Chapter 19 — Too high

I ran.

Very badly.

That should be clarified.

I wasn’t someone who ran often, except perhaps mentally, and even then mostly toward imaginary catastrophes. My legs had not received the memo. They charged down the narrow passage with disorganized enthusiasm, my flashlight shaking in one hand, my keys in the other, my heart far too high in my throat.

Ahead of me, Liora was faster.

Obviously.

She wasn’t even really running.

She moved with the natural efficiency of people whose bodies had always been used to do things, not merely carry anxiety from one place to another.

“Liora!” her father called behind us.

She barely slowed.

Not enough.

“I heard him!”

“So did we,” he replied.

“Then he’s there!”

“That isn’t a reason to...”

She had already turned at the end of the passage.

I followed.

The courtyard reappeared all at once, darker now. The lobby light cast a yellow rectangle across the paving stones. Liora’s mother was still beside the wall, bowl of treats in her hand, towel over one forearm. She saw us coming and immediately straightened.

“Where is he?”

“Behind the shed,” Liora answered. “Or on top. Well, behind it. We heard him.”

“Is he meowing?”

I tried to answer.

A sound came out.

Not a word.

Very useful.

Liora glanced at me.

Not to judge.

To check.

Then she turned to her mother.

“Yes. Faintly.”

The word faintly sounded terrible coming from her. It didn’t suit her energy. It seemed to force her to hold something delicately between two fingers when everything in her wanted to seize it with both hands.

Her father arrived behind us.

“We need to understand exactly where he is before doing anything.”

“He’s trapped,” Liora said.

“Probably.”

“Then we need to get him out.”

“Yes. Methodically.”

She closed her eyes for half a second.

I knew that expression.

Methodically had just become an obstacle.

I looked at the bicycle shed.

From the courtyard, its roof was higher than it had seemed from the back.

Not very high.

That was the problem.

Not high enough to immediately call dangerous.

Too high to fall from without consequences.

About six feet, perhaps. Six and a half with the ledge. A flat roof covered in dead leaves, pressed against the wall of the neighboring building. Behind it, a tangle of ducts, grates, and pipes formed a dark, narrow area forgotten by all architectural logic.

Exactly the kind of place a cat might consider an excellent decision.

I approached.

“Eugène?”

Nothing.

Then, a few seconds later, a meow.

Clearer this time.

Short.

Rough.

My body moved toward the wall.

So did Liora’s.

Her father held one hand in front of her.

“No.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“You were about to.”

“Yes, because he’s up there.”

“And you’re staying down here.”

“Dad...”

“Liora.”

He was a father before anything else.

I raised the flashlight toward the roof.

The beam trembled over the leaves, the marks in the dust, the old deflated ball, then finally caught a shape.

Gray.

White.

Round.

My breath stopped.

“There.”

Everyone froze.

Eugène was sitting behind a pipe on a slightly lower section of the roof, nearly wedged between the wall and a metal duct. He didn’t appear trapped in the dramatic sense.

Not injured.

Not sprawled out.

Not crushed.

Sitting.

Very upright.

His ears were slightly lowered, admittedly.

But he sat with the insulting dignity of an animal who had mobilized four humans, interrupted an argument, compromised an evening, and probably believed the real problem was the absence of a cushion.

Relief struck me so violently it almost hurt.

Then another panic immediately took its place.

He was there.

Now we had to retrieve him.

Without making him fall.

Without letting him jump toward the street.

Without anyone getting hurt.

Without me, ideally, becoming a local news item.

“Eugène,” I whispered.

He turned his head.

Looked at me.

Then meowed.

Once.

As though slightly annoyed by the quality of the service.

“He’s alive,” Liora said.

Her voice broke on alive.

Barely.

Enough for me to hear.

I kept my eyes on Eugène.

“Yes.”

The word contained nothing.

And everything.

I took one step toward the shed.

“We need a ladder.”

“The building manager has one,” Liora’s father said.

“Is he here?”

“Probably not at this hour.”

“We can call him,” her mother said.

“Or the fire department,” Liora added.

Her father looked at her.

“The fire department for a cat?”

“People call the fire department for cats.”

“The fire department has other emergencies.”

“Fine. The building manager, then.”

“I can also check the utility room,” he said. “There may be a stepladder.”

I continued staring at Eugène.

He was barely moving.

Which was a good sign.

Or bad.

Very convenient.

“We shouldn’t push him into moving,” I said.

My voice was returning.

Not entirely.

But it had regained a shape.

“If he gets scared, he might go farther behind the ducts.”

“Or jump,” Liora said.

No one answered.

Thank you again.

Useless certainties did not need confirmation.

Her mother placed the bowl of treats on the ground beside the wall.

“We can try to draw him over gently.”

She shook it slightly.

The sound made Eugène raise his head.

Oh.

Fine.

Civilization still held together through appetite.

“Eugène, come here, sweetheart.”

Her mother had a gentle voice.

Not syrupy.

Gentle in a practical sense. A voice that wasn’t trying to persuade the entire courtyard, only the cat.

Eugène looked at the bowl.

Then at me.

Then at the pipe.

Then stayed where he was.

Of course.

He had to participate in the dramatic tension.

An animal with terrible taste.

Liora stepped toward the wall.

“He can climb down there.”

She indicated a route.

Trash can.

Wall.

Edge of the shed.

Pipe.

A kind of absurd staircase only a cat, an athletic person, or someone who had completely lost all sense of caution could consider.

“Or someone could climb up that way,” she added.

No.

The word appeared in my head before my mouth.

Her father said it aloud.

“No.”

“Dad, I can just climb onto the wall. Not the roof.”

“No.”

“Look, it’s low.”

“It isn’t low.”

“For me, it is.”

“That isn’t an argument.”

She turned toward me.

Mistake.

Terrible mistake.

I saw in her eyes that she was looking for an ally.

Or perhaps permission.

Or simply someone who understood that waiting was eating through her from the inside.

“Aurèl, I can reach him.”

“No.”

The answer came immediately.

Too sharply.

Liora remained still.

I almost felt guilty.

Then Eugène meowed again.

More weakly.

The guilt vanished.

“We’re getting a ladder,” I said.

“That’ll take time.”

“Too bad.”

“He’s there now.”

“Exactly.”

Her jaw tightened.

“If we wait, he might move.”

“If you climb, he might panic.”

“He knows me.”

“He likes you, but he’s allergic to common sense.”

“Aurèl.”

“Liora.”

Her name came out unusually.

Lower.

Harder.

She heard it.

So did her father.

Her mother probably did too.

I heard it most clearly afterward.

Like an object dropped too hard.

Liora lowered her eyes, then looked at the shed.

“I want to help.”

“I know.”

“No, you think I only want to rush in.”

I didn’t answer.

Because that was partly true.

Because it was partly false.

Because I didn’t know how to say both without knocking something else over.

She continued more quickly:

“I can climb onto the wall, hold the grate, and reach behind the pipe. I don’t need to step onto the roof. Just get him to come toward me.”

“And if you slip?”

“I’m not going to slip.”

A dangerous sentence.

Extremely dangerous.

I recognized it immediately.

The physical version of every time she said she had it under control, that she could manage, that it would be fine, that her body would follow because it always had.

“You don’t know that,” I said.

“I know what my body can do.”

That sentence.

It wasn’t arrogant.

Not exactly.

It was built on years of practice, training, reflexes, exhaustion endured, and limits pushed often enough that they had begun to resemble suggestions.

I understood.

It didn’t reassure me.

“Exactly,” her father said.

Liora shot him a look.

“Not now.”

“Yes. Now.”

Liora’s mother intervened gently.

“We’re going to find something safe to climb with.”

“By the time we find it, he could fall.”

“And by the time you climb too quickly, so could you,” her father said.

She inhaled sharply.

I saw that the sentence had struck her.

Too directly.

Not because it was unfair.

Because it wasn’t unfair enough.

Eugène moved.

Everyone turned.

He edged his head out from behind the pipe, placed one paw on the flat section, hesitated, then moved backward again.

“No, no, no,” I breathed.

As though the cat would understand repeated negation in a vertical emergency.

Liora stepped forward.

“We have to do something.”

“We are doing something,” I said.

“No. We’re watching.”

I turned toward her.

The argument was still in her voice.

Not the same one.

Not the exhibition.

Not the email.

But the same root.

Me wanting to hold the space.

Her unable to tolerate stillness when someone was hurting.

Even if that someone was an obese cat wedged behind a duct and not actually in pain.

“Finding a method is doing something,” I said.

“Not quickly enough.”

“For you.”

She opened her mouth.

Closed it again.

Liora’s mother bent down and picked up the bowl.

“I’ll try from the other side.”

She carefully moved around the wall, barely shaking the bowl.

Her father took out his phone.

“I’m calling the building manager.”

Finally.

A stable decision.

Adult.

Appropriate.

He dialed.

Silence.

“Voicemail.”

Fine.

Stability had just hung up.

Liora raised her eyes toward the roof.

I saw her change before she moved.

Her body made a decision.

Not her face.

Her body.

“Liora, no.”

Too late.

She had already placed one foot on the lower part of the wall.

“I’m only climbing here.”

“Get down.”

“I’m just looking.”

Her father took two steps forward.

“Liora.”

“I’m stable.”

She gripped the metal grate with one hand.

Her shoe found a hold between two stones.

The movement was fluid.

Too fluid.

That was the problem.

She didn’t climb like someone taking a risk.

She climbed like someone performing a familiar movement.

An almost ordinary one.

Her sleeve slipped slightly up her forearm.

Her fingers tightened around the grate.

The fabric of her pants brushed against the wall.

Her left foot settled onto a tiny projection I wouldn’t even have called a foothold.

“Liora, get down,” her father said.

This time, his voice trembled.

Very slightly.

She didn’t answer.

“I can see him better from here,” she said.

She was on the wall now, level with the edge of the shed.

Not on the roof yet.

Not quite.

Just high enough for my entire body to reject the scene.

I calculated too late.

The height.

The distance.

The hard ground.

The angle of her ankle.

The damp ledge.

The flashlight shaking so badly in my hand that the beam moved from her shoulder to the wall, then Eugène, then the empty space.

“Don’t move too quickly,” I said.

Very useful.

Telling Liora that was probably like advising rain to fall in moderation.

But she nodded.

“I know.”

No.

She didn’t.

Or she knew something else.

She knew her strength.

Not what fear did to movement

She reached one hand toward Eugène.

“Eugène... come here.”

Her voice was gentle.

Too gentle for what she was doing with her body.

Eugène looked at her.

An entirely absurd thought passed through me.

If he came toward her, I would forgive many things.

Him.

Her.

Possibly even the exhibition organizers.

Eugène took one step forward.

Then another.

Liora smiled.

Barely.

“There. Come here.”

Her mother shook the treats from the other side.

The sound traveled up to the roof.

Eugène hesitated.

He looked at Liora.

Then the bowl.

Then me.

I wanted to promise him anything.

Tuna.

A new cushion.

Temporary permission to sleep on my keyboard.

Limited territorial expansion.

Everything.

“Come here,” I said.

My voice was ridiculous.

Full.

He moved forward again.

Liora extended her arm a little farther.

“I can almost reach him.”

“Don’t grab him,” I said.

“I’m just going to...”

“Don’t grab him.”

She stopped.

Her fingers a few inches from Eugène.

He sniffed her hand.

Of course.

The most delicate moment of our week, and the gentleman was conducting an olfactory inspection.

Then Eugène did what cats always did when several humans invested their entire emotional stability in one simple trajectory.

He changed his mind.

Abruptly.

He turned around, slipped behind the pipe, slid along the duct, then jumped onto a lower section of the roof.

“Eugène!”

Everything happened in fragments.

Liora turning.

Her right foot searching for support.

The old ball rolling across the roof.

Her father saying her name more loudly.

Liora’s hand releasing the grate for one second.

Eugène jumping down with perfect control onto the trash can.

Me moving forward too late.

Liora trying to follow him with her eyes.

Her left shoe slipping.

The sharp scrape of the sole against stone.

Her body tipping.

Not far.

Not like in a movie.

Not enough for the world to truly slow down.

Only a mistake.

A bad angle.

One human second.

She tried to catch herself on the grate.

Her hand caught the metal.

Her right foot came down toward the ground.

But too quickly.

Too twisted.

Her ankle folded.

A sound escaped her mouth.

Not a full cry.

A short, strangled sound.

She fell onto her side, her knee striking the paving stone, one hand still gripping the wall.

I was beside her without understanding how.

“Liora.”

Her name had come out of me.

Not loudly.

Not gently.

Bare.

Her father arrived almost at the same time.

“Liora!”

“I’m fine,” she said immediately.

Obviously.

Obviously.

She was on the ground with one hand against the wall, her face white, saying she was fine.

I hated that sentence with immediate violence.

“Don’t move,” I said.

“I’m fine.”

“Don’t move.”

She looked at me.

Her eyes were bright.

With pain.

With anger.

Both.

“It’s nothing. I just landed badly.”

“You just fell.”

“Not really.”

I stared at her.

“Not really?”

Fine.

My voice had just entered new territory.

Too calm.

Far too calm.

Liora tried to bring her leg beneath her.

Her face tightened.

She stopped.

The silence that followed was much louder than any cry.

Her father crouched beside her.

“Where?”

“Ankle.”

“Which ankle?”

“Left.”

“Can you move your toes?”

“Dad.”

“Answer.”

She closed her eyes.

Moved her foot slightly.

Her face twisted.

“Yes.”

Her mother arrived with the towel and the bowl of treats.

And Eugène.

Because while Liora had been falling, Eugène had calmly jumped from the trash can to the ground, then approached the bowl as though the entire operation had always been intended to organize outdoor catering.

He was eating.

He was eating.

I looked at my cat.

Then at Liora on the ground.

Then at my cat again.

Part of my brain noted that humor still existed somewhere, but very far away, inside a locked room.

“He’s here,” Liora’s mother said gently.

I couldn’t answer.

Eugène raised his head, crumbs of dry food beside his whiskers.

No remorse.

No awareness.

No moral participation.

Liora’s father removed his jacket and placed it behind her so she could lean back.

“Don’t put any weight on it.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t know thirty seconds ago.”

She gave him a look.

Then turned away.

Her breathing was fast.

She was trying to control it.

The effort showed.

That was new.

Or rather, it was the first time her body refused to support the official statement.

Liora’s mother held the bowl out to me.

“Aurèl, take Eugène.”

I finally moved.

I approached the cat.

“Come here.”

My voice was still shaking.

Eugène allowed himself to be picked up with scandalous ease.

As though he had never considered escaping.

As though we were the strange ones in this story.

I held him against me.

He was warm.

Heavy.

Real.

His heart beat against my forearm.

The relief returned.

Then immediately collided with Liora sitting on the ground, one hand wrapped around her ankle.

I couldn’t receive it completely.

Not now.

Eugène was alive.

And Liora was in pain.

The two facts refused to fit in the same place.

“Can you stand?” her father asked.

“Yes.”

“Without putting weight on it?”

She answered too quickly.

“Yes.”

“Liora.”

“I can.”

She placed one hand against the wall, the other on her father’s arm, and tried to stand.

She almost succeeded.

Then her left foot touched the ground.

Her face emptied.

Not for long.

One second.

But I saw it.

She sat back down immediately, despite herself.

And then, finally, she said nothing.

That was the worst.

I tightened my hold on Eugène.

He purred.

Of course.

Excellent timing.

“It’s probably a sprain,” her mother said.

Calm voice.

Practical.

“We need ice.”

“I don’t need ice,” Liora said.

“Yes, you do,” her mother replied.

“I only need to walk it off.”

“No,” her father said.

“I know my body.”

This time, I laughed.

Not really a laugh.

Something dry.

Ugly.

Everyone looked at me.

Liora especially.

I stared at her.

“You knew the wall too.”

Her mouth opened slightly.

Then closed.

The sentence had been too harsh.

I knew immediately.

I didn’t take it back.

Not yet.

The fear was still too close to my skin.

Her father looked at me too, but said nothing.

Maybe because he was thinking the same thing.

Maybe because he could see I wasn’t lecturing her.

I was holding a living cat against me so I wouldn’t shake.

Liora looked away.

“I wanted to help.”

Her voice was quiet.

Not defensive this time.

Or less so.

I closed my eyes for a second.

There.

That was the problem.

She had wanted to help.

It was true.

Entirely true.

And that was exactly why I was furious.

Because she hadn’t climbed to show off.

She hadn’t climbed to prove she was right.

She had climbed because she had seen my fear and wanted to stop it with her body.

The way she stopped everything.

Quickly.

Forcefully.

By putting herself in the middle.

I opened my eyes.

“I know.”

She looked up.

I continued more quietly:

“That’s what makes me sick.”

She didn’t answer.

Her mother stood.

“We’re going inside. Now.”

“To our apartment,” her father said.

“The studio is closer,” I said.

The words escaped before I could think.

Everyone looked at me.

I immediately hated having become someone who offered his apartment during a family situation.

But it was true.

My studio was five floors away by elevator or stairs, but closer to the building entrance than their apartment according to the route from the courtyard?

No.

Absurd.

It wasn’t closer at all.

Not remotely.

My brain had invented an emotional geography.

Fine.

I continued:

“I mean... I have ice. And Eugène needs to be put inside. But you also have ice. Probably. You’re a functional family.”

Silence.

Liora’s mother looked at me.

Then, unexpectedly, smiled very slightly.

“We have ice.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“But your apartment is directly beside ours.”

“Yes.”

“And she can sit at your place while we see whether she can get back to ours afterward.”

Liora’s father looked ready to object.

Then he looked at his daughter.

Then her ankle.

“Fine.”

Liora raised her eyes.

“I can walk.”

Three voices answered at the same time:

“No.”

Mine too.

Too quickly.

She looked at me.

I didn’t take the word back.

Not this time.

“You can’t always repair things by climbing faster than everyone else,” I said.

The sentence fell.

More gently than expected.

More heavily too.

Liora remained still.

Her face changed.

Not only hurt by her ankle.

Struck somewhere else.

I regretted the sentence and held onto it at the same time.

Unfair in form.

True at its center.

A hateful combination.

“I didn’t want to scare you,” she said.

I looked at Eugène.

Then her.

“Too late.”

She lowered her eyes.

Her father placed one arm beneath hers.

“We stand slowly. No weight on the left.”

“Dad, I can...”

“No negotiation.”

Liora’s mother folded the towel, retrieved the bowl, then handed me the container of mackerel.

“Keep this in case you need to lure him.”

“Now that he’s in my arms?”

She looked at Eugène, who was already turning his head toward the smell.

“Especially now.”

I took the container awkwardly in one hand, Eugène in my other arm.

Liora stood with her father’s help.

She made a small hop on her right foot.

Her face remained closed.

Too closed.

She was in pain.

She was trying to treat the pain like a logistical detail.

Fortunately, her body was beginning to betray the official version.

We crossed the courtyard very slowly.

It was strange to see Liora move slowly.

Not slowing by choice.

Slowing because she had to.

Each movement seemed to cost her more than the pain itself. Her father supported her on one side. Her mother walked on the other, ready to intervene. I followed with Eugène against me, useless and necessary at the same time.

The cat continued purring.

Liora heard him.

She turned her head.

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” I said.

“He’s purring?”

“He thinks it was a successful outing.”

A tiny laugh escaped her.

Then she immediately grimaced.

“Don’t make me laugh.”

“I hadn’t planned to.”

“Your face can be funny on its own.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t an insult.”

“Very reassuring.”

Her father gave us a look.

Not exactly stern.

Exhausted.

Perhaps slightly relieved too.

“Can we avoid absurd conversations while she is limping?”

“It’s my pain-management method,” Liora said.

“It isn’t working.”

“A little.”

“No.”

Liora’s mother pressed the elevator button.

We waited.

The lobby was too brightly lit.

Everything looked ordinary now.

Mailboxes.

Plastic plants.

A building notice reminding residents not to leave bulky waste in the trash room.

There was something indecent about buildings continuing to look like buildings after a fear.

The elevator arrived.

Small.

Obviously.

We entered with questionable coordination.

Liora’s father supporting Liora.

Her mother carrying the bowl and the towel.

Me carrying Eugène.

Eugène possessing no spatial awareness whatsoever.

He tried to place one paw on my shoulder to inspect the panel of buttons.

“No,” I murmured.

He insisted.

“Not now.”

Liora exhaled.

“Maybe he wants to choose the floor.”

“He has already chosen enough things tonight.”

She looked down at her ankle.

“Yes.”

Silence.

The elevator rose.

First.

Second.

Third.

The mechanical noise sounded too loud.

I looked at Liora in the spotted mirror at the back of the car.

Mistake.

Our eyes met in the reflection.

Not for long.

Enough.

Her eyes were bright.

Not actual tears.

But something trembled in her face, and it had nothing to do with the exhibition.

Or perhaps it did.

Maybe everything touched.

The email.

The wall.

The refusal to wait.

The desire to help.

The body moving faster than everything else.

Me asking for a second.

Her hearing an escape.

Her climbing.

Me panicking.

Fifth floor.

The doors opened.

The hallway received us.

My door was still partly open.

Fine.

Excellent pet ownership.

Studio open, cat missing, neighbor injured.

A complete file.

We entered my apartment.

The rabbit was still in his corner.

He raised his head.

Saw four and a half humans, one recovered cat, a bowl of treats, a towel, and a dramatic atmosphere.

He immediately retreated into his shelter.

A healthy reaction.

I placed Eugène on the floor.

Mistake.

He immediately tried to return to the door.

I caught him by reflex.

“No.”

This time, everyone said it with me.

Eugène stopped.

Perhaps surprised by the first coherent collective decision of the evening.

I placed him in the bathroom and closed the door.

Temporarily.

Very temporarily.

He immediately meowed behind it.

Scandalized.

“Complain,” I told him through the door. “Please. You’ve suffered tremendously.”

Liora was sitting on my couch.

Her father had helped her settle with her leg stretched out on a cushion. Her mother had already removed her shoe carefully.

The sock followed.

Her ankle was swollen.

Not enormously.

But too much.

Liora looked away.

“Is it ugly?” she asked.

Her mother gently felt around it.

“It isn’t catastrophic.”

“So it’s ugly.”

“It’s swollen.”

“Mom.”

“Yes, it’s a little ugly.”

Liora closed her eyes.

“Great.”

Her father straightened.

“You’ll need to see someone if the pain doesn’t improve, and no practice until...”

“No.”

One word.

Immediate.

She opened her eyes.

“No. I can’t stop.”

No one spoke.

There.

We had arrived.

Not the fall.

Not only that.

The consequence.

Her body as a tool.

Her body as evidence.

Her body as the place where she stored her certainty when everything else moved too quickly.

“Liora,” her mother said.

“The championship is coming up.”

“Exactly.”

“I can’t show up after missing a week.”

“You are not running tomorrow on a swollen ankle.”

“We don’t know whether it will still be swollen tomorrow.”

Her father looked at her ankle.

“It’s swollen now.”

“Thank you for the observation, Dad.”

“You’re welcome.”

She ran one hand over her face.

For the first time, she looked truly young.

Not weak.

Not small.

Only brutally returned to something she couldn’t control.

I remained beside the kitchen, unable to find my place.

My studio was full.

Full of people.

Full of receding fear.

Full of Liora on my couch, leg extended, jaw clenched.

I took ice from the freezer.

Wrapped it in a clean dish towel.

Then looked at the towel.

Not clean enough?

Fine.

My brain had just considered starting a wash cycle during a crisis.

I took another towel.

Same problem.

Liora’s mother appeared beside me.

“That one is perfectly fine.”

She gently took it from my hands, as though she knew I was about to enter a textile dead end.

“Thank you.”

“Breathe, Aurèl.”

I looked at her.

She wasn’t offering vague advice.

She was merely noting a functional omission.

I inhaled.

Not enough.

She returned to Liora with the ice.

I remained there for a second.

Then approached the couch.

Not too close.

Liora placed the ice over her ankle.

Her face tightened.

“You okay?” her father asked.

“Yes.”

I looked at her.

She saw me.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Say it.”

“No.”

“Aurèl.”

My name.

Again.

Even injured, pale, and furious at her own ankle, she managed to say it like a direct grip.

I lowered my eyes to her leg.

“Stop saying you’re fine when you aren’t.”

Silence fell.

Dense.

Liora stared at the ice.

“It’s a habit.”

“A bad one.”

“You have those too.”

“Many.”

“There.”

“This one is still bad.”

She looked up.

We could have started again.

Argued.

Hurt each other neatly with precise sentences.

But she was on my couch with a swollen ankle wrapped in a dish towel, and Eugène was meowing behind the bathroom door like a supporting actor protesting his lack of screen time.

So she didn’t answer.

Not really.

She only said:

“I wanted him to stop scaring you.”

That sentence.

It found a precise place.

Very bad.

Very tender.

I sat on the coffee table facing her.

Her father was right there.

So was her mother.

No possibility of romance.

Thankfully.

Or not.

“He stopped.”

She gave a breathless laugh.

“Not because of me.”

I thought about the roof.

Her outstretched hand.

Eugène moving because she had climbed.

Eugène coming down because everyone was calling him, because treats existed, because he had suddenly decided the adventure was over.

“A little,” I said.

She looked at me.

“Not enough to justify that.”

I gestured toward her ankle.

She followed my gaze.

“No.”

The word was small.

Almost inaudible.

But it was there.

Her father placed a hand on her shoulder.

Not for long.

She didn’t pull away.

Liora’s mother stood.

“I’m going to get a bandage and an anti-inflammatory from our apartment. Can you stay here for two minutes?”

“Of course,” her father said.

“I’ll come,” he added immediately.

“No. Stay with her.”

He hesitated.

Looked at Liora.

Then nodded.

“Fine.”

She left the studio.

The door closed softly.

Behind the bathroom door, Eugène scratched.

Once.

Twice.

Deeply offended.

“He really does possess an extremely limited moral awareness,” Liora’s father said.

I turned toward him.

Surprised.

Then realized he might have made a joke.

In his own register.

Formal.

Measured.

Almost invisible.

“Yes,” I said. “But he compensates with remarkable consistency.”

Liora breathed out a laugh.

So did her father.

Barely.

The scene was absurd.

Eugène safe inside my bathroom.

Demitrius hiding in his shelter.

Liora injured on my couch.

Her father standing in the middle of my studio, jacket covered in dust, staring at a swollen ankle as though he might convince it to shrink.

Me sitting on my coffee table, still shaken by two consecutive fears that had not asked permission to coexist.

No one had won.

Not Eugène, despite his political-prisoner performance behind the door.

Not Liora, who looked at her ankle like a personal betrayal.

Not me, who had recovered my cat and lost something much simpler.

The ability to pretend Liora belonged inside a practical category.

Neighbor.

Girl next door.

Allergic to my cat.

Person who spoke too quickly.

Not anymore.

I had been afraid to see her fall.

Not a theoretical fear.

Not a sentence.

A fear that had passed through my body before thought.

And now that she sat there, alive, injured, doing a worse job of minimizing than usual, I didn’t know what to do with that information.

So I stayed.

I watched the ice slowly melt inside the towel.

Liora watched the bathroom door.

Her father watched Liora.

Demitrius watched no one, out of prudence.

And inside my studio, amid the disorder, dust, treats, and far too recent sentences, everyone seemed to be waiting for something to come back down.