One Midnight (ONC 2024) ✔️

Chapter Twenty- The Child

2019

I melt into my bed as my head descends onto my pillow. Nicolas has not called me since that night and a part of me wishes that he would, even though we made a promise to take things slower. It's killing me, this waiting, and it's killing me that I can't be with him.

But damn it. Every time I close my eyes, I still see stupid Jeff. Everywhere. Why can't I do it? Why can't I just let go? I think Nicolas knows it. He caught the picture that I still have of Jeff on my phone. Is that why he hasn't called me or texted me?

I'm playing Marie Guidry's music on my iPhone that's resting on the Bluetooth speaker. If there is one thing about Marie Guidry's so-called music, is that it is to me, bland and uninspired. It has structure, like most of the Baroque era music, but it lacks in something. I struggle to find the right words to say to most people who at least enjoy the comical opera, La Soubrette. But the opera has no base, it has no heart. No soul — that is the word I am looking for.

The only thing that it has going for it is its libretto, which is perhaps, according to Dr. Peterson, some of the best writing to come out of any opera that originally is connected to a New Orleanian.

Instead, I change the music to La Fleuve, the opera by Ignace Leblanc. The opera is about a girl who has fallen into hard times, but she always finds herself at the river at the end of every act. In one part of the opera, the soprano goes into the river and sings woefully about her troubled past, drowning in the water as she imagines being embraced by the love of her life. 

I remember what Dr. Peterson said about the French lyrics that I wrote when I took the quiz about Marie Guidry and her role in the opera. I still am puzzled by that, but because of the events that transpired over the last few days — especially with Nicolas Moreno, I forgot about it.

Until I hear the lyrics, they are practically screaming out at me. The words swim all around me, almost as if I can touch them with my hands. My room swirls around me, the music taking a definitive shape in my mind's eyes. As I close my eyes, it is almost as if I am in the river like in the opera, washing away my pain.

The room has grown dark, save for the night light that barely illuminates one corner of the room. I cannot move my body, no matter how much I want to scream my mouth refuses to open. The lights from multiple cars passing by. My body grows heavier as tears fall down my cheek and I begin to sob, trying to remove the thought of Jeff and Bessie from my mind. I never even knew Bessie or what she looked like before Jeff got with her, so why is she dressed so strangely, like from the historical times? And why is her name Bernadette? I must be going crazy. Why me? All I wanted was a call from Nicolas. Not a dream about my ex and his stupid girlfriend.

The music that was playing earlier, is now looping again to the same opera.

La Soubrette.

That inspid, bland opera.

Little by little I am able to move my fingers and my legs. I slowly sit up and breathe deeply, as if breathing for the first time. The room is ice cold and I shiver. It reminds me of a cold winter's day.

There lies the truth. Listen to the music.

In the dim light of my bedroom, a figure stands in the corner. She stares at me, wide eyed and pale. No, no, no. Not again. Not her again.

"Do you remember me?" she asks, stepping further, closer to my bed.

The sight of her is enough to make me want to scream. She is pale, like a ghost. She wears nothing but a white nightgown. Her pale, sunken eyes are pleading with me, her lips formed into a quivering frown.