“Well, Fanny also believes in that stuff. And it’s all well and good when you’re fourteen or fifteen, but when you’re in your forties, it becomes a bit of an issue.”

“What exactly are you trying to say, Thierry?”

“There are people who get stuck in time. People for whom the past is never really in the rearview mirror.”

I had the impression that Sénéca was sketching a portrait of me, but it turned out that I was not the subject of his rant.

“Do you know what Fanny believes, deep down? That, one day, you’ll come back for her. She genuinely thinks that sooner or later you’ll realize that she’s the love of your life and you’ll show up on your white horse and take her away to a better life. In psychiatry, they call it—”

“I think you’re exaggerating,” I said, interrupting him.

“I wish.”

“How long have you two been together?”

“Five or six years. We’ve had some great times and some tough times. But the thing is, even when we’re happy, even when we’re having fun together, it’s you she’s thinking about. Fanny can’t help but imagine that whatever this is, it would be more intense, more fulfilling with you.”

Eyes fixed on the ground, a lump in his throat, Thierry Sénéca spoke in a hollow voice. His pain was all too real.

“It’s tough, trying to compete with you, you know, the one who’s different from other boys. But what exactly is different about you, Thomas Degalais, aside from the fact that you’re a homewrecker and a dream merchant?”

He stared at me with a mixture of hostility and anguish, as though I were both the cause of his pain and, potentially, his savior. What he was saying seemed so preposterous that I did not even try to explain myself.

He stroked his beard, then took his phone from his pocket and showed me the picture he used as his wallpaper: a boy of about eight or nine playing tennis.

“Is that your son?”

“Yeah, that’s Marco. His mother got sole custody and took him to Argentina, where she lives with her new guy. It kills me that I don’t see more of him.”

It was a touching story, but this sudden unburdening by someone to whom I had never been close made me uncomfortable.

“I want to have another kid,” Sénéca said. “I’d like it to be with Fanny, but there’s a problem standing in our way. And that problem is you, Thomas.”

I wanted to say that I wasn’t his shrink and that if Fanny did not want to have a child, the problem was probably him, not me, but the guy was so miserable that I could not bring myself to stick the knife in.