Aurélie

Chapter Twenty Nine

Aurélie walked up the long stairs to her room and opened her door. She swore as she crossed the room, she'd left her bedroom window open when she went out earlier, not for the first time - and the rug beneath was soaked. She picked it up and draped it over the back of her dressing table chair in an attempt to let it dry over night. She undressed and got into her comfiest pair of plaid pyjama bottoms and baggy t shirt. She gathered her hair up in a messing knot and wiped her make-up off, not that she thought she had much left, Blake had seen to that. 

She brushed her teeth in the en suite bathroom and then snuggled down into bed, her head on the cool pillow, enjoying the darkness of the room and the solitude of night time whilst rain lashed against the window, giving a calming background noise, soothing and repetitive. She tried to distract herself from the dark thoughts that were creeping in, and instead replayed happy memories of birthdays with her parents and happy memories. It took a lot of effort but she could feel her eyes getting heavier and finally sleep came as a welcome release.

***

Morning came and with it Paris was washed clean. The torrential rain storm from the night before had left the streets of the city with a renewed clean and the bridges stood proud with spotless abandon. The air had cleared and mugginess and closeness of yesterday's atmosphere had done, clouds had been banished and it felt as though the ceiling of Paris has been extended, giving everyone more space and more air. Aurélie just wished she felt the same. 

She had woken with a heavy heart and was disappointed that she had let herself fall so heavily so someone so quickly. It hadn't helped that she'd had a rather steamy dream about Blake which was in fact a memory from an enjoyable night they'd shared in his hotel room the week before. She felt ashamed that she had been sleeping with someone who was so clearly committed to another person and yet she knew that she wasn't really in the wrong. 

She had no idea that Blake was engaged and she felt indignantly that she had been wronged just as much as Mel. 

Mel. 

Mel who was supposed to have been staying her. Mel who Lena had so much riding on. She wondered as she lay in bed staring at her copy of Le Petit Prince on the bedside table, if Mel had even come back to the house last night. Had she gone back to the hotel with Blake? Was this a normal thing for their relationship? Was she used to him being a player and had gone back to patch things up with him? Or had she come back her to get her things and fly back to America heartbroken? Was she still here? Aurélie hoped to God she wasn't still here. She thought she could probably survive a week up in her attic room to stay out of the way if Seb or Lena could send up care packages. She just didn't want to see anyone and the very idea that she might bump into Mel downstairs made her stomach drop and her toes curl. 

She reminded herself as she got her phone off the side to text Bex that she hadn't told her best friend about Blake and now she was kicking herself. It would be too much to text her and explain the whole situation and Aurélie didn't have the energy to write an email detailing the torrid details of her disastrous love affair with a cheating rat in Paris. 

 She had an unread message from Blake. "We need to talk. It's not what it looks like." 

Bullshit. 

She deleted the message and chucked her phone on the floor. She swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth and gave herself a talking to. She would have to be the better woman in this situation. Keep her grace and her distance. She didn't want any drama to unfold at the house especially when there were other students around to consider. Perhaps she could go out of town for the day? Get a train somewhere, hop on the subway and see which industrial unit she would end up in on the outskirts of Paris. But that sounded rather depressing too, riding the Metro just to avoid a confrontation. Then she remembered that Seb had said he had an exhibition on at the moment. Maybe she could go over and have a look at his work, she doubted Mel and Blake would be spending the day looking at art work after the shit that went down yesterday.

She had a shower, scrubbing hard to remove any traces of the cheater that was on her skin, exfoliating the outer layers and scrubbing under her nails. It made her skin crawl to think of how intimate they had been and all the while he had known that his fiancée was in the States, blissfully unaware of his European fling. She thought back to the message on her phone, it had been sent at 3am. Probably while Mel was asleep in the bed next to him, Aurélie thought, feeling her temper rise. 

There was no way she was going to let him try and slide out of this one.