The river had been calm that day, almost too calm. Laurent had steadied the oars while you leaned over the side, your reflection broken by ripples of light. It was Thérèse who moved first—her hands sudden, desperate, pressing against your back. You gasped, clutched at her sleeve, and in a sickening instant both of you plunged into the water.

Laurent hesitated. For a heartbeat he seemed frozen between two lives: the wife who loved him and the woman who burned for him. His eyes darted from your flailing hands to Thérèse’s frantic gasp. Then he reached—not for you, but for her. By the time he pulled Thérèse into the boat, you had slipped beneath the surface.

They left the river together, soaked but elated, believing the water had swallowed you. They whispered of freedom, of nights without caution, of mornings without dread. For one brief, guilty moment, they laughed.

But the river was not finished with you. Hours later, your body was dragged to shore by strangers and carried to an inn, where you lingered between worlds, pallid and unmoving, your breath thin as thread.

When Laurent was summoned, his first words were feigned shock, but when he saw you lying there, still alive, something shifted. He began returning each night, a ritual he did not share with Thérèse. By day he endured her hungry whispers, her pleas to “finish it.” By night he sat by your bed, staring at the faint rise and fall of your chest, listening for the rasp of air in your throat.

It was then he discovered your hidden writings. Sketches of him. Words of love. Words of suspicion. They whisper when they think me blind. They believe me docile, deaf. I am neither. Still—I love him. The pages shook in his hands, damning him more than any accusation ever could. You had known. You had seen. And still you loved him.

So he began reading them aloud, his voice raw, breaking against the silence of your still body. “You forgave me,” he whispered, laying the papers at your chest. “Even as I betrayed you. Even as I planned your death.”

The innkeepers pitied him, mistaking his nightly vigil for a husband’s grief. They spoke softly of your worsening pallor, the way death crept closer. One evening they told him, gently, that he should prepare—gather your things, think of the funeral.

But Laurent could not. He lit the fire, pressed violets into your limp hands, surrounded your bed with the sketches you had drawn of him, as though wrapping you in his image might tether you to this world.

And when the weight of his guilt grew unbearable, he sought a priest.

In the dark of the confessional, Laurent confessed it all: the affair, the plotting, the river. His voice cracked as he spoke of you, of your silence, of your words that revealed you had always known. The priest listened, and when he answered, his sorrow was not for Laurent, but for you.

“She is the lamb,” the priest said softly, “and you the wolf at her throat. Yet even as she suffers, she loves you still. My pity lies with her, for she walks the valley of death betrayed, yet faithful. Pray she wakes, my son. Pray she wakes, so that you may beg forgiveness before it is too late.”

And so Laurent returned again to your side, night after night, reading your words into the silence, watching your lips, your lashes, for the faintest flicker. Thérèse whispered of freedom. The priest whispered of damnation. And Laurent whispered to you alone, torn between two fates, as the firelight danced and your fragile breath rattled in the dark.