The problem with Laure was that she always ordered for two.
“Two gin and tonics, please.”
Yog watched her do it without batting an eye. She didn't like gin and tonic. Laure knew that. Laure didn't care.
“You could at least ask me.” “ I know you. You would've gotten still water and spent the evening watching me drink while sighing.” “That’s not true. I would've gotten sparkling water.”
Laure burst out laughing—that too-loud laugh that made heads turn in bars and always made Yog want to crawl under the table. But tonight, she didn't crawl anywhere. It was mild for a March evening in Strasbourg, which qualified as a climate miracle, and Yog had decided to be in a good mood. It was a conscious effort. She'd even put on a top that wasn't black.
The bar was called The Shipwreck. A charming name for a place where people came to drown things. It was wedged between a pharmacy and a kebab shop on a street downtown, with string lights hanging from the ceiling year-round because the bar owner thought they made the place “welcoming.” Yog thought they looked sad. But she kept that to herself, because Laure loved the place, and contradicting Laure took energy Yog preferred to conserve.
They were on their second drink when the guy approached.
Tall. Leather jacket. Practiced smile. The kind of guy who'd rehearsed his entrance in front of a mirror.
“Are you ladies here alone?”
Yog looked up at him with the enthusiasm of a civil servant on a Monday morning.
“No. There are two of us. That's kind of the point of not being alone.”
The guy laughed. Not because it was funny—because he thought laughing was the right strategy. He sat down anyway, without being invited, and ordered a beer, winking at the server as if they were in on something together.
His name was—Yog forgot it the second he said it. He talked about his car, his job in “event planning,” and his apartment with a terrace. Laure nodded politely. Yog stared at a spot behind his shoulder, wondering whether the string lights on the ceiling were a fire hazard.
Twenty minutes later, he delivered the grand finale.
“I can walk you home, if you want. My car's just downstairs.”
Laure opened her mouth, but Yog was faster.
“That's nice of you, but we already have a driver. His name is our legs. Very reliable. Never breaks down.”
The guy lingered for one second too long, his smile frozen, then stood up, muttering something about girls who didn't know how to have fun. Laure waited until he was out of earshot before snickering.
“You're horrible.” “I'm honest. It's different.” “That's exactly what horrible people say.”
Yog smiled. A real smile, not the rictus she served the rest of the world. With Laure, it was easy. It had always been easy.
They left around midnight. The air was cool, almost pleasant, and the neighborhood streets were empty in that reassuring way places where nothing ever happens tend to be. Laure walked a step ahead, as always, her arms spread out over an imaginary sidewalk, a little tipsy, telling a story about a coworker who'd accidentally sent a love email to the entire company.
Yog was only half listening. She was thinking about her bed. About the herbal tea she'd make when she got home. About the fact that she'd forgotten to start a load of laundry.
She didn't hear the engine right away.
By the time she noticed it, it was a low, distant rumble growing too quickly. White headlights at the end of the street, broad and high. Too high for a car.
Laure was at the curb.
Yog opened her mouth.
The heavy truck didn't swerve.
The sound was brief. A dull impact, a screech, then a silence so complete it swallowed the entire street.
Yog didn't scream. Her legs didn't move. She stood there, arms at her sides, eyes fixed on the place where Laure had been standing a second earlier.
The truck didn't stop.
The taillights disappeared around the corner, red and indifferent, and the silence settled back in as if it had never left.
Yog looked down.
She didn't recognize what she saw.
Somewhere far away, in a part of her brain that was still functioning, a thought formed, clear and absurd: *she hadn't even finished her story*.
Then her knees gave way, and the sidewalk rose up to meet her, and the world became a single sound—a siren, or a scream, or both. She no longer knew.