Chapter 21
21
I t was the next day that Sylvia, looking fine as she readied and mounted her new horse, rode in four neat circles around the arena before tumbling off, collapsing onto the ground with a horrible-sounding thud.
Flora, whose heart leaped, jogged over from where she had been watching and rolled Sylvia onto her back. Sylvia took in a deep, gasping breath. She was still alive.
“What happened?” Flora asked as Sylvia’s unfocused eyes swam in and out of consciousness.
“He fed on me last night,” she said, her voice as rough as the rocks below Rainshadow. “After he was done with you. He needed more. I can’t take it much longer, Flora.”
Flora gazed down at her. “You’re a liar.”
Sylvia’s eyes fluttered shut again and she laughed a little. “Alright, I’m a liar. It’s not too late for you, though. Take the money, take the jewelry. He’ll do to you what he’s done to me.”
Flora helped Sylvia up, though she loathed having to. “He wouldn’t. He loves me.”
Sylvia laughed again and, trying to walk, stumbled.
“Help me,” she said. “Or kill me. You want to, don’t you? A little bit? Look at what he’s turned you into.”
Flora winced. “No,” she said. “I don’t want to kill you. I just want you to leave.”
“I can’t,” Sylvia cried. “And if you ever understand what I mean it will be too late for you.”
“Did you have sex with him?”
Sylvia, then, gave her a withering look. An “Oh, honey, come on” type of look. “Of course I did,” she said. “It’s the only good thing about being with him. He fucks me, Flora. Even when I’m half dead, he fucks me. He’s still a man.”
Flora felt such a rush of anger and hatred that she almost threw up. She almost attacked the other woman. She almost did a lot of things. There was a feeling of ice-cold violence running through her, and she realized then how much she had actually changed.
“I’ll take the money,” she said, nearly choking on the words. “I’ll take the money. I can’t live like this. With you.”
Sylvia looked at her then, a look of sincere pity. “Out of jealousy of me?” she asked. “After everything I’ve told you, and everything you’ve seen, after having his teeth in your neck, it’s jealousy that makes you leave? Because I still sleep with him?”
Flora swallowed a sob. “I guess so,” she said. “I hate feeling this way. I love him. I do. I can’t share him.”
“Oh, Flora,” said Sylvia, and took a step closer to her. She almost looked, to Flora, like she might hug her. She couldn’t stand being pitied.
“Stop it,” she shouted, screamed. “Don’t touch me. I hate you. I hate you, Sylvia. I hate you. I hate you!”
“You can hate me,” Sylvia said. “I don’t care if you hate me. I never have. All I ever wanted was to save you.”
Flora went into the house, with Sylvia hobbling behind her.
“The money is still in that bag, in my room,” she called. “You can take my Range Rover. I’ll sign the title over to you right now.”
“I want the Corvette,” Flora snapped.
“Whatever,” Sylvia said, sighing and laughing. “Take whatever you want!”
“What about your horses?” Flora said, stopping on the stairs as she ran up to Sylvia’s bedroom. “They’ll die.”
Sylvia shrugged. “I’ll figure it out. Or not.”
“I can’t?—”
“I have survived a long time without you. I’ll figure it out. I can hire someone who isn’t… to his tastes.”
Flora nodded. She went into Sylvia’s room, noticing the familiar stale, sick-room smell had lifted a bit. The room was clean and well kept.
“Here’s the bag,” Sylvia said, dragging the heavy attaché out of her closet. “Take it. Take anything you want. I know you’ve already been helping yourself.”
“What’s in the safe?” Flora said, turning cold eyes on the other woman. “Open it.”
“No,” Sylvia said. “It was money. Just money. But now you have it all. If there was more, I’d give it to you. All that’s left is… personal.”
Flora stood for a moment, looking at Sylvia. She realized that if she argued with her, if she spent a single moment equivocating, she would not be able to leave Ethan. She had to leave though. She couldn’t live in the shadow of another woman, could she?
“Give me the bag,” Flora hissed, snatching the satchel from Sylvia and opening it.
“There’s plenty. You can get an apartment, start college, get a job, do whatever you want. You can travel for a year. I don’t care.”
Flora imagined, suddenly, an apartment all her own, with her own bed, and the freedom to live however she felt like. Then she thought of the bills she would have to pay, the job she would have to get. She could do it, and if she couldn’t have Ethan all to herself, she would have to. She felt tears on her cheeks. Rainshadow, wanting it, had been a fantasy. She had only ever had fantasies, her mother’s fantasies, the fantasies in her books. Maybe now her real life could start.
“Ok,” Sylvia said looking through some papers, “here’s the title for the Corvette. Not a practical choice, but I’ll sign it over to you right now.”
She picked up a pen from the nightstand and scribbled on the slip of paper. It was obvious to Flora that Sylvia didn’t care about all of the money and nice things, didn’t appreciate the beautiful life Ethan had tried to give her.
She snatched the paper, slipped it into the bag, and looked at Sylvia, maybe for the last time.
“Good luck,” Sylvia said, sitting heavily at the foot of her bed. “You’ll miss him. You’ll feel it, too, now that you’ve let him feed. But you’ve only done it once. You can get over it.”
Flora looked at Sylvia coldly.
“You should have warned me sooner,” she said, and felt a hot sob forming in the back of her throat.
“I feel like I tried, but maybe we remember things differently. Goodbye, Flora.”
“Goodbye, Sylvia.”
With that, she turned and ran from the house. She had to run, because if she stopped, even for one moment, she would never, ever leave.