V E R A
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Winter
The coldest months are interchangeable. For some, paradoxically, the chill brings you warmth as you seek out comfort from loved ones. There's a tenderness in the air that blankets you despite the trees being made up of naked branches. For others, the winter is a dull season where the gloominess of the sky matches the faces of those who desperately wait for spring.
I, however, am stuck in the in-between. I am neither too warm nor too dejected, rather I am partly inspired and currently facing an internal quarrel. I am unable to experience the world around me as I could only weeks ago, in saturation. The consequences of separation from someone you love enters you into a realm of liminality. I am experiencing everything through a grayscale lens.
Making up for weeks of restless sleep, I wanted nothing more than to continue hiding out in my newly-owned bedroom, post-Damien. The first seven days, I was going through such emotional misery, the same way anyone else would've. I've eaten my feelings, almost drank whatever was left of the wine cellar, and have done my due diligence by crying my eyes out to mushy romance films. The next seven days after that, I began redecorating the hollow home, catching myself making changes I thought Damien would've liked. I've taken on his study as my own, filled his empty walls with my pieces, and have restained his dark walnut furniture to a dusty white oak.
"Do you ever plan on unboxing those paintings of yours?" I remember asking when I first moved in with him, courtesy of an unnamed stalker frenzy.
"One day." He replied as he usually does, always leaving me on my toes.
He had taken almost everything in his study with him but still, those cardboard boxes remained untouched in the living room. Although nosey, I forgo opening the rest of them as the last time I approached those boxes, he snuck up on me and told me about the lady in one of the paintings—his mother. Romance aside, he is still an artist to me, with visions that only he can explain. Each painting in those boxes is part of his memoir that has yet to be told and because of that, I leave them where they are, dust collecting with the tape.
Maybe this is me being optimistic, hoping he'd suddenly walk through the front door, sit down on that familiar leather couch, and spill his heart out. That is a pipe dream, I tell myself.
As most freshly heartbroken people can attest, it feels below temperature when you're no longer in close proximity with your person. As opposed to before, even if you weren't skin to skin with said lover, you were still cloaked in their presence, and knowing they were a few steps away is what kept you safe. Now, when I lay in our—my bed, no matter how many blankets I wrap myself in, I am still covered in goosebumps and chills are coursing throughout my body.
I blame it on the crack of winter but this is more than a seasonal change.
Still stuck in a liminal fever, I've been steadily going through the motions for the past twenty-two days. The routine I followed before, heavily dependent on Damien, had me waking up to watch the sunrise beside him, a cup of coffee always in hand. We'd soak in the beginning of our days together, go through our mundane tasks, and then spend the night steeped in each other's company. It is currently mid-afternoon on a Sunday and I have been asleep for the past seventeen hours.
Hearing the wind chimes whistle at the front door, I am immediately made aware that none other than Cordelia Moreau has made her way into the house. She clinks the percussion against the glass door as a way of telling me that it is her and not an intruder. Although, her appearances have become more frequent, and is running a very thin line of being borderline trespassing. She and Nicolas have only been looking out for me these past few weeks but I can't help but feel like I've been demoted and placed under child supervision.
The floorboards nearing the bedroom start to creak and I know she's about to do everything in her power to get me out of bed. This has been the fourth time this week she has had to pry the blankets from my body.
"I know you know I'm here. If you don't get out of bed in the next thirty seconds, I'm throwing everything you own off of the balcony," her voice comes out muffled and I push my face deeper into the satin-sheet pillow in hopes she'll go away.
She then drags the top comforter off of my body and I am left wrapped in silk. I shift and roll around the bed, wrapping myself completely with the thin bedding so that she's unable to pull this one off as well and in turn, have to physically drag me from the mattress. Instead of pushing like she normally does, I feel a weight drop at the edge of the bed and peak up at her. She is now still, sitting and patiently waiting for me. A bit suspicious at her actions as Cordelia is never one for peace, I grudgingly push myself up, as well as the pillows, and lean against the backboard.
"No lecturing or cruel castigation today?" I ask, fully yawning despite post-hibernation.
She turns to me and only gives me a soft smile and I raise my eyebrows, concerned at who took my Cordelia from me because the lady currently sitting in front of me is made up of gentle expressions and radiating sentiment.
"Why do you look like that?" I question, unraveling from my sheet cocoon. She immediately drops her sweet face and gives me an offended look.
"What do you mean, why do I look like that?" She tries to defend herself and it gets a weak laugh out of me.
"Every time you come here, you are either threatening to drag me down the staircase or physically nagging me until I'm forced to get up...today you're just sitting there," I explain, crossing my arms.
All she does is nod. She places her hand down onto the bed, trying to reach out for mine and I follow through with the affectionate gesture. There's a lecture coming, I can feel it. She opens her mouth to speak and closes it again, trying to pick the right words to say. There's nowhere to be and so I just patiently wait for her thoughts to catch up to her. And then she says only a few syllables with near-fatal depth.
"Babe, it's time," she gives me that look. The one that tells me she can't keep enabling me.
I debate retreating under the covers and spending another day refusing to face this feeling head-on. I've mentally fought with myself for quite a while, wondering how another human being can have this much control over my wellbeing and it leaves me mindblown how difficult it is to experience something as precious as love. In contradiction, it is all too painful, gut-wrenching, on-the-edge kamikaze and yet, I believe this is the only way to tell if it's real.
Habitually picking at the beds of my nails, I reluctantly agree with Cordelia as although it hasn't been even a month, everyone and I knew that it was time for me to get back to my life. I've wasted too many minutes, blankly staring at walls and lonely sipping from a cerulean mug.
Shifting the sheets from my body, I force my legs one by one off of the bed. I feel like an infant learning to walk for the first time but the cold wooden floor sends shocks through my body, yelling at me to wake up and push. Grabbing a hair clip from the nightstand, I pull what is a mess of my hair into some kind of chaotic bun and pin it in its place, although there is very little luck as pieces naturally fall.
"Why are you so adamant that I get out of bed anyway?" I walk into the closet, looking for a pair of sweatpants to change into.
"Number one, you shouldn't have given me a key if you didn't want me to check up on you," she responds. "Two, I actually wanted to take you somewhere today."
Cordelia finds her way into the closet and gently pushes me out of the way, making me sit down on the cushioned ottoman placed in the middle of the spacious wardrobe. I groan but am too drained to protest whatever she has planned and so I just watch her go through a couple of drawers, grabbing the complete opposite of leisurewear.
She turns around to look at me, gesturing for me to follow her into the bathroom. Dragging myself through another doorway, Cordelia places the clothes she picked out onto one of the counters and pulls a towel from a bamboo rack. I laugh, observing her every move as she is slyly making it known she's in charge here. Leaning against the edge of the bathtub, I wait for her to continue spewing instructions.
"You're going to shower and I'm going to be waiting for you downstairs," she turns around and huffs out the demand. "Make it quick."
She is in one of her I'm-a-determined-woman moods and so I simply reply, "Yes, ma'am."
We both nod at each other in agreement and before leaving, she pauses to look around the room and shakes her head at every new detail she finds. She had the same look on her face when I first entered the house. There are so many intricacies to fall in love with, so many elements despite every room being quite bare. Only one person could ever put this much thought, this much perfection into something. Why they'd ever chosen to leave, was still a question I had yet to answer.
"I can't believe he left you his frickin' house," she stands by the bamboo doors in awe. "There's no way..."
Her voice trails off and she doesn't finish her thought, although there is already a glut of things I've made up in my head to do it for her. The list begins and ends with, there's no way you two weren't meant to be together. I don't follow through with asking her what she was going to say.
I only respond with, "I mean, the man broke my heart. It was the least he could do."
The joke is somewhat lighthearted, somewhat painful, however, it makes the both of us laugh and as she gives me the same soft smile from before, in the midst of feeling like my world has ended, I am thankful to have her around.
❦
It took no more than thirty minutes for Cordelia to wake me up, force me into the shower, make myself somewhat presentable to the world, and get me out of the house. The only bare clue I was given as to where we were going was a cryptic sentence, somewhere along the lines of, "This might make things clearer for you." I sink into the passenger seat and let her drive us wherever she wants.
I ended up falling asleep for the duration of the drive and I feel Cordelia nudge me awake when we're in a tiny parking lot with less than four cars. Exiting the car, I try to look around and make sense of our surroundings until my eyes finally land on a black building behind me. I walk beside Cordelia and as we get closer to the unfamiliar edifice, there are faded words on the glass entrance—Musée Dupont.
Turning to her, I shoot her an inquisitive look as the name is not a foreign one.
"Hmm?" I question through mouthy noise and she only pulls the door open for me to walk inside.
Getting acquainted with the obscure place, it is significantly smaller than the only museum I'm used to and it isn't as adorned with huge sculptures or renovated with modern decorations. I can only describe it as quaint and cozy, something nostalgic of the '50s and possibly a routine place where old lovers might find themselves every weekend. There is only the lobby and then a curved hallway with dimmed lights and carpet-clad walls made up of framed paintings. I also notice a single record player is sitting at the beginning of the hall, playing none other than Édith Piaf. Cordelia is already ahead of me, talking to someone at the front desk who she seems to know.
She returns to me, still silent and we steadily make our way down the hallway. We walk in slow strides, allowing me to take in every framed piece of work. There are barely any statements to each segment aside from the title. I take in each as its own, admiring the strokes as an individual story and the feeling I get from all of them is balmy. Some depict landscapes of nature and lit up cities through pointillism with tiny dots and strokes resembling people while others are made up of abstract shapes and colorways, allowing your eyes to flow in hypnotic directions.
We reach the end of the hallway and move away from carpet lining and dim lights and into an atrium-like opening, where the ceiling is made with traditional mosaic glass, the sun causing each color to create prisms on the walls. Although still curious where we are, I'm full of gratitude as Cordelia allows me to take in everything on my own and with silence. I break the stillness by finally asking her about the place.
"Mind telling me why we're here?"
Similar to Damien's manner, she doesn't say a word but grabs my hand and leads me down another shorter hallway, into a small velvet-encased room with a lone framed painting hanging on the back wall. There are only two single lights on the ceiling, showcasing the individual piece. I close my eyes and am washed with waves of familiarity. The room is suffused with a mix of amber, musk, leather, and traces of citrus. A scent I know all too well. Similar to the one in the lobby, there is another record player in one of the corners, except the tune that plays causes me to break into an awful laugh, quickly watering my eyes.
"Is there a soundtrack for that film you were talking about? The one about the rat?" He asked me one night and I remember bursting out in laughter that he had asked me.
We moved into his study for the remainder of the night and got wasted on bubbly champagne, where I then played the animation's tracklist. We danced to Le Festin and ended up on the floor, completely drained by the time the main theme filled the room. I recall watching him with his eyes closed, his exhausted breaths instantly becoming measured again. It was such a child-like moment, to see him fall into a peaceful state as the notes bounced off the walls.
We fell asleep on the living room couch that night, the same tune on repeat, echoing throughout the house as we relaxed in each other's arms.
Cordelia nudges me forward with a nod and I walk closer to the gold-clad framed art piece. The sentimental score plays through and I look up at the many strokes. A girl is sitting on what seems to be a leather couch, drinking from a cerulean blue mug, the one with the chip in it, doing what she always did—watching the moon watch her. I glance over to the artist statement and it is once again left anonymous but I am already told everything I need to know as it is titled, Her Name Is Vera. There is a single sentence.
In every lifetime, I am yours.
I scavenge the painting for his initials and I find them written in the corner of the window. Cordelia finally speaks and goes on to explain the reasoning behind why she has brought me here.
"This little museum has been in his family for decades. There are only household, original pieces displayed here, mostly his. Pieces he wants to preserve for as long as he can," she speaks in low volume. "He hides in these paintings. It's the one place you'll ever get to know him at his most vulnerable without having to use words,"
"He painted this when you first went to live with him. That man loved you way before he could even understand it himself," her words have the slightest reassurance that maybe he and I would make it when the right time came. "I don't think he had the courage to ever show you this place so I did it for him. For the both of you."
She gives me a proper grin, insinuating how proud she is of herself before continuing to speak.
"You may not realize it...because he did what he usually does, he leaves," her voice is filled with mild irritation for the stubborn man but she shakes it off as soon as it becomes noticeable. "But that heart of yours has saved him in ways that neither me nor Nicolas...nor the human race could ever do."
It was like her words detonated some kind of trigger clasp because as soon as they came out of her mouth, there were messy tears violently falling from my eyes. I have been on this earth for twenty-one years and no one has ever put me on a pedestal as grand as that one. She lets me fall apart and I take more than a few minutes to collect myself. I breathe giggles into a handkerchief she gave me and I can't stop laughing as I have never cried so out loud before. All I can do is give Cordelia a long overdue hug in an attempt to communicate that she has been both my sanctum and the impetus I needed to get through the kind of heartbreak that has enough strength to wilt plants.
I then settle for another minute, stuck on the thought of how someone can put this much effort into something like this and still find themselves walking away from love as heavy.
"He has a funny way of showing it," I whisper weakly, sniffling away any remaining tears.
"Reread what he has written, my love," she brings her hand up to my chin and gently taps, redirecting me back towards the painting. "He belongs to you in a continuum of eternities."
I've already made the conclusion weeks prior but this moment writes it in stone. There is love to be found anywhere and everywhere but the love I have found in him consists of everything challenge and chaos, maybe even anarchical at times, and most of all—passion.
When you come across this kind of thing, you do not give it up for even the world's largest sum because just like he is to me, in every lifetime, I am his.