The room is black. The sun set long ago, but France didn't care enough to reach up and snap the lights on in his kitchen. The moonlight is coming through the small window of the kitchen, casting ghastly gray-blue shadows in harsh slants along the room. The flowers are illuminated in a halo of white light. A little light sparkles in the empty wine bottles around the room; even through the broken and smashed bottles. The shadows crest over the dirty dishes from last night. Or was it two nights ago? The clock on the oven glares bright red in the late night luster of the kitchen, the digital numbers waxing and waning whenever he cares to look over. The less moonlight that shines in that corner, the more the light shines like the devil with whom France has been dancing with these past years.
France sits at his island, closer to the bright red eyes of the devil than the soft moonlight. That light should not even approach him. France is an abomination. He would only ruin the gentle purity of the light.
His wine glass has been smudged by his fingerprints. The amber liquid can be the same shade as her hair, but in the darkness of the night, it's not. It settles into the base of the wine glass, like how her hand cupped his face in the dead of that night. The bottle of wine is tinted. The light shines through it in broken streaks, throwing colored light onto the table. He doesn't know what kind of wine it is, just that it's wine. And wine is what he needs right now.
A car squeals out on the street and the fingers holding his cigarette clench up. He inhales and exhales, the smoke forming a cloud around him, diffusing into the debilitating eyes of the devil. He doesn't care, when he puts it out on the white countertop, that there will be a stain there. He can buy another one. This countertop has seen too much.
Lazy summer afternoons when showing her how to bake macarons, his arms bracketing her in, her weight leaning against his comfortably, turned into frenzied chases to the bedroom, arms still covered in almond flour and powdered sugar. Impromptu waltzes and tangos, salsas and pasodobles, with just enough friction to make them both grow hot.
His hand shakes as he pours the wine. Spots fall onto the countertop, joining the sticky spots of the past wine bottles.
Lazy summer afternoons when he was okay with showing her how to cook, the feeling of her in his arms was enough. Napping in sun from the balcony on his couch, only to wake in horror to see those eyes looking at him with every ounce of love that he cannot return.
He tilts the glass too far back and the wind dribbles down his chin and neck to stain his old nightshirt. The cold, absent feeling of the wine is enough.
Her fingers combing through his hair once they're both spent, eyes shining like the moon. He was her sun and she reflected his light through her own eyes. Her beautiful lips parting into a smile and then a whisper. "Je t'aime."
And France cries.
Ice running through his too hot skin, France had pulled away from her embrace. Like a scared child, he'd untangled himself and ran. The bathroom tiles were cool and unforgiving. He was boiling then and he didn't know why there wasn't steam rising off of where he had stepped. He sat down on the toilet, head in his hands. She was pounding on the door, asking for him to come out and talk to her. But he couldn't. His heart was climbing up his throat and he couldn't see straight. He needed to run, needed to stay, needed to be alone, needed to be comforted.
He howls at the ceiling this time, but his voice is gone and all he can feel is this overarching need to have something, anything to soothe him. But she is gone. She'll always be gone and he can never explain to her why. The light shrinks away from his aching pain; the devil grows brighter and stronger, wallowing in his misery.
He doesn't know how long he was in there, but she was gone when he gathered the courage to come out. She left a note on the door. Said she was sorry, but she was leaving. It was clear that he didn't love her.
France claws at his chest as he upends the wine bottle and the amber liquid spreads across the table. He cannot stand it- this unbearable hole in his chest that makes it hard to breathe when the night crashes around him. He can't breathe through the tears this time and he wonders if he'll finally die.
He had crumpled up the letter, then smoothed it out and ripped it to pieces and broke down a door. He didn't call her; she asked him not to. And what was in their relationship that he could salvage? She wanted more than casual sex, and he couldn't give her that. But he loved her. No, he still loves her, but not the way she needs. He had screamed at the door, as though she were on the other side. "Je t'adore. Je t'aime plus que tout. Mais pas comme ça."
Is it not enough? This love he can give? Why can't it be enough? At least just to keep her. He grasps the neck of the bottle and hurls with all the strength he has left away from him, shattering against a wall. He's breathing hard through his mouth and he almost throws the wine glass too, but he just sinks back this time. Leaning against the back of his chair, he holds the wine glass up to the light from the window. The liquid catches the light and shows through it as he speaks for the first time since he opened the first bottle of wine.
"Le pays de l'amour," he says bitterly before downing the last of the wine.
France's kitchen is a mess, he hasn't showered in a day, barely eaten at all, but he'll worry about that later.
He reaches for the next bottle of wine.