A week had passed since Bridgette�s heartfelt and heartbreaking experience. Her father arrived home, and more so shamefully she had not dared to tell him. The news would be to devastating to him. She walked into his room to put the fresh sheets on the bed, a humid drizzle still present outside. She walked over to his desk to see a copy of Memories of Satine lying upon it. Her curiosity could not resist. She sat down on the bed, flipped open the first brittle page, and ran her hands across the text. Her mind was begging for answers, and one after the other came to her. She sat there even when the sky darkened, she laughed and smiled, and sobbed with sorrow. A candle lit her face and the book as she read the last sentence.
��a story about a time, a story about a place, and a story about the people, but more importantly a story about love. A love that will live forever. The End.�
Bridgette softly closed the book, her dress sleeves now soaked with tears, her eyeliner smeared. Bridgette now knew, and with this greater knowledge she understood Christian more deeply than anyone else, and why he had avoided her glance that morning. She felt ashamed in ways of how she treated him, but he did not tell her so she had not known. She wiped the last tear from her face, walked downstairs and told her father who was still up working on the finances goodnight, and went upstairs to sleep. Though she could not sleep. Sleep did not come, instead only questions, no longer questions about him, but questions about herself.
Christian awoke to find his face wet with tears, his body covered in sweat. He sniffled and then looked out onto his room. A broken mirror that hung on the wall across the room reflected his eerie self. He was a wreck. The prickles of a beard were no longer prickles, and his body was pale and unhealthy looking, his clothes old and stained. An unexpected surge to want to clean up ran through him, and he grabbed the dusty, old washbasin that had been there since he first came and walked down the hall where he could get some water. His thoughts pounded in his ears, and he slowly slipped off his clothes. After awkwardly pulling off his undershirt and when the sound of his belt buckle crashed on the wood floor, he sank into the washbasin�s water, putting his head below the surface of the water. The steam rising off the warm water comforted him, and he reached for a soap bar and scrubbed his hair, then looked over in the mirror to see his unsightly beard. He lifted up the razor and slowly ran it across his cheek. When he applied more soap, a red substance blended in with the soap. A normal accident, but Christian that moment realized something, a thought that had never occurred to him, one he wished he wouldn�t have ever thought. He scraped his face again. More blood ran down into the water. He grabbed the razor and pulled it softly down the bottom of his chin, blood dripped into the water. Suddenly he threw the blade down, and fits of tears came from him. He asked himself why he was doing this, looking now at the bloody mess. He no longer felt safe around himself, and unavoidable questions came to his mind. He was hurting himself and he realized that nothing more he could arrange or organize in his mind would stop him from that. The iron taste of blood filled his mouth as it dribbled into it. Christian stuck his face in the water, and pulled himself out, beads of water glistening on him like diamonds. He wrapped a bandage on his face, and pulled some clothes on. He looked at the damage he had inflicted upon himself and for that he was embarrassed and ashamed. More so, he was terrified and he knew that maybe keeping everything to himself wasn�t going to work. He walked down the steps and pulled a violet out from the potted plant outside his garret.
