2
This day was meant to be his wedding day. A secret engagement, a peaceful, secluded wedding on the hill, but there are no witnesses here. The sky is gray and the sun refuses to show its face, and snow will not fall. There will be no wedding, and Christine knows it just as well as he. They did not come here to marry, but to speak. She is not only a cold maid awaiting to become a bride, a statue in a draping white dress. Christine is still his childhood friend. There is love there, even if Raoul cannot find it.
He can never speak to her of what he has endured. Words will not form themselves, and he has never had control over words.
The engagement celebration is taking place at his home as they stand, but the bride and groom to be knew there would be nothing to celebrate. He took her hand, gently, and they departed the scene unnoticed, slipping through back doors and into the thick fog of morning. Now they only stand, side by side, in company.
"How did you stay alive?" she finally whispers. "Where did you find the courage to keep on living?"
"Courage has nothing to do with it," Raoul murmurs. "I was afraid. I tried to escape, the only way I could, but I was afraid to." Her arms come around him, from behind, and Raoul reaches up to stroke her delicate forearm, offering what little comfort he is still capable of. He closes his eyes, hard, and shame rises like bile in his throat. Raoul steps away from Christine. "I hated you," he confesses, and the words fall awkwardly like vomit at his feet. Christine's expression does not change. Perhaps she has known all along. Raoul quails inside his coat, and tightens it around himself even more. The wind seems to pick up. "Everyday I lost hope in you, I began to hate you more and more."
"You hate me now," she says, and Raoul shakes his head, quickly.
"No," he cannot hate her. "Never, I..." Raoul runs both hands through his hair, and does not take them from his face as he searches for words. "I've changed, Christine, into something – something so unforgivable. If we were to marry now, your husband would be nothing. Dead on the inside, I—" He looks at her, desperate for understanding. Christine approaches him, slowly, and he forbids himself to cry. Before her, he cannot show weakness. It is not his part to play as it used to be. She takes his cold face in her hands, and Raoul has nothing to say but what he has already told her. He lowers his eyes, and feels tears collect and slide to the bottoms of his lids, blurring the sight of his shoes on the dead grass. "I have changed Christine. It is all I can say to describe what I've become."
"Raoul." Nothing after, a statement, something to tell him to stop being ridiculous. He shakes her off.
"You cannot know, Christine," he snaps, covering his eyes with a gloved hand. "If you ever did, you would..." his voice lowers. Shame. "The way you would look at me would be unbearable."
Christine does know. Somehow, she knows, and the way her eyes fall onto his tells Raoul as much. It is a gentle expression, accepting. Christine smiles, softly, and she presses the back of her hand into her cheek. He can still see the smile. "You've fallen out of love with me."
Raoul shakes his head, and sniffs hard, hardly aware of the fact that he is actually nodding. "Too much has changed," he croaks. "Look at me. Look at me, Christine." She looks at him. Tears, pink eyes and nose from the cold, red veins in blue eyes. Trembling lips. Hair disheveled from the winds invasion. "Have you ever remembered me this way?"
Christine kisses him. It is not a lover's kiss, those days for the both of them are far over, but her lips meet his and bring on only comfort. She stands on the tips of her toes, and kisses him, softly, again and again. Fingers like silk push the remnants of tears from his pale face.
"Are you all right?" she asks him, and Raoul cannot answer. Christine takes his face in her hands and keeps his eyes on hers, gently shaking him. "Raoul, are you all right?"
"I don't know," he mutters, breathless.
"You will be," she tells him, and kisses him again. "I believe you will be, in time. I love you, I do. But I accepted your death," Christine strokes his cheekbone with her thumb. "And you accepted my leaving you there. It is not love we have fallen out of, it's a new part of our lives we have fallen into."
A kiss, and she leaves him again, but without bitterness or contempt. There are two sides to this now, and he sees them both very clearly, as he turns back to the hill to overlook the city. Raoul breathes in, hard, through his nose. Christine is no longer the source of his suffering. He is weary of Paris.