I'm Still Here (Je Suis Là) by Clélie Avit, Lucy Foster Page B

crack in the door. She is persistent. She never closes this door, as though she’s still hoping that I’ll change my mind and wander in.
    I lift my arm blindly, trying to reach the handle to close that door once and for all, when I hear my name. I’ve been trying to ignore whatever they’re saying inside, but I can’t ignore the sound of my own name.
    â€œâ€¦ still doesn’t want to come.”
    â€œAm I not his brother anymore?”
    â€œYou can’t blame him for being confused.”
    I notice that my mother hasn’t really answered the question. Perhaps because she is not sure of the answer, or because she doesn’t want to say it out loud. I don’t even know what I would have said myself. It’s true that I’ve hated him since he caused this accident, but we still share a surname, we still have the same mother. In a basic, fundamental way we’ll always be family.
    Except that I don’t feel as though we are a family anymore. A family has love and respect; it lives through highs and lows, but there always has to be some kind of basic harmony and understanding. Like Gaëlle and Julien. My brother has sunk a hundred meters below ground level, and I have no desire to help my mother drag him back up to the surface. He got down there all by himself, he’ll have to dig himself out alone.
    â€œâ€¦ frightened.”
    I open my eyes at once—that was my brother’s voice again. In spite of myself, I listen.
    There’s a long silence. My mother hasn’t answered, or perhaps she just murmured something. My hand is still suspended above the door handle, my breath suspended in my throat.
    â€œI was frightened before. And I’m still frightened.”
    The little air that is left in my lungs is stuck there and I feel as though a trickle of cold water is being poured over my entire body. I start to cough uncontrollably and cover my face with my hands. Even if I had wanted to hear the next part of the conversation, I wouldn’t have been able to. In any case, at this moment I see the girl come out of Elsa’s room.
    With my breath still caught in my throat, I watch her head for the elevators. As soon as the doors close, I leap out of my chair and hurry over to room 52 .
    I turn the handle as though my life depended on it and close the door, leaning back against it with relief. My muscles are so tense you’d think that I had done battle with a tiger to get into the room. In here there’s only the electrical whirr of the machines attached to Elsa. But the thoughts I tried to leave out in the corridor are still with me.
    If my brother was frightened, he deserved it. If he’s still frightened, he still deserves it. But perhaps it shows some regret.
    I shake my head, clenching my fists. I refuse to make excuses for him, or to make room for some kind of redemption. I want to continue to hate him for what he has done. But it’s true that he is still my brother. So perhaps it’s impossible for me to hate him through and through.
    That doesn’t make sense to me either. Nothing makes sense, except being in room 52 . And I’m here, and the smell of jasmine is gently soothing my mind and making me breathe easier. I’ve found my lighthouse, the luminous signal that brings me back to dry land after a voyage in deep water. I’ve found my refuge, and it’s a lot better than sitting in a stairwell.
    Better, too, than a chair in the corridor beside the abyss into which my brother has fallen.

    â€œHere, I bought you this.”
    Julien hands me a book with a yellow and black cover before he even says hello. There’s still snow on his hat and his cheeks are red from the cold. I arrived at the pub a few minutes before him, so I’ve already had time to defrost.
    â€œWhat is it?” I ask, taking his jacket and putting it on the bench next to me.
    â€œRead the title, that should answer all your