Of course, the little rhinestone clutch purse didn’t belong to Rebecca. It was only Lily’s way to get Ruth-Ann to the club. Lily wasn’t Ruth-Ann’s friend, but she was a decent person, and she must have thought that Ruth-Ann should know what was going on. That Ruth-Ann should confront the truth.
As she stared at Peter and Rebecca dancing, flames of anger, red as the flames on the neon sign, burned her chest. Her throat tightened. She had to force herself to breathe.
Ruth-Ann’s first impulse was to hurtle across the dance floor, claw their faces, rip them both to shreds. But the driving pain in her chest and the haze of the lights and the dizzying shock held her back.
She kicked the rhinestone purse across the floor. Spun away, started to the door, bumping through couples just arriving. The picture of Rebecca’s hand on the back of Peter’s neck lingered in her eyes. And the dreamy expression on his face, eyes shut, lips turned up in a smile, refused to fade from her mind.
She crashed out of the club, shoving the double doors so hard, a couple screamed and stumbled back. And then she lowered her head against the rain, which had started up again, and ran over the gravel, into the pink-and-red neon reflection, to the safety of her car.
Panting like a dog, she sat behind the wheel, watching the raindrops slide down the windshield like sparkling red and blue jewels. How long did she sit there? She lost track of time. What did it matter? Peter wasn’t back at her house waiting for her. Peter—her Peter—was wrapped in her sister’s arms, pressed against Rebecca as if they belonged together.
“You don’t belong together,” Ruth-Ann said out loud. “Peter is MINE.” Her breath fogged the windshield.
He isn’t mine. He’s Rebecca’s, she thought. He was all that I had, and now she has taken him, too.
Ruth-Ann knew that the coppery taste at the back of her throat was hatred. She lowered the car window, leaned her head out, and spit—surprised to see the dark blood that spurted from her mouth.
Hatred.
Ruth-Ann didn’t sleep that night. She paced her room, anger burning her whole body, her skin tingling, first icy, then hot, feeling the blood pulsing at her temples, pulsing until she couldn’t think straight, couldn’t form the words she wanted to say to her sister.
She heard Rebecca come home a little after midnight. She heard her sister in the hall, making her way to her room. Ruth-Ann froze in the center of her room, froze like a statue, and listened.
She knew she wasn’t ready to confront Rebecca. She wanted to be in total control. Ice not fire, she thought. Ice not fire. But would her burning hatred allow her to speak to her sister without leaping on her and clawing her to death?
Peter was mine. I worked so hard to get him. I had to use so much magic, cast so many frightening spells to make him mine.
Now Rebecca waltzes off with him.
She thinks she’s entitled to everything.
The next morning, Rebecca had already left for her job when Ruth-Ann came downstairs for breakfast. Like every morning, Rebecca had ridden downtown with their father.
Ruth-Ann spent the day in her room, trying not to cry, then giving in to it, hating herself for crying, hating Rebecca for making her cry, trying to stop . . . to think of something else. But, of course, that was impossible.
Peter isn’t worth it, she told herself at one point.
But she knew that Peter wasn’t the important idea here. Peter was just the object that Rebecca had stolen from her. Rebecca cared so little about her, loved her so little, that she would steal the only thing Ruth-Ann cared about.
Ruth-Ann tore at her hair. She beat her fist against her pillow. But she didn’t explode until dinnertime, when Rebecca came into the dining room, hand in hand with Peter.
