Élodie was used to waking to a certain symphony: the muffled chime of fine china, the whisper of silk curtains drawn, the distant, efficient hum of a household that existed solely to meet her needs. This was not that symphony.
This was neighbors screaming at children through thin walls at dawn. This was the relentless snarl of traffic from the highway, a sound that never fully faded, even at night. This was the expense of a cheap apartment, and she felt the cost of it in her bones each morning. She regretted, now, not taking more from the accounts she'd so righteously refused. Pride made for a poor breakfast.
The shower was a torture device of extremes—scalding, then glacial, with no merciful in-between. The landlady, sighed at through the phone, promised to look at it "tomorrow afternoon." Brushing her teeth, choosing an outfit from her limited, self-bought wardrobe—each simple act was a tedious referendum on her own competence. And then, the kitchen.
The fridge was stocked, a monument to good intentions. The chef, however, was hopeless, the chef wasn't stocked with enough knowledge on recipes, every dish turned out worse than the previous, even the recipe book she was following felt like a joke, it would've laughed at her if there was a chance. Every attempt following the cheerful, deceitful recipe book ended in disaster.
She settled for toast. One press of the lever, and the toaster erupted like a tiny industrial accident, spewing acrid smoke that sent the alarm shrieking in panic, the smoke alarm went on within a second. Jer breakfast was a blackened slab, which she ate standing over the sink, tasting only failure.
The sink, it seemed, had conspired with the toaster. As she rinsed the plate, the tap refused to shut off, the drain clogged, and a flood of lukewarm water swiftly conquered the linoleum. Her third call to the landlady that week was met with a silence so profound it was almost audible.
While the handyman clanked and cursed in her kitchen, Élodie retreated to the tiny balcony. The noise faded into a drone as she let her mind drift back to the shaded verandas and easy laughter of her old life. She missed it. Craved it. And that was precisely why she couldn't go back. To be a puppet, even a gilded one, was to be dead while breathing. This drowning sink, this burned toast—this was the sound of her own heartbeat, clumsy and real.
The repairs bled into evening. The rain started as the landlady finally left, a steady, cool drizzle that slickened the neon signs of the street below. The nap she'd fallen into on the balcony chair left her stiff and disoriented. The thought of confronting the kitchen again was intolerable. Empty stomach warring with weary pride, stomach won. She grabbed her umbrella, a handful of cash, and stepped out into the damp, electric night.
The rain fell in earnest now, drumming a rhythm on her umbrella, turning the sidewalk into a mirror of fractured city light. She was two blocks from the dubious safety of a late-night diner when she saw it—a dark, huddled shape in the alley mouth, trembling against a overflowing trash bin.
Not it. Him.
A dog, puppy-sized, fur plastered dark with mud and rain. He flinched as her light found him, and she saw the raw gash along his flank, an ugly tear against his ribs. His eyes, wide and liquid, held no aggression, only a deep, silent endurance of pain. He didn't whine. He just watched her, as if she were another element of the unforgiving night.
"Oh, no," she whispered, the word stolen by the rain.
Her plans for a greasy burger evaporated. Every instinct from her old life—call someone, pay someone, delegate this problem—surfaced and was dismissed. There was no one to call. Only her.
"Easy," she said, her voice unfamiliar to her own ears. She shrugged out of her thin coat, moving slowly, and draped it over his shivering back. He tensed but didn't snap. Gathering his wet weight into her arms was an awkward, straining ordeal. He was heavier than he looked, and he smelled of wet earth, garbage, and blood. She hailed a cab, and the driver's skeptical glance at her dripping, muddy burden made her back straighten with a hauteur she hadn't used in weeks.
"The emergency veterinary clinic. Now, please."
The vet was a tired woman with kind eyes. Élodie answered questions in a clipped, efficient tone she remembered from her mother overseeing staff. "No, I don't know his name. He's not mine. I found him. Just fix him. The cost isn't an issue." The words felt strange, powerful in this new context. She paid the deposit with cash, watching through a window as they cleaned and stitched the wound, the dog lying passive under the bright lights.
An hour later, they were back in the cheap apartment. The dog was clean, shaved around a line of neat stitches, wrapped in a blanket from the clinic. He moved slowly, delicately, as she guided him to a nest of towels she'd made in the corner of the living room. She placed a bowl of water beside him, and another with some shredded chicken she'd picked up on the way home.
He drank, ate a little, then simply settled, his head on his paws. Exhausted, Élodie sank onto her own couch, the events of the day crashing over her—the flood, the smoke, the rain, the blood, the startling weight of another creature in her arms.
She felt his gaze before she saw it. Looking up, she met his eyes across the dim room. He wasn't sleeping. He was just… watching. Not with the scared anxiety of the alley, nor the doped gratitude of the clinic. This was a calm, focused, intent observation. His eyes, reflecting the faint streetlight from the window, seemed to take in every detail of her: her slumped posture, her untied hair, the way she worried her thumb against her palm. It was a deeper attention than any servant or socialite had ever paid her. It felt like being seen, truly seen, for the first time since she'd arrived in this lonely place.
A shiver, unrelated to the cold, traced her spine. She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, making herself smaller. The dog, nestled in his towels, simply continued his quiet, unblinking vigil.