The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

by V.E. Schwab

He loves his family, he does. He just doesn’t always like them.

“This is how it starts,” she says. And he begins to write.

She feels him like a draft. He does not knock. He never knocks. One moment she is alone, and the next, she is not. “Adeline.”

“I simply want to be the one who breaks you.”

“You said it yourself, Luc. Ideas are wilder than memories. And I can be wild. I can be stubborn as the weeds, and you will not root me out. And I think you are glad of it. I think that’s why you’ve come, because you are lonely, too.”

“Perhaps that’s why you cursed me as you did. So you would have some company. So someone would remember you.”

“The vexing thing about time,” he says, “is that it’s never enough. Perhaps a decade too short, perhaps a moment. But a life always ends too soon.”

It is a different thing when the glass breaks. It is her mother in the doorway, withered to bone. It is Remy in the Paris salon. It is Sam, inviting her to stay, every time. It is Toby Marsh, playing their song.

erase me. To make sure I felt unseen, unheard, unreal. You don’t really realize the power of a name until it’s gone. Before you, he was the only one who could say it.” The voice curls like smoke inside her head. Oh Adeline. Adeline, Adeline. My Adeline.

“When’s the last time you saw him?” and Addie falters. For an instant, she is in a bed, black silk sheets twisted around her limbs, the New Orleans heat oppressive even in the dark. But Luc is a cool weight, wrapped around her limbs, his teeth skating along her shoulder as he whispers the word against her skin. Surrender. Addie swallows, pushes the memory down like bile in her throat. “Almost thirty years ago,” she says, as if she doesn’t count the days. As if the anniversary isn’t rushing up to meet them.

“We had a falling-out,” she says, and it is the barest version of the truth.

“My Adeline,” he says, “still longing to grow up and become Estele.” “I am not yours,”

“I saw an elephant, in Paris.” Her words to him, so many years before. It is such a strange answer now, filled with unspoken things. I saw an elephant, and thought of you. I was in Paris, and you were not. “And you thought of me,” she says. It is a question. He does not answer.

She does not remember drifting off, but when she wakes, it is early in the morning, and the cottage is empty, the fire little more than embers. A blanket has been cast over her shoulders, and beyond the window, the world is white again. And Addie will wonder if he was ever there.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and it is the first time she has ever heard those words in that silken voice, the only time they will ever sound honest.

“Happy anniversary, my Luc,” she answers, just to see the face he’ll make. She is rewarded with a raised brow, the crooked upturn of his mouth,

“Do you miss me,” she asks, “when you are not here?” Those green eyes drift up, the emerald even in the dark. “I am here, with you, more often than you think.”

His eyes darken with pleasure. “Do you wait for me?”

“Put it on, and I will come.”

Happy anniversary, my love.

If Luc finds them together, he will take more than that.

And then he whispers three words into her hair. “I love you,” he says, and Addie wonders if this is love, this gentle thing. If it is meant to be this soft, this kind. The difference between heat, and warmth. Passion, and contentment. “I love you too,” she says. She wants it to be true.

Wonders if they are like magnets, she and Luc. If they have circled each other for so long that now they share an orbit.

“I know your heart. I felt it falter.”

His mouth hovers over her own, his voice dropping to nothing but a breeze. “You belong to me.” There is a sound like thunder in the back of his throat. “With me.” And when she looks up into his eyes, she sees a new shade of green, and knows exactly what it is. The color of a man off-balance. His chest rises and falls as if it were a human thing. Here is a place to put the knife. “I would rather be a ghost.” And for the first time, the darkness flinches. Draws back like shadows in the face of light. His eyes go pale with anger, and there is the god she knows, the monster she has learned to face.

“My love,” he says, “you’re looking well.”

“I suppose I should be flattered by the resemblance.”

“How do you walk to the end of the world?” He looks up at her. “I wanted to hold on to every step.”

And for a moment, the embrace is only that, and he is solid, and warm, folded around her in the dark, and it would be easy to believe that he is real, that he is human, that he is home.

“At least he keeps me company.” Those emerald eyes trail over her skin. “So would I,” he says, “if you wanted it.”

They have always kept their distance. Now, the space collapses. His body wraps around hers like a blanket, like a breeze, like the night itself.

“Even if everyone you met remembered,” Luc says, “I would still know you best.”

Their bodies press together, one shaped to fit the other perfectly. His shoulder, molded to her cheek. His hands, molded to her waist. His voice, molded to the hollow places in her as he says, “I want you.” And then, again, “I have always wanted you.”

“You want me as a prize,” she says. “You want me as a meal, or a glass of wine. Just another thing to be consumed.” He dips his head, presses his lips to her collarbone. “Is that so wrong?” She fights back a shiver as he kisses her throat. “Is it such a bad thing…” His mouth trails along her jaw. “… to be savored?” His breath brushes her ear. “To be relished?”

But now, he kisses her like someone tasting poison. Cautious, questing, almost afraid.

His arms lift around her, forming a loose and open cage. She could break it, if she tried. She doesn’t try.

And in the morning, the whole room shows the signs of their war.

“It’s been so long,” he says, “since I haven’t wanted to leave.”

She looks at the window, the first thin edge of light. “Then don’t.” “I must,” he says. “I am a thing of darkness.” She props her head up on one hand. “Will you vanish with the sun?” “I will simply go where it is dark again.” Addie rises, goes to the window, and draws the curtains closed, plunging the room back into lightless black. “There,” she says, feeling her way back to...

It is only sex. And then it is not. “Dine with me,” Luc says as winter gives way to spring. “Dance with me,” he says as a new year begins. “Be with me,” he says, at last, as one decade slips into the next.

Addie does not hate him anymore. Has not for a long time.

“Do you remember the opera in Munich?” “I remember everything, Luc.” “The way you looked at the players on that stage, as if you’d never seen theater before.” “I’d never seen theater like that.” “The wonder in your eyes, at the sight of something new. I knew then I’d never win.”

She missed him the way someone might miss the sun in winter, though they still dread its heat. She missed the sound of his voice, the knowing in his touch, the flint-on-stone friction of their conversations, the way they fit together. He is gravity.

“How often did you think of me?” And she assumes he is baiting her—until his voice softens to a whisper, the faintest roll of thunder in the air between them. “Because I thought of you. Always.” “You didn’t come.” “You didn’t call.”

“Tell me, Luc,” she says. “Was any of it real?” “What is real to you, Adeline? Since my love counts for nothing?”

“I love you.” They are in New Orleans when he says it,

“Home.”

for once, she doesn’t dread the idea of forever.

This is how it ends.

And this, she thinks, is home. This, perhaps, is love.