The girl I had dinner with in the courtyard ended up leaving me. She kept crying all the time, she went through my things, she found one of my notebooks, she read my notes about girls, I met up with her in a cafe, everything went OK, she returned the notebook, I didn't apologize.

5

There's always someone with us. In case I stick my hand down his pants. In case I smack him. In case I start telling him about how I got eaten out and fucked at the same time while wearing nipple clamps this morning, slowly, very slowly, how many fingers, mommy? There's two of them. That's the procedure. It's that or nothing. One of them's an intern who talks too much, always telling us her life story. The other one's a thirty-year-old psychologist who's going to quit because she's sick of the association, she's looking for a job, an apartment, too. They never told me their last names, I don't remember their first names.

When the first meeting comes around in April, I don't want to go. I wonder what'll happen. I'm scared he's going to sulk. I'm scared I'm going to get hurt and I'm sick of getting hurt. And then I think about something else. I think about his body. His arms. His hands. His head. His hair. What's his hair like? Has it grown? I'm going to see him, I don't care if he sulks.

He smiles, he gives me a big hug, I haven't seen you for ages, Mom, he squeezes me for a few seconds, we don't say anything, then we sit down, we're still smiling when we start speaking, not too much though, we're feeling shy. Just pretend the nice little lady isn't there, forget about her, imagine she's a waitress in a cafe, I ask her for some water. He tells me lots of things, he talks and talks, he tells me all the fun things he's done since I last saw him, in school, out of school, the skiing badges, the sports he's doing. He saw my book in FNAC in the “top picks” section, the book with my face plastered across the front, he tells me he was with a friend and he said, That's my mom, he says he heard I was on TV, too. He's gotten so big, I say, I can't believe how tall you are, he says, We're all tall in the D. family, he presses his arm up against mine, he puts his hand on top of mine, he asks what I'm doing for the second week of school vacation, It's Easter soon, he says, It'd be nice to go to the sea, wouldn't it, Mom? Or we could go to Montlouis, is Grandpa all right? I hope those two morons from the association are taking notes. The association passes Paul's vacation request on to Laurent, Laurent refuses.