—When I needed you.

an Auré excerpt

Such a temperament was not expected by Auré, not in the slightest. These situations typically call for earnest sorrow and gentle petting, words of affection and tender solace, the clasping of hands and hearts held onto one another. Instead, there paced Etienne, with an expression so disgruntled, so angered! Auré could not make sense of it. There was a single intimate familiarity, but that was something he did not want associated with his dear Etienne, so he refused to acknowledge the sensation, though it was trickling and tickling at the root of his mind.

“I know you are grieved,” Auré said to him, with the gentlest of tones. “I am regretful of it, of it being her, of it being now. How is your father faring? How are you? I wish I could’ve been sooner spared.”

“Why couldn’t you have?” Etienne’s tone was not so pleasant, but rather accusatory instead.

“Don’t wound me by feigning ignorance,” Auré said, aghast. He knew to remain calm and to remain patient. He would not shout, not here, not with that bedroom door so near. “Do stand still, I intend to offer my condolences, my company, whatever it is you require. But you must settle yourself. Come, should we not go to the salle de séjour?”

“La salle de séjour,” Etienne laughed. Though Auré’s words did cease the pacing, his demeanor only seemed to worsen. “No, forgive me, I’m just fine here in le couloir.”

Auré’s patience was thinning at an incredible rate. He began to glare at the man. That subtly of words had never been an issue before, and now that Etienne had grimaced in such a manner, mocked him in such a manner, a concern never forementioned between the two began to surface. Auré had been ignorant of the complaint, thus his face began to feel the warmth of discomfiture. It was his practice, after all, to speak as he was taught; as his father had always spoken before him. Etienne’s attack was one on his character. His existence in whole. He muttered, just loudly enough to be heard, “I left her for this.”

“You left me!” Etienne shouted.

“This again!” Auré exasperated, clutching his hair. Then it was he who had begun to pace. “How could I have known it would spread here! I did not know! Yet you hold me in contempt for being at her side when she fell ill, remained at her side because that is what a man ought do!”

“You leave me to attend to one who is fortunate enough to have an entire staff to care for her! Elodie is there, it is she who she wants right now. It baffles me how you don’t recognize these things, as aware that you are!” He stepped forward. “Tell me, what is it you do, sit by the bed? Hold onto her hand and murmur to her just the sweet, loving thing that will bring her strength, of which will recover her will? No!” Then he grabbed Auré’s right hand and held it up high so that they could both see. “You sit in the hall, and you pick at your nails as Elodie fills that role because you fear an entrance.” Auré snatched his hand away, but Etienne would not let him speak. “Thus, you finally come here! Here, to another sick house! How noble it is of you to risk your health for not only the woman you love, but for me. Only after, of course. Ever after!” Auré retreated a step, but Etienne would not let him escape. “It has not gone unnoticed how you finally arrive only after my mother is dead. And yet you loitered in that hall, providing absolutely nothing to anyone. Flirting with your own death for absolutely nothing. When I—,”

At last, sense began to form within Auré. He realized how remiss he’d been. He felt a fool for it, a dastardly fool. Despite Etienne’s clenched fists, and despite the shattered vase, and despite that Etienne’s initial reaction was to shove him aside, Auré re-approached and held onto him. Once his fingers gripped the back of his neck the other seemed to soften, and then the two were sent to the floor. Etienne could not but weep, and so for the first time in his life, Auré caressed a grief not his own.