Chapter 15 Silva #6
Her heart twinged as she edged around a black shape in the darkness behind the staircase, realizing with a pang that it was his racing bike, tucked away and covered.
She nearly tripped over a plastic tub of unopened mail, skirting around it to move up the staircase as swiftly and silently as she was able, wincing when another round of cramps moved through her.
When the key to the apartment door slid into the lock just as easily, she breathed a small sigh of relief . . . until the door swung open, and she was forced to confront the apartment without him in it.
It was exactly as they’d left it, the last time she’d been here with him.
The perfect little office set-up, the new sofa and chair, the watery color palette that had been chosen just for her.
Everything in the room had been chosen for her, for her to have somewhere to go, somewhere to hide, somewhere to be safe.
All these endless months of desperation, of not knowing where she could go or what she might do, when he had provided for her from the start, from that very first weekend.
Everything was covered in a layer of dust, the little pothos plant above her desk brown and brittle, dead from two years of neglect, but it was nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a small amount of cleaning. If she were planning to stay.
This Silva-inspired room wasn’t what she wanted, not then.
Her vision was already blurred by tears as she staggered down the hallway, past the second bedroom, past the bathroom. When she burst into the bedroom they had shared, the sob that had been brewing in her throat erupted at last, nearly choking her in its force.
The room still held its furniture, but the closet stood empty, its doors open like a black maw in the shadows.
The bedside tables were bare, as was the surface of the low chest of drawers on the far wall.
The high antique bureau, however, had something at its center.
There was an envelope with her name on it, she saw immediately upon her slow approach, several inches thick, written in his flowing, spiky handwriting.
The envelope sat atop the jewelry box he had kept at the back of the top drawer, where he had retrieved a beautifully jewelled hair comb for her once.
A glance inside showed her the contents of the box intact.
Pendants and rings of fine golden filigree, bees and flowers on signet rings, lockets made of twisting vines, gold-wrapped gems of every color.
The second hair comb, half a dozen pocket watches he’d not had put on bands.
A box of treasures, family heirlooms. Something for their little girl.
Silva carefully slid the box into her bag.
She was far more afraid of whatever waited in the envelope.
Her heart caught at the sight of his handwriting covering each page, front and back, page after page after page.
Silva,
You came into Clover tonight with your friends for the very first time, and the whole world stopped.
There’s a hand in the stars that directs us, I’m sure of it.
There’s no other way to explain why I happened to be walking through the front end just as you came through the doors, nor why there wasn’t anyone available to seat you.
I was meant to be exactly where I was, otherwise I never would have seen the most beautiful elf in all the world coming through my door, like the goddess of starlight herself.
Her heart thumped in her throat as she flipped the pages. There were dozens of pages, as if he’d written her a letter for every weekend she’d spent with him.
As if he’d known that someday, they would be all that was left.
Little Dove,
You flew back to me today. I never had the expectation that you would. Some things are too rare and beautiful to hold in your hand, and you’re one of them. But fly back you did, and now I’m faced with fighting every instinct I have that wants to put you in a cage and keep you with me forever.
She was unable to read further, quickly turning her head to prevent her tears from smudging the ink, wiping her face roughly with her sleeve.
She would save these to read when her heart was stronger.
Once she was able to move forward and move on, without desperately wanting to look back.
Once she missed him a little less, perhaps, although Silva was quite certain that day would never, ever come.
Her hand trembled as she pulled out the very last sheet of lined paper, which she knew was from the tablet he kept at the edge of his desk in the Pixie’s office.
She tried to imagine him sitting there each week after her car had pulled away, flying away from him time after time, returning to a life she didn't even want anymore. Silva wasn’t sure if she’d even wanted it then, really. She’d only wanted him in it with her.
My sweet Silva,
There’s nothing I can say that will make this easier.
Nothing I can do to change what is. I’m a selfish bastard for ever pulling you into this.
For ever allowing you to leave that first weekend even knowing my name.
I know you’ll never forgive me, but I hope you can forget.
I hope you get everything you want in this life, little dove.
You’ll always be my heartbeat, Silva. I’ll love you until the darkness swallows the sea.
She couldn’t read on. Her hands shook as she stuffed the folded pack of paper, crossing the few steps back to the bed, barely making it before she collapsed.
It still smelled like him.
Even through the dust and disuse, the bed they’d shared still smelled like him, and that was where she crawled, throwing back the coverlet to slide beneath the pristine white duvet.
She curled around a pillow, letting loose every ounce of grief she’d kept hidden in her heart since that morning she’d woken in her apartment alone.
She missed him with every fiber of her being.
She missed his smile and his lilting voice, the way he pinched the bridge of his nose when he was aggravated and tilted his head when he was listening.
She missed the sound of his laughter, his sharp sarcasm and dark humor, missed the way he made her feel, the way he saw her, as though there was nothing about herself that she needed to hide from him, for he’d already noticed it all and loved her anyway.
Silva sobbed, screaming into the pillow that they’d shared morning after morning, screaming and crying at the unfairness of it all until her head throbbed.
He’d called her his heartbeat, and then he’d disappeared from her life.
He’d given her a glimpse of what happiness actually felt like, taking it with him when he left, leaving her alone.
She would have given up everything in her life, all of those silly, unimportant things that had once seemed so dire, all of the things she’d turned her back on out of spite, she’d give them all up a dozen times over if she could have him back for only a moment .
. . but then she had nearly lost her child, and she wasn’t willing to give her up.
Not for anything. Not even for him.
“I have to let you go,” she whispered into the pillow, eyes squeezing shut at the pain of even saying the words, sobs overtaking her once more.
The cost of one would cancel out the other, and she could not bear them both.
She wouldn’t give up her little passenger.
Her secret for that first endless, pain-filled year, and now the only thing she had to look forward to in the pantomime of her pre-planned life.
She wouldn’t give up her daughter for anything — and that meant the choice was made for her.
She understood at last the true cost of what she had purchased all those months ago.
Orpheus had looked back because he could not bear the uncertainty.
She had looked back the moment she had purchased that key.
She had kept glancing over her shoulder all these months, the trip to Winter, this doomed sojourn to Spring.
Faerie would take all that she was willing to give it, and desperation had steadily drowned out common sense.
Made her forget what all that he’d told her and the promise he’d sought that last night. Don’t wait for me, Silva.
Do whatever she had to do to survive. Don’t look back. Live her life.
Spring had been false in its promises, but its Queen had spoken truly at the end — she would not survive Autumn.
She would lose her daughter if she tried, and likely her life.
She could look back forever, and it would never bring him back to her, and she would lose the only piece of him she had left.
“I’ll love you forever,” Silva sobbed into the pillow they had once shared, echoing his words to her that last night, “but I have to let you go.”
She wasn’t sure how many hours had passed by the time she eventually pulled herself from the bed. She had cried until her tears ran out and then she lay there for a long while after, listening to that second thump within her.
The human doctor had told her it wasn’t possible, chuckling as they did so, as though she were stupid for giving voice to something so silly.
The Elvish fertility specialists at the club had only murmured that her baby was strong and that they were glad she was able to feel movement so early.
A good sign, dear. None of them knew, of course.
None of them knew she could have conversations with her little wing and that she listened, that she reacted to voices and conversations she could not see in Silva’s daily life, that she liked being sung to and hearing stories, that she would kick if Silva dared to stop singing to her in those long afternoons when they were alone.
None of them knew how long she had been there. None of them needed to know.
Everything she had needed in the world was right here in this apartment, once. And now, everything she needed was right here in this bed, within her.