Break Away by Sylvain Hotte

Author:Sylvain Hotte
Language: fra
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-926824-05-5
Publisher: Baraka Books
Published: 2011-09-26T04:00:00+00:00

For once I said “yes.” I went along with Tommy to hang out with his girls at the restaurant. Not that I really wanted to. It’s just that I was completely bamboozled ; Plan B for getting closer to Jessie had taken a bizarre twist. I was feeling sick to my stomach, and because of that I didn’t really want to be all alone.

At Chez Lisette, we met up with his girlfriend, Karine, and her friend Chloé. We took a booth. Everyone ordered poutine or pogos, except me. I didn’t order anything. Through the neon “OPEN” sign that flashed blue and pink in the window, I saw two truckers talking. One of them, pot-bellied and hiding behind a big moustache, pointed at his forty-five footer covered with snow. He had to make it to Sept-Îles. It was snowing up there. Soon it would be our turn to taste the first storm of the year. Already.

I wondered what they were talking about, the two truckers. They were probably talking about the weather. But also the road, what they had seen en route. Such and such village on the Côte-Nord, or in Tadoussac or Natashquan. I wouldn’t mind driving a truck and seeing the country. I’d roll west all the way to Vancouver, or south to the United States. If hockey doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll be a trucker. And go far, far away from here, and stay away for a long, long time.

“Don’t you want anything ?” asked Chloé.

I lifted my heavy eyes toward Karine’s friend.

I looked at her dark-skinned, round face, her long black hair. This girl was always smiling, as if her life was nothing but eternal happiness. She would crinkle up her almond eyes and begin laughing at any old thing you said. And to tell the truth, that was bugging me, so I wasn’t very nice.

“No, I’m not hungry. Anyways, I gotta go.”

“It was nice to see you,” she replied.

She laughed and I ignored it, pretty sure that she didn’t give a damn about me. I know I wasn’t that “nice” to look at, what with the mood I was in.

“How come you don’t want to stay ?” asked tall Karine.

“Leave him alone,” said Tommy, shrugging his shoulders and taking a bite of his pogo dipped in mustard.

When I got home, Sylvie told me that my father had headed out to the bush and wouldn’t be back until next week. Apparently he had insisted that I go get the quad since a storm was in the offing. I ate in silence, and then went to my room to do my homework. Later that night I went to lay down with Sylvie in her bed. She was reading another one of those big novels that she tore through in a couple of nights, lying in her pyjamas, under the duvet. She doesn’t do anything else at night. Do you ever wonder if everybody ends up like that when they grow up : alone, rolled up in their blankets.

I woke up the next morning in Sylvie’s bed.

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