The Season I Left You Behind

By now, Rhys was no longer the fragile boy he'd once been. He had a real sister. He had a corporation.

And me, the counterfeit, it was time I left.

A shrill ringtone cut through everything.

I grabbed the phone. Stanley.

"Sheila wants the chicken soup you make. No salt, remember. I'll send the driver in half an hour."

He hung up before I could answer.

I stared at the screen for a long moment, and the corners of my eyes went wet without warning.

I wiped at them carelessly, switched the phone off, and dragged myself back to the bedroom one step at a time.

There wasn't much to pack, really.

The day Sheila came home and saw my room, her eyes had reddened and her illness had flared.

So I'd been moved to the basement.

She had brought over a small box, weeping prettily as she told everyone, "At my old home I lived in a pigsty. Everything I owned fit in this one little box."

I took the cue. I picked up the box and filled it with nothing but the gifts Stanley had given me.

Back then, Stanley had been furious on my behalf.

"Why should you have to move to the basement the moment she shows up? The Masons have a dozen rooms. The woman's a snake, plain and simple. Don't worry. Once you marry me, all thirty of the Henson estates are yours. Live in whichever one you like. Stop crying, baby."

But it took one look at Sheila, and Stanley turned on me.

"Vivi, Sheila's had it so hard. You owe her too much. Let's push the wedding back."

I dropped that box of gifts into the trash.

I dug out paper and a pen and wrote it to Stanley one word at a time. "Let's break up."

Early the next morning, Stanley came for the bride.

His arm was around Sheila, the whole house loud and festive as they headed for the door, when he suddenly remembered me. "Where is she?"

For some reason a thread of panic ran through him.

He pushed past everyone holding him back, searching room by room until he found the basement, and when he saw me curled on the bed, the breath left him in relief.

Then his mouth opened, and what came out was an accusation.

"Sheila got up at four to do her makeup, all for you, and you're down here taking it easy?"

"She walked through your ceremony for you. The least you can do is get up and thank her at the reception."

I didn't move.

He stood at the edge of the bed, his face cold.

"What? You won't go? Then the orphanage funding—"

I forced myself up off the bed. "I'll go."

But the second I climbed into the wheelchair, it dumped me hard to the floor.

One of the screws had come loose.

Stanley's first instinct was to rush over, but something stopped him cold. His feet rooted to the spot, and he sneered.

"Sheila told me she saw you tampering with the wheelchair, and I didn't believe her. Eudora, you'd really do this to yourself just to fight her for attention?"

"No, it was her, she—"

His fingers dug into my jaw until it hurt.

"Pinning it on Sheila again? She's been with me all morning. Eudora, do you even think before you lie?"

"And besides, she only stood in to walk through the motions. You're the real bride. You can't even make room for her?"

Sheila was weeping, tears streaking her face. "Sister, I won the bet, yes, but if you don't want this, I can't ruin your wedding. I'll give him back to you right now."

She started peeling off the gown as she spoke, tears falling in fat drops, her hands shaking like she couldn't hold herself together.

In the chaos the pearl necklace scattered across the floor.

"Enough."

Stanley caught her hands and held them still.

But I couldn't look away from the pearls on the ground.

When Stanley confessed his feelings, he'd flown to Australia and pried each one open with his own hands. He'd said, "What I feel for you is like these pearls. Every single one is one of a kind."

And now that one of a kind belonged to Sheila too.

Out in the hall, noise erupted—reporters, a whole flood of them.

Stanley's face changed.

"You set this up? What are you having them write? That I crippled my own sister-in-law on her wedding day? Are you trying to destroy Sheila?"

"Fine. Then you can have a taste of this too!"

"Let the reporters in!"

I froze, and before I could make sense of it, I was thrown hard to the floor.

Reporters poured in, flashbulbs going off without pause.

"Sheila Mason is the wife I'm marrying. Eudora Swanson is nothing but a mistress who stole her sister's fiancé!"

With that, Stanley shielded Sheila and left.

"Who'd have thought the brilliant dancer everyone admires could be this vicious in private!"

"Steals the real heiress's fiancé, then frames her on top of it!"

"She deserved to lose that leg. Look how she seduced her own sister's fiancé!"

One of the reporters started photographing the room.

"Mr. Henson really is generous, gifts worth tens of thousands handed over just like that! And Eudora's got quite the temper, throwing it in the trash?"

"There's a note here!"

"Let's break up..."

"Let me see! This has to be something Mr. Henson wrote to Eudora! She wouldn't let go, couldn't even bear to toss the breakup note!"

"Ugh, shameless!"

"Get a shot. Let everyone see what kind of woman clings on like this!"

The basement was a wreck.

Half an hour later, a convoy of press cars and vans swarmed the gates of the estate, dozens of them, engines idling and horns blaring as reporters spilled out toward the doors.