chapitre : 4
1087 Words
The guest room was another display case of perfection. Too perfect. The immaculate linen sheets, the pillows lined up as if on parade, not a speck of dust on the designer dresser. Marina closed the door behind her and leaned against the smooth wood, her heart pounding wildly. The raised voices from dinner still echoed in her head.
"You look at me as if I were a problem to be solved!"
"Who are you thinking about?"
"That's enough, Léna!"
The words whirled, clashed against each other. She walked to the bed and sat down, her hands trembling. Two years. They had been married for only two years. And yet, this house was already a tomb. A mausoleum erected to the glory of a happiness that had never existed.
She remembered the wedding. Léna, radiant, possessive, clinging to Chris's arm like a trophy. Chris, smiling, but with that distance in his eyes. She had put it down to nerves, to emotion. But now, she saw everything differently. The toasts where Léna spoke for both of them. The dances where Chris seemed to be following steps imposed upon him. The looks he threw at her, Marina, furtive glances, charged with an emotion she hadn't known how to decipher at the time. Sadness? Complicity? Guilt?
"Why?" she whispered into the silence of the room.
Why had Chris married Léna if he treated her with such indifference? Why did Léna, always so proud, put up with a husband who so clearly rejected her? Her sister's pride was legendary. This situation didn't add up.
Time passed. The house fell silent, a silence heavy with unspoken words and repressed resentments. Marina undressed and pulled on an oversized t-shirt that served as her pajamas. She slipped between the sheets, but sleep wouldn't come. Thirst, too. A persistent thirst, no doubt worsened by the wine and the adrenaline.
With a sigh, she got up and cracked open her door. The house was plunged in total darkness, broken only by the bluish glow of the stairwell nightlight. She crept downstairs, avoiding the creaky step, familiar with the route from previous stays.
It was as she approached the kitchen that she heard voices. Whispered, but vibrating with tension. The living room door was ajar, letting a sliver of light filter through.
She stopped dead, hiding in the shadow of the hallway. Her heart began to hammer against her ribs. She hadn't intended to eavesdrop, but her feet refused to move. Léna's voice, choked with tears, nailed her to the spot.
"...for weeks, Chris. Weeks! You push me away every time I try to get close. Why?"
There was a silence, then Chris's low, tired voice replied.
"Léna, not now. I don't want to talk about this."
"But I do! I'm your wife, for God's sake! Why don't you want to make love to me? Do I disgust you that much? Why can't you even try to please me once?"
Marina held her breath. The question was so crude, so humiliating, it made her sick to her stomach. She imagined her sister's face, distorted by pain and anger.
Chris's response, when it came, was a stab to the heart. Calm, weary, but with a murderous coldness.
"You knew. You knew from the beginning that I felt nothing for you in that way. You knew, Léna. And you told me, and I quote: 'I don't care. We'll have a beautiful life. You'll end up loving me.'"
He paused, and Marina pictured him looking at her, arms crossed, ruthless in his truth.
"So, why are you complaining today? You're the one who arranged all this. You who pushed for the marriage, you who bought this house, you who decided everything. So own it. Own your choice. Own this life you built on sand."
A stifled sob answered him.
"You're a monster," whispered Léna, her voice broken. "A cold, selfish monster."
"No. Just honest. For once."
Marina didn't hear the rest. She staggered back, a hand over her mouth to stifle a cry. The shock was so violent her vision blurred. She stumbled back up the stairs, took refuge in her room, and locked the door behind her, as if to protect herself from an invisible threat.
She collapsed onto the bed, her knees trembling.
"You knew I felt nothing for you."
The words echoed, terrible. Chris did not love Léna. He had never loved her. Their marriage was an arrangement, a fool's bargain where Léna had bought a husband and an appearance, hoping to buy love later.
But why? Why had Chris agreed? Pressure? Loneliness? Money? No, Chris wasn't like that.
A thought, insidious and terrifying, began to germinate in her mind. Chris's gaze at dinner. His gaze in the wedding photo. His discreet attentions, always present, for years. The way he always turned to her, Marina, as to a lighthouse in a storm.
"Who are you thinking about?" Léna had screamed.
And what if the answer was right there, under her nose, from the very beginning?
What if Chris was in love... with her?
The possibility was so dizzying, so dangerous, it took her breath away. It explained everything. The desperate marriage to Léna to try and turn the page. The coldness in the couple. Her sister's veiled jealousy. And that look, that damn look that pierced through her and said everything without ever uttering a word.
She got up and went to the window, contemplating the perfectly lit garden. Every LED spot now seemed like a spotlight trained on all their lies. She placed a hand on her stomach, as if to calm herself.
Léna knew. She knew Chris loved Marina. And she had married him anyway. Out of pride? Spite? Because she couldn't stand that someone, especially her sister, could have something she didn't?
The cold she felt in this house was no longer a metaphor. It was the temperature of the truth. An icy, cruel truth that had just revealed itself to her in all its horror.
And she was there, at the center of it all, without having wanted it, without even having known.
The night would be long. And the next day, looking at Chris and Léna, she would know. She would see the hell behind her sister's smile, and the prison behind her brother-in-law's silence.
She had gone down for a glass of water. She came back up with a secret that weighed like a mountain. A secret that wasn't even hers, but which would, she felt it vaguely, seal her destiny forever.
- Writer
