Work Text:
Neither Sylvia nor Evie ever put a word to this... thing, that they have.
Evie knows where the spare key to Sylvia’s apartment is hidden, and Sylvia knows Evie’s house number. That was it.
Yes, there was also the times when they’d push each other up against the wall and do more-than-just-friends stuff. But that means absolutely nothing.
It’s just another thing that happens. Another piece of the puzzle in either of their lives. And it just so happens that they slot together almost perfectly.
It’s not like it’s real. It’s an arrangement. Out of convenience.
It’s convenient for Evie to focus on the grown out blonde highlights in Sylvia’s hair when they’re together and it’s convenient for Sylvia to feel Evie’s hands that have always been just a bit too rough and mean to be feminine.
It’s convenient to pretend that they aren’t two girls, dancing around each other like nothing’s wrong.
Evie gets Sandy back, for just a few minutes, if she keeps her eyes open. And Sylvia gets Dally back, for just a few minutes, if she keeps her eyes closed.
It’s hard to pretend, at times like this, though. When they’re both sitting against the cold, smooth surface of the bathtub, nursing twin glasses of wine in nothing but bras and underwear.
The bathroom is cold, but it’s keeping Evie awake, so she doesn’t mind much.
Sylvia keeps her head facing forward, and Evie keeps her eyes locked on the small point of contact between them, their knees.
Sylvia sighs and throws her head back, downing the rest of her wine in one go before reaching blindly out to the side and grabbing the bottle to refill her glass.
Neither of them is technically old enough to drink yet. Evie’s nineteen, almost twenty, and Sylvia’s just recently twenty. But it’s close enough that neither of them care.
“I’m ‘onna leave.” Sylvia says, abruptly. The bathroom is silent, nothing except for those words that Evie is left to digest.
“Go ahead.” She says, gesturing towards the door in a mockery of an invitation.
Sylvia rolls her eyes and rests her head on the edge of the tub. It can’t be comfortable.
“Not here. I’m not ‘onna leave the bathroom and leave ya all alone with my wine. I’m ‘onna leave Tusla.”
Evie lets out a soul-crushing sigh. “That’s what I was afraid you were gonna say.”
Sylvia looks over, her eyes softer than Evie usually sees them. For a second, it almost looks like she’s changed her mind.
“C’mon, Evie baby. I ain’t mean it like that or nuh’n. I ain’t Sandy.”
Evie wants to believe her, looking up to the ceiling and wishing she could.
Any doubt falls away when Sylvia reaches over and kisses Evie. More freely than Sandy ever had. And not in some sort of weird hypnosis state, either. Just full on.
Her eyes catch on one of the few remaining pieces of blonde left over from Sylvias attempt at highlights a few months ago.
She closes her eyes, and she pretends.
Evie wakes up the next morning, in that bathtub. Her hair is tousled and she’s certainly not got any more clothes on than she did last night.
Her head is pounding, but the cool, slippery surface of the bathtub is enough to ease the jackhammer of pain that’s chipping away at her brain.
She can hardly remember anything that happened last night, besides the bottle of wine being empty when midnight rolled around.
She can remember Sylvia saying she’s gonna leave. And she can remember Sylvia promising she wouldn’t.
For the life of her, she can’t remember which one came first. Which one Sylvia actually meant.
She tries tricking herself into ‘knowing’ that Sylvia said she was going to stay because she’s in love with Evie. But Sylvia could never be in love with Evie, just like Sandy couldn’t.
Just, for another reason.
Ever since Dally dropped dead under those streetlights, Sylvia’s been twisted beyond recognition. Beyond humanity. Beyond anything resembling love or softness or kindness.
She’s just a beating heart, pumping blood to all her limbs. She’s brain cells firing off ideas into the darkness.
Sylvia can’t love Evie because Sylvia can’t love, not because it’s Evie.
She gets up, climbing out of the tub taking more effort than it should. She walks around the bathroom, picking up as many clothes as she can find. Her underwear, a short little slip dress, her socks.
Almost everything except for her shoes is in that bathroom (she can’t quite find her hair ribbon, but that’s not exactly a part of her wardrobe.)
When she opens the bathroom, Sylvia isn’t anywhere to be found, in the kitchen or the living room. When Evie checks the bedroom, she can see Sylvia splayed out, face down on the floor with a puddle of drool under her mouth.
Taking a cursory glance around the room, nothing seems wrong.
Besides the fact that in the place of the little black makeup bag that usually sits on Sylvia’s vanity, there’s another half-empty wine bottle. Or half-full, if your optimistic.
Evie isn’t. It’s been sitting there, open, all morning. It’ll taste like sour grape juice by now.
She doesn’t bother trying to wake up Sylvia for any goodbye sentiments or anything. It’s a transaction. It always has been, and it always will be.
The sun is halfway up in the sky by the time she leaves Sylvia’s apartment, looking a mess and feeling it, too.
She doesn’t head back for another week. It’s the same sick guilt shame that washes over her every time she spends the night.
She’s corrupting Sylvia. Something’s wrong with her. She’s infected.
Just like every other time, she’s sober when she finds her way back to Sylvia’s apartment. The welcome mat is missing, but that’s not important. Evie slips the window on the landing open, feeling around the underside of it until she grasps the cold metal key, untaping it and sticking it in the lock.
Turning it yields no results.
Nothing yields any results.
For a second, the only thing she can think of is that it finally happened. Sylvia hates her now because Evie’s finally corrupted her.
There was never much left to corrupt, but Evie’s taken it and twisted it and shaped it until Sylvia can’t even be called Sylvia anymore.
A second, more plausible thought rushes through her mind.
Sylvia really had meant it when she said she was gonna leave. Maybe she’d packed up the night after Evie had left her apartment.
And maybe she was never coming back.
Evie makes the long trek back to her own house, with no hangover and no alcohol to keep her going. Just a bone-deep emptiness that claws at her chest until she wants to let it out, just so it’ll stop fucking her up.
She’s sure that Sylvia is gone a week later, when there hadn’t been a single call. Not a radio signal or a phone ringing or even a goddamn letter.
Sylvia left Tulsa behind. She’s gone for good, willing to leave behind the town and all it’s attachments.
And there’s no doubt about it, Evie is a Tulsa girl through and through. She’ll be stuck here, even as every girl she’s ever loved sees her way out.
It’s confirmed, just a week later when Evie sees Angela stalking down the street of Sylvia’s apartment with fire on her heels and Sylvia’s black makeup bag clutched in her hand.
Absently, Evie wonders if Sylvia headed down to Florida.