Stella. It's as pretty as I'd hoped.

She looks at me, circumspect. I must be lost in my thoughts.

"And you are..." she asks me.

"... in no mood to reveal my name to you", I tease her with a smile.

She gaves me back my smile  when I look up. I am happy to see that my joke does not offend her. I never know what to say about her.

"My name is Brody" I finally answer.

Somewhere, I hate lying to her. I would have preferred to give her my real name, but nothing can compromise my stay here, more than it already is.

"Brody," she says. "You don't look like Brody."

She makes a little pensive pout.

"Ah, and I have a face to call myself what?" I ask her, cheered by her good mood.

She looks at me again to examine me, and I can only appreciate the feeling that her look at me gives me. She puts her index finger on her lip to support her thinking.

"Paul... no... Matthew... neither... you have an English accent so... maybe... Nigel? Liam? No... I would say a much more original name than that", she ends up answering, without leaving my eyes.

I'm feeling a little bit unsettled, actually. I shake my head and try to pick myself up.

"I am a simple Brody," I say, shrugging my shoulders.

She smiles again. I like to see her in that state. She seems carefree, even though I can see a weight on her shoulders.

"What are you doing here, all alone?" I ask her, looking at the sea.

She does the same.

"I like the apparent calm of the ocean. It allows me to forget", she says, lost in thought. "The movement of the waves soothes me. It keeps the chaos in my head from getting too big..."

A touch of sadness runs through the blue of her irises. I would like to know exactly why she was interned. But I dare not ask her. Just the fact that she wants to talk to me right now is enough.

"It would be even better if we could bathe there... let ourselves be carried by the current, lying on the surface of the water... that's soothing," I say.

"I haven't bathed for years," she adds. "I miss the feeling of the water on my body."

"I'll take you if you want."

At that moment, I realize what I have just done, barely my sentence done. I'm as surprised as she is. How could I say that out loud? She's going to take her legs around her neck, that's for sure. Well, in her case... her wheels?

"Uh... I mean... not now, clearly... but... well... if you want... one day... maybe... or not... it's okay... forget...

I stammer in front of my clumsiness. I try to catch up to this blunder, but I just keep going deeper. How can I be so stupid? I take my head in my hands, to avoid the lightning she must be sending me. But, to my great surprise, I hear a burst of laughter. I raise my head, amazed and see that she laughs. Frankly, even. I can only join her.

"You're funny," she says, calming down. "There's a lack of people like you around here."

I'll take that as a compliment, which makes my smile double.

"In spite of myself, then", I correct her. "I am not at all a comedian at heart."

"To be funny in spite of oneself is the most beautiful of the funny," she says, with a gentle look at me.

But who is this girl I have in front of me? Again, I feel like it wasn't the same girl who dumped me, who was crying all the tears in her body last night... I'm totally baffled by her behavior.

A fresh wind comes up and I notice that Stella closes the little blue vest that she wears while shivering. Unfortunately, I don't have a jacket on me to pass around her shoulders.

"Do you want me to take you back? I ask her.

"Yes, thank you."

I go behind her to grab the chair handles. We go to the centre park.

"I have a question for you," she says.

"I'm listening to you."

"Why did you come to my room last night?" she asks me.

I can't see her face, but I sense a certain curiosity in her voice. What do you say to that? That I was afraid something was gonna happen to her when I found out the screams were coming from her room?

"I'm new here and this kind of... scenes are still strange to me. I was worried."

Stella is not picking up. We continue to walk through the park.

"What did you do before... coming here?" she keeps asking me.

"I was in London. I was working in a pizzeria and—"

To tell the truth, I don't know what to say. I have to invent a lie that holds fast. But I've never been very good at improvisation.

"... I had a burn-out. Depression, anxiety attacks... The whole thing! So, I was advised this establishment and here I am!"

She turns towards me, a puzzled look on her face. I stop pushing her chair.

"You did a burn-out in London... and you went through a good part of the world to get medical treatment here?"

Improvisation is really not my strong suit, decidedly...

I position myself in front of her, to answer her.

"Yes, I know, it seems completely silly to fly so many hours for a treatment, but... I also wanted to leave England", I confess. "I was suffocating there, without realizing it. I wasn't happy. My family did not fail to point this out to me, but I did not want to hear it. When I get out of here, I'm gonna make a fresh start here..."

Strangely, I feel a weight rising from my chest. I had never spoken to anyone about what I felt in London. This is the first time I've said it out loud.

"I hope you do," she says.

"What about you? What did you do before you were here?"

I smile at her before I listen to her answer. But when I get up to take a seat behind the chair, my joy disappears when I see Ben, my "friend" nurse heading towards me, an unhealthy grin on the face...

******