I'm lying there on the ground, on the pavement soaked by the torrential rain, listening to Voilà in my headphones. I don't think I've ever recognized myself more in a text than in this one. I know I won't be able to stay in this position for hours on end, but please let me breathe for just two seconds. For the first time in three weeks, I feel somewhat calmer. I can almost forget this constant pain in my heart, this tightness in my chest, this incessant urge to burst into tears when my body has no more tears to provide. My mind pauses for just two seconds, and at last I can catch my breath.

One. Two. Three. Pause. Three. Deuce. Uno. Break. One. Deuce. Tres. Four. Break. Four. Three. Two. One. You need to breathe, Manon.

I stand up and look at the house in front of me. My mother looks at me worriedly through the window. I can see she doesn't know how to talk to me anymore. She doesn't dare say anything for fear of hurting me even more, of deepening the wounds that haunt me. I don't know which is worse. That someone talks to you but hurts you, or that someone doesn't talk to you for fear of hurting you.

Actually, the problem is that I didn't ask for anything. I begged Lucas not to leave. I stayed by his bedside day and night, and yet here I am, alone, lost in the middle of this crowd watching me, waiting for me to crack. But I'm not going to break down. I can't because it's impossible for me to sink any lower.

I had to say goodbye to my star, my better half, and so I also lost the star I once was. They're extinguished and their weight is far too heavy for one person. So here I am, lying on the floor in my favorite red sweater, trying to get some air back into my body, or what's left of it, and regain a taste for life. But I'm never going to be able to do that with Mum looking at me as if she's afraid I'll take my own life at any moment. I can't take it anymore.

 Not only did I lose my better half on July 12, 2021, I also lost the career I'd always been destined for: running. "Poor Manon, a twenty-four-year-old widow whose future has been brutally snatched from her. "What tragic news for Manon, not only has she lost the one thing she was good at, but also the one person who loved her." At least they're not afraid to write.

Ever since I was a little girl, I've been used to people talking about me in the media: "Manon Reynolds, the French female hope. "Only back then, it didn't really bother me. People were interested in the athletic me, the girl who ran well. But in the last few months, things have changed. Now I can't go online for fear of what people will say. I don't even turn on my phone anymore. Anyway, the only person who used to contact me is no longer with us... I don't even know what's keeping me here. I can't run anymore, I'm alone with my dog, Starlight. I don't see what could be keeping me here, just like this, to go off with him in a van to Sweden in the Sarek. I even think it's simpler. I can't see what's stopping me because there's nothing holding me back here. Mom won't talk to me anymore and I'm clearly becoming a burden for her. Lucas is gone. And Thomas is in Ireland. So I think I'm going to listen to myself for the first time in three weeks and take off in a van with Starlight to the Nordic countries. I'm going to the Arctic Circle to throw Lucas's ashes away.