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And suddenly, Juliette knew. Ghostly pale, his eyes almost lifeless, Gabriel stood stooped, wringing his hands. Her Gabriel would have been at the hospital with her. He’d have been there every day. Her Gabriel would have leaped from the threshold to pick up the crutch. Her Gabriel had never been afraid to come close to her.
The little shards of reality she hadn’t allowed to penetrate her life for the last six months had finally cut through her selfishness.
“Gabriel.” She breathed his name and tears fell, rolling down parchment-white cheeks, yet he continued to stand feet away from her, clutching a scarf. Her scarf, one she had forgotten somewhere years ago and he had adopted because he thought it was fashionable and claimed it suited him much better than her.
“Gabe…” And now a wretched cry escaped him, and then another and another and she hobbled toward him, jumping on her left leg. She stumbled and knew she was going to fall, was ready for it. Juliette closed her eyes and gathered her arms at her chest as she’d been taught in school to avoid breaking her wrists.
He caught her. Two steps and his arms cradled her to his unexpectedly much bonier frame. And then he was trying to lower her to the floor and Juliette was clutching him with everything she had.
His sobs turned into whimpers, his shoulders shaking, his hands gripping her tighter. And through it all, Juliette knew. It had been right in front of her face this entire time. She fucking asked about this very thing all those months ago. When summer was ending and he was happy and sated and fresh out of someone’s bed.
“Jett, if I can’t trust this man, I can trust no one.”He had said that then. And Juliette brushed it aside, believing him. Believing in some nameless, faceless man. Believing Gabriel was invincible. Hell, she herself had been just as naïve back then.
And now they were on the floor of some apartment on the wrong side of the Seine. Nothing at all was right. She might as well have lost her leg, and Gabriel?—
“I have the plague, Jett. I got the gay plague.”
They were both crying now, tears like a flood taking it all, washing all the hubris, all the nuisance hurts, the nonsensical fights.
Gabriel tried to push her away, but Juliette only held him tighter.
“I’m not afraid, silly. Stop fighting me. Is this why you stayed away from the hospital?”
He nodded, hiccupping.
“Katarina figured it out. Of all the people, she took me aside afterSwan Lake.”
Well, it seemed she was destined to be haunted by the specter of Katarina even like this.
“How would she…” Juliette trailed off, remembering that Katarina used to joke that there was no sex in the USSR and howeveryone was so closeted. It was such a taboo, in fact, nobody would mention it nor discuss it, and people just disappeared…
Gabriel shrugged.
“She said a dancer, some soloist who she knew was gay and had been touring with the company in the US, one day never came to classes or rehearsals and nobody ever talked about him. Katarina being Katarina went and checked on him, and he was in bad shape. Coughing, you know…”
Juliette once again marveled at how sheltered she had remained and how involved in the world Katarina had been. How present. Despite the detachment, the coldness, the appearance of being too good to even share a room with a member of the corps, here she was looking up people who stopped coming to work.
“Well, thank goodness for Saint Katarina.” Juliette couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her tone, and Gabriel turned his hand palm up and threaded their fingers.
“I don’t know what to say about her, Jett. She went with me to talk to a doctor and then she fucked you over. How can both of those things be true? How can both of those people be her? She held my hand and told me how much she cared about you?—”
“Stop!” Juliette wrenched her fingers out of his and covered her face. What was it about this woman who was so embedded in all Juliette was surrounded by that she could not escape her? Katarina was everywhere, taking everything, leaving Juliette on the floor of a damn apartment in a strange part of town…
Gabriel wrapped his arms around his torso, and they sat in silence for a while, the clock on the wall measuring the time and fear unspooling between them. A spiderweb of emotions, pain, terror, all-consuming anxiety being weaved by the ticking of little black hands on a white plastic panel.
Juliette took a deep breath and pushed through the resentment and the pain of betrayal, still as vivid as the image of Katarina shivering under the cold Paris rain.
“Was it what’s-his-name?” She didn’t particularly care, there wasn’t anything to be done now, only to move on, but she had a feeling this was the first time Gabriel had the chance to speak about any of this at length.
He closed his eyes and leaned back against the sofa, and she could see he was struggling with words.
“I was coughing, you know I was. Though, damn, Garnier is draftier than usual this season. And then I noticed a spot. On my pec. Just one. But you know how it is. You remember Ziggy?”
“Vaguely, Gabe.”
All she did recall was that he had died so quickly, all alone, and that initially no hospital in Paris wanted to care for him. She squeezed Gabriel’s forearm and tried to force the horror images out of her mind.
“So when Katarina mentioned the possibility of the virus, I kinda knew already. I was afraid to come to the hospital.” He wiped his eyes and held on to Juliette’s hand as if it were a lifeline. Perhaps it was. “I went to see Thierry. Our Thierry. Can you imagine? The one we all trust with our bodies.”
