Chance

Chapter 4.2 - You Must Live For Me

Sylver Allynsha Armstrong

They kept saying I'm going to end up like my mother. I'm only going to attract people with my money. I'm going to have no character. I'm going to have no reason to live. They're going to take my money. They're going to abandon me. Charles, my step father is going to rob me. He will strip me of my mother's identity. I don't have to breathe. I don't have to see. I don't need to be here. I can leave. I can  fight them. I can take my position as heir. I can. I will. I will.

I was tired of continuously writing these. What was I doing? 

This was my fourteenth attempt at writing a memoir in the shape of a suicide note. I wasn't going to be like my mother. Unhappy. I was going to overthrow my step father. I was going to do what I did best. Fight. I was going to talk to my mother's team of lawyers. I was going to do something about this man. There had to be a reason my mother did what she did. I needed to know. And I did. I had a visitor today. She told me everything.

- Earlier That Day -

Stella, one of the housemaids knocked on my door after I came back from school. I was lying on my bed trying to fall asleep. But all I could think about was the hurt and confusion I saw in Adam Brown's eyes after what I told him in school. He'd understand what I did if I explained it to him but how will I? How could I have done that?

Stella told me that I had a visitor waiting for me downstairs. She said it was rather important and that I had to be there immediately.

I wondered who this could be? I really hoped it was Adam Brown. I dearly hoped it was. I sprang up from bed and dismissed Stella. I brushed my hair and re-did my lipstick. I smoothened my shirt and looked at myself in the mirror. I was ugly. Not physically. But just. I was just ugly. In the way I was.

I hurried out of my room and down the stairs.

It wasn't Adam Brown. It was his mother instead.

When she saw me, she rose from her seat and smiled at me. I was a little disappointed to have not found Adam Brown but a little more curious to find his mother instead. Maybe he sent her because of what I said. My heart was beating very fast, I noticed.

I sat across from her.

"Hey, Mrs. Brown. Is everything alright?" I asked. She took a sip of the tea that was served to her. She smiled at me. 

"We have several things to discuss, sweetheart," she said. "I'm sorry I hadn't spoken to you about this before but you should know these things. Your mother would've wanted it," she said. I was confused as fuck. What was she talking about? Why would my mother want me to know about how I treated Adam Brown today? 

"I'm sorry, I don't follow. What are you talking about?" I inquired. 

"Your mother had met me once before she ended her life," she said looking away. This was news to me. As far as I knew, they hadn't met or spoken to each other in about fourteen or fifteen years.

"She said she needed to see me before she was gone. We went away for the weekend. To this lonely island we used to go as teenagers. I was surprised she still remembered," she said, trying very hard not to cry. I was intently listening to her.

"She told me that she going to do it. She didn't want to stay. She was waiting to be taken but she wanted to decide her own time. And she said that it was now," She started to choke back tears.

"She said that she had filed for divorce but Charles refused to sign the papers. She was going to leave him, Sylver," she said. I didn't know if I should've cried or laughed in happiness.