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CHAPTER NINE the great devourer
⋆*✧･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:
BEAU VIDAL WAS thirty-four years old when his wife's head exploded in the Lumière des Étoiles restaurant.
It came out of nowhere, as tragedies often do. Most people don't have the luxury of knowing—or even feeling that something like this is about to happen. They don't wake up with anxiety curdling in their guts. They don't get shivers rushing down their spines. They don't feel the sudden, unexplainable urge to call their grandmother, or their uncle, or their sister. They don't decide to deviate from the routine they'd settled into in favour of something else.
Beau didn't know. Neither did Louise, he thought. He woke up with her that morning same as he always did, his arms around her, their legs entangled. The window was open a crack, and a stream of morning sunlight cut a line across his wife's delicate face. She smiled lazily, and it was a genuine smile, not one that masked an unexplainable fear.
"Joyeux anniversaire, mon amour," she said. Happy anniversary, my love. And her voice was so full of love that Beau thought he might burst from it. But it wasn't the type of love you gave when you were saying goodbye.
As a tradition, Beau and Louise spent their anniversary alternating between activities—one their partner liked, then one they liked—before capping it off at the Lumière des Étoiles. The restaurant didn't have any real sentimental value to them, but it did make the best damn Bouillabaisse they'd ever eaten, and that was reason enough to return. But only on their anniversary. They had to make it special somehow.
Louise was wearing a wine-red dress that truly displayed her body to the world, curves and hips and breasts for days. Beau wasn't jealous, though. He wasn't the kind of man to believe a woman was cheating solely for not covering up. Besides, if he had a body like that, he damn well knew he would show it off, too.
He'd tried, himself, to match his wife's style. A powder-blue suit. A little bit of hair gel to tame his unruly curls. He'd even swapped out his usual turtle shell glasses for ones that were lined with gold.
The effort worked. Twirling her pearl necklace around and around, Louise gazed at Beau the same way he often found himself looking at her—as if he held all of the stars in the galaxy. His heart quickened. He felt twenty-five again, on his first date with her, giggling and young and so in love. He couldn't believe that he'd gotten so lucky.
Louise often fretted that her infertility made it hard for her to love. They both wanted a child—sometimes so desperately that their chests felt hollow. But Beau would never leave her for something as trivial as that. There were always options, ones that they simply hadn't explored yet. He would have the daughter or son he'd always dreamed of, one way or another.
