Chapter 3 Chapitre 3

The sound of a heavy step on the cold slabs echoed in the heavy silence of the house. Camille stopped for a moment, her gaze floating on the imposing portraits that adorned the walls of the long corridor. They seemed to observe it, frozen in strange looks, as if their timeless presence only made sense in this vast home. Each table, each object seemed to be imbued with a story that Bastien had never shared.

She put a hand on the wood of a closed, hesitant door. A door like so many others, but which, in this imposed silence, took on the appearance of mystery. She knew what she was looking for, she couldn't find it by just asking questions. Bastien was a man of secrets, and his past extended further than the walls he had built around him.

A radiance of light crossed the hall through a window, landing on an old wooden trunk, carefully stored in a corner. Camille advanced towards her without even thinking. She did not know why, but intuition pushed her to explore her, to understand a little more man than Bastien seemed to be, the one he hid behind layers of silence and indifference.

She knelt in front of the trunk, her fingers sliding on the worn wood, engraved by time. A heavy air floated in the room, but the call of the mystery was stronger. She gently turned the lock, feeling the end of her finger brushing something iced inside. The metallic sound of the lock that ceded made him shiver. She lifted the lid carefully, as if she was going to open a door to another world.

Inside, letters, documents, and a black and white photo. Camille gently seized the photo, her eyes staring at the face of a young man, unknown but yet ... a strange resemblance to Bastien. He was there, a melancholy smile on her lips, the expression marked by something that she could not identify. Besides him, a woman, her sweet face, but deeply marked by a pain that she could almost feel through the image. It was the woman in the photo, more than the man, who intrigued her. Something in her seemed to have been broken.

She turned the pages of the letters that followed. The words written by hand, sometimes trembling, seemed to come out of another time. Camille felt the air cut around her, as if each word pulled her deeper in a whirlwind of secrets that she was not ready to discover.

The letters spoke of a bygone era, a lost passion and a broken man. The words were sweet, full of regrets, bitterness, but also hope. It was clear. Bastien, this mask of hardness and control, had been another man. A vulnerable man. A man who can love, to suffer.

A noise made her jump, and the door behind her suddenly opened. Camille turned around, a beating heart. It was Bastien. He stood there, frozen, his eyes fixed on the open trunk. A long silence stretched between them.

- Are you looking for something? Her voice was like a whip of, sharp, but without the strength she used to hear.

She got up suddenly, the letters slipping between her fingers.

- I ... I don't have ...

He approached a step, an almost palpable tension between them.

- That's what you wanted, right? Discover things about me that you shouldn't.

He was no longer the distant and cold man she had known. It was as if he had turned before his eyes, as if the pain he had buried for years had suddenly resurfaced.

- I didn't want to ... I didn't try to hurt you, she whispered, the letters tight against her chest.

He shook his head, a slight bitter smile on his lips.

- It's not that, Camille. This is the way you act. You think you can solve everything by searching in my past, digging in my injuries. But you have no idea what it implies.

She looked down at the letters, as if they were burning in her hands. She knew she had crossed a limit, but curiosity had pushed her to act before thinking.

Bastien turned his heels suddenly, his back now turned towards her, as if he had completely forgotten it.

- Do you want to know? You want to know why I am as I am, why do I wear this burden? he asked, the cold voice. Go read these letters, and you will see.

He walked towards the door, and Camille felt a wave of panic riding her.

- Bastien ...

He turned slightly, but didn't look at her.

- It's not a game, Camille. What I wear is not a story of love and regrets. It's something much heavier, much more dangerous.

He froze for a moment, a flash of pain crossing his eyes before he disappeared behind the door, leaving her alone with a weight that she had not planned to bear.

She stayed there, alone in the room, the trembling letters in her hands. The story they told was not the one she had imagined. She had underestimated the depth of Bastien's past, thinking that everything was just about an old pain, an old betrayal. But what she had just discovered went far beyond.

A part of Bastien that she did not yet understand, but that she now felt to impose herself in every gesture he made, in every word he pronounced. She did not yet know if she was ready to face this truth. But what she was sure was that nothing would be the same now.

Camille would never have believed that a simple bait door could reveal more than a room in Bastien's house. But that evening, the sound of the steps she had heard led her in a direction that she would never have imagined. She had believed that the evening would be like the others: calm, tense, filled with heavy silences which both oppressed them. But when she advanced in the corridor, a strange feeling pulled her in a particular direction, as if an invisible force guided her.

She stopped in front of a partially open door, a muffled noise from the inside. Bastien's breath, short and deep, resounded in the air. Camille hesitated for a moment. She knew she shouldn't. Everything in the atmosphere of this house told him to respect the borders, not to try to dig up what could be buried. However, his body acted by himself, as made by an instinct stronger than his will.

Without a noise, it pushed the door, a thin light of light falling on a massive silhouette which was held near a window. Bastien. But it was not the relentless man, the cold and distant boss she knew. No, that was another version of him, more fragile, more human. His posture was sagged, his back bent, and his head was lowered, as if he tried to flee his own thoughts. Camille stopped, frozen, his eyes riveted on him.

He had not noticed his presence, as if he were too lost in his world to hear the slightest noise around him. His hands, who hugged the windows, were trembling. Camille could see the traces of an inner struggle on her features. She was used to the idea that Bastien was carrying in him shadows of pain, but seeing them manifest so directly, also openly, destabilized her.

She advanced by a step, her breathing becoming deeper. He seemed to want to contain something, like a storm ready to break out, but left no one to access it. Not even her. She was preparing to go back, to leave the room without a word, when the tension on her back broke out.

Bastien straightened up suddenly, her eyes turning to her with violence that almost made her go back. He fixed it for a moment, without saying a word, before turning away, realizing that he had been caught in the act of weakness. Camille felt her heart tighten. She had seen something in him, something human that he didn't want her to see. This fraction of a second where the facade broke, where he was simply a man, vulnerable and broken, marked her more deeply than he could have imagined.

- What are you doing here? His voice was low, tense, like a rope ready to break.

Camille opened her mouth to answer, but no word came out. He was much more than the one she had known so far. This facade which he wore so well crashed, and he no longer knew how to repair it.

- I ... I didn't want to disturb, she finally replied, her fragile voice.

He turned, moving towards the door without a word, but Camille could not look away from him. He was a man, a man with his own demons, and he was there, in front of her, more helpless than he would have ever wanted.

- What you just saw is ... useless, he whispered, as if he was addressed more to himself than to her.

He stopped before leaving the room, barely turning to her. He had tight fists, and his gaze, usually so piercing, was now fleeing. He seemed to have sunk into a sea of regrets and loneliness. It was as if he wanted to flee from himself, of this truth that gnawed at him every moment.

- You don't have to apologize, she replied, her slightly firmer words this time. But she knew she couldn't say more. Not yet.

Heavy silence fell to each other. She felt a new tension to be born, a ditch deeper than that which they had built so far. Bastien stood there, frozen, eyes fixed to the ground. Suddenly, he seemed so distant, so inaccessible, like a mountain that she could never climb.

- I don't want your pity, he said finally, the words struck the air with a brutality that made her jump.

She looked at him, trying to decipher what he felt, but he left him no chance. In a flash, he closed again, his face again became the one she knew, inexpressive, almost cold. He turned his heels and, without one more word, slipped into the corridor, disappearing in the shadows of the house. She stayed there, lost in the echo of her words, shaken by the intensity of the moment.

Camille felt stupid. She had broken something. Something fragile. But there was also a strange satisfaction in it, an awareness that it was not alone in carrying a burden. That even this man she had learned to fear and desire had her own injuries, hidden behind walls of ice. She would never have believed that Bastien's vulnerability could attract him, but in this suspended moment, she understood that, under this impenetrable shell, there was a man who suffered as much as she is.

She dropped on the sofa, her hands still trembling. She had seen, and she now knew that this knowledge was going to change everything she thought about him. But was it ready to accept the truth? And more, was she ready to see what it would mean for her?

The mystery around Bastien only thickens, and now it was more dangerous than ever. There were secrets in him that he could not hide forever. But she felt it: she too was one of her world now, even if it meant that it was necessary to take risks to understand the depth of her shadows.