too guarded to read. The vulnerability there had gone.

“During the entire opera, everyone is telling her he won’t come back. She needs to move on and think of her son. She needs to be more practical and put herself into a new situation. Even when she becomes financially troubled and might lose her home, she never changes. This always frustrated me, but that’s not the point. The point comes in the ending.” Gael was speaking frantically, staring at his desk as if it were his audience.

“Her terrible husband does finally come back, but not because he ever intended to be with her…. No, he heard she had his son. He brings his actual wife, a woman from the west, with him. Suddenly, he takes her child away to live with them instead. He has truly taken everything from this woman, and she just lets him. Even with her son, she just tells the boy to go along into his father’s car without a fight or a second thought.”

I shifted, still wondering what this whole monologue was building up to. Gael was staring at his fingers, so deep in thought it was as if he were talking to himself.

“She handed her son over, dressed herself in white robes, and killed herself in the way of seppuku. I’m aware that culturally this is a way for her to recover her lost honor…. Yet, it always seemed like there was more to the suicide of her character than just cultural expectation. I couldn’t grasp it. I couldn’t fathom a reason for her to just give up every time anything came to test her. For a while, I figured it was just weak writing. The play was written to portray a woman living under the constraints of Japanese culture, but the writer was an Italian man. I thought perhaps he just didn’t understand what he was writing, and that was the reason I never figured it all out.”

I pulled out my phone, opening the note app. He didn’t notice as I typed.

“When you did the same thing, I was reminded of that opera. I wondered what made you do it. I know you were struggling, that you were going through awful events…. But I thought you still had the drive to fight in you.” He met my eyes, his gaze watery as his eyes desperately searched mine for answers.”

“You were never the person to just give up on things like that when we were young. I know we grew distant over the years and maybe I just didn’t see it in you, but I still thought.…” Gael closed his eyes and took a breath. Calmer, he continued, “So that’s why I was so shocked when I got the call about your overdose. It’s why it shook me when the band told me they suspected you probably tried to kill yourself.”

I perked up, pausing at my typing. I never considered that the band had discussed it. I wonder who it was that brought up the idea, or how obvious it had been. A wash of loneliness came over me, then. If they had guessed I’d do that to myself, why did no one reach out before I did it?

Hurriedly, I finished typing, turning the phone to Gael. He lifted his eyes to read it, the layer of sorrow draining away to make room for focus.

“I think Madame Butterfly’s story makes sense. She was holding on to a dream and didn’t want to face the cruel reality that came with giving it up. When everything fell apart, all she knew was how to dream and hope until there was nothing left to hope for. That’s why she gave up. She lost everything and didn’t have a way to get it back,” my message read.

“But… Why did you…” Gael started, but didn’t seem to want to finish.

I turned the phone back around to type a new response.

“It was the same for me.” I avoided his eyes as I pushed the phone into his hands.

A bloom of shame filled me, and I took a deep breath to push it out.

“In the opera, she had said, ‘Don’t cry for me, I’m already dead…’” his voice drifted off as his mind retreated to ruminate on his thought.

“When you’re deeply depressed, you feel dead.” I typed.

His eyes filled with pity and confusion as he read it.

“How does that… make any sense…” He massaged his temples, staring at the phone as I brought it back to my lap to type.

“Have you ever felt nothing before? Absolute numbness?” I asked.

Gael held the phone tenderly as he read, staring for a long time at my questions. With his mouth, he repeated them silently over and over.

“No,” he finally answered.

I took the phone back, laying it on my legs to put fresh words onto the screen.

“That’s what it was like for me all the time. If you feel nothing, you are full of emptiness. You don’t really feel alive, so you must be dead.” I passed the phone back and watched him read.

He sat for a moment as he had before, reading and rereading. Silently, he turned the phone off and set it on his desk. He rose and walked around the desk to me. Wordlessly, he wrapped his arms around me and cradled my head against his chest. My breath caught in my throat.

“Asya, if I had known this before, I never would have left you alone the way I did. I’m not the friend I should have been.” His voice was quavering, as if he was about to cry. Yet when I last saw his face there was nothing but his usual statue-stillness.

I shook my head, wishing I could tell him he hadn’t failed as a friend. I wanted to explain that even if they all gave me some more attention, I had to do most of the work to recover with my own effort. Still, I was mute.

I wrapped my left arm around him, taking a handful of his soft vest into my hand. We held this position for a long time, listening to each other breathe in and out, in and out. I closed my eyes and inhaled the musky scent of him.

Long ago, I would have been overwhelmed with emotion by this embrace. It was strange how now it was the same as hugging Absinthe or Digitalis.