The Girl on Paper by Guillaume Musso Page B

more! Andthere’s definitely no such thing as “my place”.’
    â€˜I’ll get myself a lawyer,’ I muttered. ‘I’ll find a way to get my house back, and all the money that Milo lost.’
    â€˜It won’t work,’ she interrupted, shaking her head sadly.
    â€˜I didn’t ask for your opinion – mind your own business!’
    â€˜But this is my business! May I remind you that I’m stuck here because of your mistake, because of that stupid badly printed book!’
    At the traffic lights, I scrabbled around in my pockets until I found my tranquillisers. I had a cracked rib, a swollen ankle and a broken heart. So I felt justified in swallowing three tablets in one go.
    â€˜That’s right, take the easy way out,’ said Billie reproachfully, her voice heavy with disappointment.
    At that precise moment, I could happily have murdered her. Instead I took a deep breath and tried to stay calm.
    â€˜You won’t get your girlfriend back by just sitting on your butt stuffing yourself with pills, you know.’
    â€˜You don’t know anything about my relationship with Aurore. And, for your information, I’ve tried everything to get her back.’
    â€˜But maybe you didn’t try the right way, or at the right time. Maybe you think you know what women want, but really you don’t know anything about them. I think I could help you—’
    â€˜If you really wanted to help me, you’d shut up for a minute! Just for one minute!’
    â€˜You want to get rid of me? Well, get back to work then! The sooner you finish your novel, the sooner I can return to the world of fiction.’
    Clearly pleased with her retort, she sat back and crossed her arms, waiting for a reaction that never came.
    â€˜Listen,’ she said excitedly, ‘I’ll make you a deal: we go to Mexico, I help you get Aurore back, and in exchange youwrite the third part of your trilogy, because that’s the only way to get me back where I belong.’
    I rubbed my eyes, unsure of how to respond to this extraordinary proposition.
    â€˜I brought your laptop with us,’ she added, as if this fact would somehow sway my decision.
    â€˜It doesn’t work like that,’ I explained. ‘You can’t write a novel to order. There’s a kind of alchemy to it. I would need at least six months of dedicated hard work to finish the book. It demands an ascetic commitment that I have neither the strength nor the desire to give to it.’
    She looked at me mockingly, imitating my voice: ‘“You can’t write a novel to order. There’s a kind of alchemy to it …”’
    She paused for a few seconds before bursting into hysterical laughter.
    â€˜My God, you need to stop wallowing in your own misery. If you don’t snap out of it soon, it’ll get the better of you for good. It’s so much easier to self-destruct gradually than to try and pull yourself together, isn’t it?’
    Touché .
    I didn’t reply, although I took her point. She wasn’t totally wrong. Earlier in the psychiatrist’s office, when I had hurled the statue through the window, something inside me had been released: an inner protest, a need to regain control of my life. But I had to admit that that desire had disappeared as quickly as it had surfaced.
    Now, however, I had the impression that Billie was not going to drop this, and was not afraid to confront me with difficult truths.
    â€˜You know what will happen if you don’t really start to fight your natural inclinations?’
    â€˜No, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me.’
    â€˜You’ll keep taking the pills and you’ll keep snorting drugs.Each time you’ll sink a little lower into self-hatred and self-disgust. And when you’re stone broke, you’ll end up on the street where one day they’ll find your corpse with a syringe still sticking out of