I know what you're going to say, but trust me, I tried. And not just once. I timidly looked at myself several times in the mirror with a detached air, and I pronounced these three words which have the power of striking in the chest: "I leave you." I said them, I assure you. Quite loud even, in the hope that he hears them and accepts them. At 39, it might be about time. He cannot stay to contemplate this grumpy love that turns its back on him. Even an icy gust of wind doesn't dare to make me go towards it.

Have I given him too much? Am I this athlete who thinks he has no more strength at the end of the race? I had them, my quarter of hours of glory, my hours too, where I collected his sweat escaping from our desire combined in a double voice. But, precisely, I wonder: did I get too out of breath in this story? Have I lost my way? How can I find this breath of fresh air that once embraced me?

Stirring up the past is risky; I know that, but I need to understand. Where are our damp sheets, our sticky body, our throat that had only one desire: to jump on the first drop of water!

When he kisses me, I feel like I'm on a ship, but without the beautiful landscape rocked by daydreams. The urge to reject his face with a firm hand comes to me without being able to control myself. Why? And why must there be a why? Why justify this unbearable pleasure felt when your sweet tongue wandered between what I have most faithful, what keeps me company from morning to late at night? Why did I shout seven times without restraint? This breath that I thought buried or even lost in the middle of my existence has returned. It was sweet and strange at the same time. I do not know. I was like a tourist getting off the plane discovering new experiences for the first time.

Yesterday he got home from work early. He was well dressed, and immediately a dangerous thought crossed my mind. I wanted him to tell me something extraordinary, something insane. I believed it by clenching my fists in the hollow of my hips. His real estate agent costume gave him another form of refinement. I thought he was hiding a dark secret from me. I wanted to question him, shake his tie, tear it, yell at him, tell him to reveal to me what he was trying to hide from me. I came home. Believe me. I wish I had done more that night. The motivation was missing, like my questions. Usually, I'm the one questioning, cigarette in hand, spitting my smoke in the other's face and waiting for answers. I didn't have any questions, so I didn't get answers. No wonder.

I felt his scent waltz with a certain glee in the living room, and it held me back. Don't blame me if I failed. I had practiced in front of my mirror. I read that the mirror is a good exercise, a kind of companion who does not criticize, judge, lecture, even when you slip up. But tell me, why did I slip? Paul would appeal to any mother-in-law. Paul is one of those men you can count on when Kleenex is lacking, and the supermarket is double-locked, and the cashier sees you in tears and tells you to wait for it to open the following day. Paul is a man with a delicious character, like a treat that one would eat in secret for fear of being stolen. Paul is .... That's the problem, I think. Paul. Him.

I had thought many times about our beginnings when it was just him and me. The day when, just after using her angelically pallid sheets, we ran like crazy young people through the streets crowded with people with tasteless faces. We had read the sadness on their faces. An almost worrying feeling, it was so blatant. I don't think they understood anything about our happiness. They saw the whiteness of his teeth and the shadow of my dimples but remained cloistered in incomprehension. How could two young people run in the cool dawn without even feeling the cold tickle their nostrils? The pink of cheeks did not come from the coldness of the season but the richness of our emotions. Our love was bursting with power. It was a beautiful, living death. I was not afraid that day. I walked with the ease of a teacher repeating his lesson for the umpteenth time. I think I taunted some passers-by with my happiness at the corner of the lips. I'm ashamed when I think about it. Sometimes I hate myself, or rather I hate my reactions. I am like a cat. I am full of elegance and beauty but I am unpredictable.

You too were unpredictable. Don't blame me for blaming you, that wouldn't be fair. Just admit that I played and got trapped. But tell me, why did I accept this game? What was it going to bring me in the end? Experience the danger?

What is the point ? To see me asking for more? You know, I am starting to ask a thousand questions again and I am waiting for answers that I will not have because you are far away. You took my feverish desire away. But then, how is it possible that I get to feel you near me?

I don't know how to be reasonable. I have to repress myself, put tape on my mouth, maybe soap. I'm afraid Paul will guess my thoughts, even if basically I think that would help matters. Everything would be settled, we would no longer talk about it. All this would never have existed and we could go back?

Departures scare me. I see a comeback, just as I feel my relationship with Paul is getting back into its shell. So why ? Yesterday evening, I put on fine blue lingerie. He loves light blue. I let go of my hair as if to feel wilder, more alert, more connected. Fiasco! The fine lingerie, I took it off immediately after observing myself in the mirror. No, it's not me, I whispered to myself. I can not. It's dishonest and dishonesty would kill me. I don't want to kill myself because I still have things to go through but I feel that what was planned with Paul no longer has room on any page of any stationery calendar. It's scary when I think about it. And when I think of you, it scares me just as much.