So of course she leaves me, she's gone before I can say Wait, before I can say Listen, before I can say Come back. I take the first train in the morning, I go all the way across France, I'm going to find out where she's disappeared to, where she's hiding, where she's gone to forget me, I see her, I talk to her, that's all I do, talk to her, I ask her to come back, I tell her I love her, I beg and plead, I say I'll do anything she wants, I ask her to forgive me, I make promises, I let her touch me, she brings her lips close to mine, kisses me, we get a hotel room, this time I pay, I let her take me to the shower and wash me the way you'd wash a corpse, she says, Come here, I fuck her, she comes, she leaves at midnight, she says she still loves me but she's leaving me, That's just the way it is. Sweetheart, heart breaker.

19

New pad, Denfert Rochereau, mezzanine, view over the rooftops. I've been here six months. I'm looking at the Polaroid on the wall. It's the only picture in the whole studio. A black and white photo. I took it one morning in summer. Paul's seven. He's sleeping in white boxers. He's thrown the covers off. The photo was taken from the side, his head's resting on the arm stretched out above his head, the other arm's under his chin, torso stretched out like a swimmer's. You can just make out his hip bone. His eyes are closed because he's sleeping. A happier photo wouldn't have felt right, and I like this one, he's asleep, he's not really with me.

The hearing finally came around. I won. Every other weekend. We'll see about vacations later, but at least it's something. The problem is that I have to pick him up from Laurent's.