The Girl on Paper by Guillaume Musso Read Free Book Online Page A

with hits of crystal meth, or whatever I could get my hands on.
    I needed to sleep. I searched anxiously for my medication in the living room, suspecting that Milo had got rid of most of it. I ran into the kitchen and searched through the bin. Nothing. Seized by panic, I ran upstairs and raided the wardrobes and cupboards until I finally found my travel bag. Hidden away in a side pocket was a little box of sleeping pills and some tranquillisers left over from my last promotional trip to Dubai, where I had given a reading in a bookstore in the Mall of the Emirates.
    Almost in spite of myself I poured the entire contents of the box into my hand and for a moment I just stared down at the small blue and white capsules that seemed to be taunting me.
    Go on, do it!
    I had never come so close to the edge. My mind played out a slideshow of terrifying images – my neck in the noose of a rope, my lungs filling with gas from the stove, the barrel of a gun pressed against my temple. Sooner or later I was going to end up like that. Had some part of me not known it all along?
    Go on, do it!
    I swallowed the handful of pills to make it all stop. When they wouldn’t go down, I drank water to help them on their way.
    I dragged myself to the bedroom and collapsed on the bed.
    The room was cold and empty, with a vast wall of luminous turquoise glass, just transparent enough to let the sunlight in.
    I curled up in a ball on my mattress, haunted by my thoughts of death.
    Hanging on the wall opposite me was Marc Chagall’s painting of the two lovers, who seemed to look down on me with compassion, as if they wished they could do something to relieve my suffering. Before I had even bought my house (which was no longer mine) or Aurore’s ring (she was no longer mine), the Russian painter’s work had been my first extravagance. Simply entitled Lovers in Blue , Chagall’s canvas had been finished in 1914. I had fallen in love with the painting the second I saw it. It showed a man and a woman entwined with each other, united in their mysterious, yet peaceful love. For me, it symbolised the healing of two wounded beings, who had become one to share the burden of each other’s pain.
    As I gently slipped into a deep sleep, I felt as though I were cutting myself off from the problems of this world. My body was disappearing, my mind was drifting away from me, life was leaving me.

6
The day I met you
    There has to be chaos inside you to give birth to a dancing star
    Friedrich Nietzsche
    EXPLOSION!
    A WOMAN SCREAMS!
    A CRY FOR HELP!
     
    The sound of breaking glass wrenched me out of my nightmare. I opened my eyes with a start. The room was plunged in darkness and rain was lashing against the windows.
    I sat up, slowly and painfully, my throat dry. I felt feverish and I was soaked with sweat. I was having difficulty breathing, but I was still alive.
    I looked over at the alarm clock:
    03:16
    I heard noises coming from the ground floor, and I could make out the sound of the shutters slamming against the wall.
    I tried to turn on the bedside lamp, but, as was often the case, the storm had cut the power in Malibu Colony.
    I forced myself to get out of bed. I felt nauseous and my head was heavy. My heart was thumping in my chest as if I had just run a marathon.
    Feeling dizzy, I had to lean against the wall for support. The sleeping pills might not have killed me, but they had thrown me into a kind of limbo that I was struggling to climb out of. My eyes were what worried me the most: it was as though someone had peeled them, and they felt so raw that I was having difficulty just keeping them open.
    Tortured by my headache, I dragged myself down the stairs, clutching the banister for support. With each step I took, I felt my stomach churning, as though I might throw up at any moment.
    Outside, the storm raged. Whenever lightning flashed, the house resembled a lighthouse in the middle of a tempest.
    When I finally reached the bottom of the stairs, I took