The Game of Love and Death(80)

She led him to the hangar. He handed her Ethan’s letter, which she read in the light of a single bulb hanging down from the ceiling.

“Henry,” Flora said afterward. “You can’t tell me you believe this is true.”

“I didn’t want to believe it,” he said. “But I can feel it. Can’t you?”

Flora didn’t reply for the longest time. Her teeth chattered. As ever, Henry gave her his jacket.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m not even cold. I don’t know why I’m shaking like a wet cat.”

“I can guess,” Henry said.

More silence. Flora folded the letter and handed it back. “I don’t want any part of this. Even if it’s true, it’s humiliating. We’ve been played. Tricked. Manipulated. I never consented to be owned like this. It’s barbaric.”

He looked at her in disbelief. “Is that what you really feel? That’s all?”

“What do you mean feel?” she said. “I don’t know anything about what I’ve ever felt. And neither do you. You can’t. Everything you feel — everything you’ve felt — that was put inside of you by someone else for his own purposes.”

“But I can know,” he said. “I do.” He reached for her hand, but she pulled hers away and hid them behind her back. “I don’t care how I came to feel this way about you. I want it to continue forever. I want to give you everything —”

Flora held up her hand so he’d stop. “I knew better than this, Henry. I did. All along, I knew I wanted nothing to do with love. And it’s madness for us to continue, knowing how it will end.”

“You can’t mean that,” he said. “It doesn’t have to end that way.”

“I refuse to submit to it. I choose not to believe. Not in the Game. Not in the consequences. I’m going to live my life, by myself, as I choose, and I suggest you do the same.”

“What if we ran away?” He hated how desperate his voice sounded.

“Henry.” She looked up at him, her eyes glazed with tears. “They’d find us.”

“Maybe not. Or at least maybe not right away. It’s worth a try.”

“I can’t say yes to this, not this way,” she said. “If only —”

“If only what? Just say the word. What do I need to do?”

She turned away from him. “There’s nothing you can do. So now, before we hurt each other any more, let’s say good-bye. I’m not going to live on anyone’s terms but my own. With Helen’s sponsorship, I’m going to make that trip. It’s going to change everything for me.”

“Why is she even doing that?” Henry moved so he was facing Flora again.

“Why do you think?” Flora let out a hard burst of laughter. “She’s buying me off. Once I’m out of the picture, you’re all hers.”

“But —” The thought hadn’t occurred to Henry. It made a certain sort of sense, even if it was appalling.

“The new airplane is ready to go. I’m taking Helen tomorrow for her first flight.”

Henry was silent. He reached for Flora’s hands, and she did not resist. “I have known my whole life that I wanted you. You and no one else. I have loved you from the first moment I saw you.”

“We were children,” she said.

“But don’t you remember being a child?” he said. “How much simpler and clearer everything was? Sometimes I think they’re smarter than any of us when it comes to love. They don’t doubt it. Not for a second. And they don’t doubt that they’re loved in return. Something happens to us when we grow up. Misfortune tramples us. We forget how it feels to simply love without throwing the whole mess of life into the stew. We trade love for fear. I’m not willing to do that anymore.”

“Something happened to you and me when we were infants,” Flora said. “Something terrible. We never had a chance. And this was never love. It couldn’t have been.”

Henry didn’t argue. He did not want to fight with her. But he would not dispute or deny the contents of his heart. Nothing would change the fact of his love. He didn’t know what would happen to him after he died, but his heart’s position was as fixed as the sun.

“You were somebody’s plaything,” she said. “Both of us were. This is a game we can’t win. No matter what we choose, we lose. I die, you die, we both die … someday, whether it’s soon or not, we’re both going to die. The only thing we can do at this point is refuse to be part of a game that was never our choice to begin with. We refuse. And we live our lives.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “I’d choose you. Game or no, I’d choose you every time. Please.”

“There is no chance,” she said. “There is no chance in this lifetime we will ever be together again.” She wriggled out of his grasp. “The show. It starts” — she pushed his sleeve up and looked at her wristwatch — “it starts in twenty minutes. You should be dressed and getting tuned up. It’s time for you to go.”

“I’m not playing tonight,” Henry said. He’d spent his entire life doing the right thing, being the person everyone else depended on. He was done with that.