I don't know how long I stayed here.
A few minutes.
A few hours.
Maybe more.
When you suffer enough, time ceases to obey the usual rules.
I only remember the cold.
Wind.
And the sound of the water.
The Rhône continued to move forward.
Like he did before me.
Just like he would after me.
Indifferent to my dramas.
Indifferent to my questions.
Indifferent to my existence.
I was looking at the emptiness.
And for the first time in a long time, I tried to look for an answer.
Because, basically, none of them satisfied me.
If Kamino didn't exist...
Then Milenca was wrong.
His whole life.
All his certainties.
All his fears.
And I refused to believe that the woman who raised me was just an old lady lost in her memories.
But if Kamino existed...
Then I had another question.
The worst of all.
Why was Mickael still here?
I thought about his messages.
To his promises.
To his silences.
To his absences.
On his return.
I thought about how he looked at me.
The way he talks about my songs.
To the trust he had placed in me before the public even did.
I thought about all this.
And I understand something.
I never really doubted her love.
I doubted mine.
Since Milenca died, I've been desperately looking for something to hang up on.
And I ended up clinging to him.
With all my strength.
Like a drowning.
As if Mickael could replace a mother.
Grandma.
A family.
As if a man could repair all the world's absences.
That was impossible.
And deeply unjust.
For him.
Just like me.
I'm going to take my phone out.
By reflex.
To reread his messages again.
Then my gaze stood on an old note recorded several months earlier.
A voice memo.
The voice of Milenca.
I completely forgot it.
My hands began to tremble.
I leaned on reading.
The sound was bad.
Away.
We almost heard the wind behind her.
Then his voice appeared.
Tired.
Aged.
But always recognizable.
- My little Dianne...
A sob immediately went up into my throat.
I haven't heard his voice since he died.
I closed my eyes.
And I listened.
She was talking about simple things.
From the garden.
Time.
Old memories.
Then suddenly she uttered a sentence that I had never noticed before.
A phrase lost in the middle of the rest.
A phrase I probably took for an old woman's divagation.
— Never let fear decide for you.
I was opening my eyes again.
The river was still there.
Night, too.
But something had changed.
I thought about his whole story.
Maeva.
Rodrigo.
At the camp.
To Kamino.
In Paris.
To Julie.
Everything she'd been through.
Milenca had lost her first love.
His daughter.
Part of his family.
His country.
His certainties.
And yet she had continued.
Again.
And again.
And again.
I then understood what had brought me back to the banks of the Rhône.
It wasn't Mickael.
It wasn't Kamino.
It wasn't even the scandal.
It was fear.
Fear of being alone.
Fear of being abandoned.
The fear of finding out that the man I loved didn't love me.
The fear of finding out he really loved me.
Fear of being wrong.
Fear of being right.
So I started laughing.
A strange laugh.
Exhausted.
Almost tender.
Because I finally realized something.
I didn't need to know the truth that night.
I didn't need to solve Kamino's story.
I didn't need to know what Mickael really felt.
I didn't even need to know what I was going to be.
I just needed to stay alive.
Tomorrow will come next.
Then the next day.
Then another day.
Like after every disaster.
As after every mourning.
As after every fall.
I put my phone away.
Then I left the railing.
Slowly.
The Rhône continued its course behind me.
And for the first time in months, I tried to look at the water.
I looked in front.
I still didn't know if Kamino existed.
I still didn't know if Mickael loved me.
I still didn't know if my career would survive the scandal.
But I knew one thing.
Milenca had taken her answers with her.
And I still had a whole life to look for mine.
So I started walking again.
Not to glory.
Not to Mickael.
Not to a truth.
Just about tomorrow.
And that night, it was already a victory.