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Bossuet has never liked cold water. It's just a thing about him. Everyone knows it, nobody thinks anything of it. It isn't particularly peculiar. Until it is.
See, the thing is, Bossuet can't stand cold water. A spray of cool water from the shower doesn't only make him squirm a bit, uncomfortable. It makes his heart stop. A hand closes around his throat, a little mousy creature nibbles at the edges of his sanity.
As a child, he splashed around in lakes and puddles and rivers without a care. It's a newer thing, but he still can't trace its origins.
Then he's piss-poor. Then he's homeless.
For a while, Bossuet lives on the streets, in the changing rooms of 24/7 gyms, in a night diner on the Northern border of Paris, teeming with truck drivers and people with odd jobs, odd hours, odd faces and names. They come and they go.
Then Musichetta.
They are in love for a while, she lets him live with her in her cupboard of an apartment above her café. This is when he buzzes his hair off, not only to save money but to spend less time in the icy embrace of Musichetta's perpetually freezing shower.
They fall out of love slowly, but she does not kick him out. He kicks himself out but comes around to her café a few times a week, because she has deep-set dimples when she smiles and because her hips are voluptuous and her coffee is free for him. She slides him slices of cake with that secretive look on her face.
Months pass and she starts running with a new man. This man is small, lithe, grassy. He greets Bossuet, not unkindly, but he is reserved.
Eventually, Musichetta goes her own way, finds her way into the arms of women, and other men. She moves on, a sprite on the surface of the water, a pond skater. Her favourite is the tall black woman, whose name sounds like the call of a lark that echoes against the concrete walls of suburbia.
Bossuet still doesn't like cold water. But he likes the man Musichetta left behind. He seems to know what she is like, he understands her the same way Bossuet does.
He sometimes looks at Bossuet, knowing. He has brown eyes, dark enough to look black under the yellow lights of Musichetta's café. His skin is the same colour as Bossuet's favourite gift wrapper, brown with tints of ruddy orange.
The man walks with a noticeable limp sometimes, he winces when he sits down and he rubs at his left knee.
Joly. He tells Bossuet his life story when they first sit down together for coffee that Musichetta brews afresh just for them. Her eyes twinkle, when she serves them, and Bossuet knows.
Joly tells him about Nepal, about his family, about his education. He tells him of his injury and his abilities and his old dog's three puppies that have names Bossuet asks him to repeat, because they sound like rivulets of water, gushing down a mountain. It's the first time water seems enchanting.
When Joly asks him about his life, all Bossuet can say is: "I don't like cold water."
Joly takes his wrist and says: "It's because you drowned, didn't you?"
Bossuet still doesn't like cold water, but Joly's apartment he shares with another man has water that's sometimes warm. Joly's bed is warm. His voice is thick in the morning, laden with dreams and thoughts that Bossuet drinks from Joly's mouth. He etches his marks on Joly's skin, one by one.
Joly reads him like a journal, dives deep, skims pages, reads aloud when no one else is in the room.
Bossuet has drowned and he's here again. He's a golem, a clay pot out of the oven, and he loves now.
He keeps his head bald, keeps Joly by his side, both a keepsake and a miracle. They still visit Musichetta's café. Bossuet still doesn't like cold water, but the water feels better now that he's holding onto a rope.