Work Text:
Sylvia had been acting all weird for weeks.
Dodging Angela more than she had during the whole Christian fiasco and the curtains of her apartment are always drawn.
And it’s worked. Angela hasn’t seen her for weeks.
It’s driving her insane. It’s only been a while since she and Curly turned 16, and Sylvia hadn’t even shown up for the party! (Angela wasn’t sure about the public one, she could hardly remember anything past 5 PM. But Sylvia hadn’t been there to celebrate with just Angela and her brothers and, for some reason, Ponyboy.)
She feels like there’s a trail of fire behind her as she storms her way to the apartment building Sylvia’s called home for 3 years now.
The stairs still creak, and the wallpaper still flakes, and the overhead lights in the stairwell are still off. But there’s something different.
She reaches a hand into her pocket cautiously and feels the small metal key there. She slots it in between her knuckles easily as she keeps to one side of the landing, carefully reaching out to unlock the door.
The key doesn’t work.
Her brain starts going haywire, screaming at her that something off, something’s wrong, she needs to run, she needs to get out.
But she swallows her fear and keeps the key in her hand as she makes up the steps, to the next floor.
She doesn’t know who lives here, so she keeps one hand up, ready to defend herself, as she knocks.
A guy opens the door a couple seconds later.
He looks like a slob, wearing a wife beater and boxers. He seems a little embarrassed when he sees her standing there, though. He shuts the door just a little.
When he speaks, it’s with the rough southern accent that someone doesn’t get from the city. “What is it?”
“Sorry to bother you, sir. Do you know where Sylvia is?”
He sniffs a little and thinks. “Uh… that’s the broad downstairs, right?”
Angela grits her teeth a little at the way he says it, but she nods.
He nods, like he’s just starting to understand. “Yeah, she left ‘bout a month ago. Wouldn’t tell no one where she was headed. But she’s split by now.”
Angela’s world comes crashing down.
Gone.
Gone?
That doesn’t make sense. Sure, Sylvia had always wanted to get out but everyone on the east side wants to get out. It’s a shared fantasy.
And Sylvia is a realist.
The guy doesn’t seem to notice. “You wouldn’t happen to be a Angela, would ya?”
She nods numbly and he holds up a hand in a vague ‘wait here’ gesture. “She told me ya’d come lookin’. Told me to give ya this.”
He rummages around for a couple minutes before popping up with a makeup bag.
He hands it to her and shuts the door in her face, leaving her in the hallway. She’s floating somewhere above the building, the world spins by too fast to comprehend around her but she’s laser-focused on that bag.
With a shaky hand, she reaches up and unzips the bag, peering into the slightly plasticky black bag.
It’s Sylvia’s favorite lipstick, a pack of cigarettes, the lighter Sylvia’d had for years since her grandma gave it to her, and a tiny note that looks like it was written on a napkin.
She pushes everything else to the side, gripping the edge of the note (which is definitely a napkin) and throws a hail Mary that this will be an answer. To why she left. To why she didn’t tell Angela.
To why she didn’t take Angela with her.
She unfolds it fast but taking care not to rip it.
Sylvia’s familiar slanted, all-capitals handwriting is a stark blue against the sea of white.
‘Sorry, Ang. Couldn’t take it anymore. Accept my apology?
From, Sylvia Alvarez. Hope you don’t hate me. xo'
That’s it. No explanation. She just ‘couldn’t take it anymore’.
Angela wants to pretend it doesn’t make sense. She wants to think that Sylvia should’ve written more. Should written her a big, long passage and rethought her decision while she was at it.
She wants to think Sylvia doesn’t make any sense. Sylvia should never have ran. At least Sylvia should have considered Angela before packing all her shit up and leaving everything but one fucking makeup bag behind.
But there’s gotta be something behind what she left.
Sylvia’s favorite lipstick.
She never even let Angela touch it before and now she’s leaving it behind. Angela clicks the tube open. The same well-worn, rounded deep red is there.
She flips the pack of cigarettes over.
It’s a pack of Satin’s. They’d been discontinued years ago, but when Sylvia had heard that they’d stop being produced, she’d stolen just about every pack she’d seen.
She had been down to one.
Now, she’s out.
It makes Angela’s heart squeeze in a way that makes her uncomfortable for half a second until it overtakes her and it’s something more like euphoria.
She sits down on the landing, right in front of that random guy’s door, and she dumps out the meager contents of the makeup bag.
Sylvia’s favorite shade of lipstick, Sylvia’s favorite discontinued cigarettes, Sylvia’s favorite lighter, Sylvia’s note. It’s all Sylvia.
The anger deserts Angela, leaving her more confused than anything else. Why is she mad at Sylvia?
For getting out? For doing what everyone always dreams at some point? She’s mad at Sylvia for doing it instead of using the fantasy as the way to fill up the silence that fills the night? How pathetic is that?
She swallows heavily, trying to stop her eyes from stinging as she packs up the lipstick, and the cigarettes, and the lighter. She tucks the note into her bra, right by her heart.
Sylvia had always been thinking of Angela. The whole time as she packed up, she made sure Angela wouldn’t be left completely alone in this god-forsaken town.
She thinks for a second, before tucking the key from her pocket into the makeup bag, too, clutching it tightly in her hand as she gets up and starts down the stairs.
Sylvia had left something behind for Angela.
Sylvia had left herself behind for Angela.
She can live with that until she can break down properly at home.