WHO: Lyra, Avery and family WHEN: Wed, December 29 WHERE: Tennessee WHAT: Fuck you Xander WARNINGS: TBD
The next morning dawned grey and cold and claustrophobic, a fitting morning, Lyra thought, to follow that party. It was too wet to escape for another ride on the horses, and despite the hugeness of the house Lyra felt like the weather was like a giant upended cup, come down to trap them all inside.
The atmosphere in the house had changed. Dannielle stayed relentlessly sunny, though there wasn’t an ounce of warmth in her, and she absolutely refused to acknowledge that anything untoward had happened at the party. Instead she turned her eyes to the future, dropping serious hints at lunch of how nice it would be to host some kind of celebration soon, something that would draw everyone together. She kept looking at Bree and Xander when she said this, and Bree went delicately pink while Xander looked smug.
With narrow eyes, Lyra watched him. Where smug was endearing on Avery, it looked ugly on Xander. She didn’t say anything at the table, though, just stuck close to Avery and ate quickly, so they could get away. There’d been no sneaking around to eat in the kitchen today, no; it was Dannielle-enforced Family Meal Times if they wanted to eat at all.
It really bugged Lyra how naive she’d been about his family. She’d strode into this place thinking she could school them all with sharp wit and obvious truths about the world (obvious truths like ‘all people deserve a home’ and ‘what if women got to choose what happened to their own bodies?’ which turned out were far too radical) but seeing Xander punch Avery right in the gut had yanked the rug out from under her. Made her see how rotten the floorboards in this house actually were.
And knowing that Xander had once bashed up Avery so bad he’d needed surgery, and that Dannielle turned a blind eye, and that Alexander still considered Xander his favourite cuz even though he’d put his brother in hospital, at least he wasn’t weird. Jesus fucking Christ, Lyra felt galvanized against them. The bastards. It made her wanna grab Avery by the face and swear to him she was gonna look after him and every little bit of weirdness he had. Was that too intense? Well, she felt intense.
Her time in Tennessee wasn’t just about causing a stir anymore (and maybe it never should have been?) now it was about getting through the next couple of days without Avery getting punched again.
But it was also about talking to Bree, and doing it tonight, because tomorrow Bree was leaving on a romantic getaway with Xander. And maybe Bree was a bit shallow, a little too eager to offer unsolicited advice about weight loss, maybe she laughed when she said she didn’t actually know how many pairs of shoes she had, that didn’t mean she deserved to end up stuck with someone like Xander. To have someone like Dannielle as a mother in law. To bring kids into this shit of a family dynamic.
So when, after dinner, the whole household split down the middle based on gender – the men to their whiskey and (Lyra presumed) cigars, and the women to a drawing room where Joanna had laid out a light supper, Lyra had shot Avery a look of strength and followed Hope through. It was her best shot to talk to Bree – Xander had been practically guarding her, all day. With Dannielle effectively removing Xander from the equation, all Lyra had to do was wait for an opportunity to remove Dannielle, because no way in hell was Dannielle just gonna sit there quietly while Lyra shattered her hopes of Bree bearing her grandchildren.
Lyra took a sip of her cup of tea, quiet as the others talked, quiet as she’d been all day, waiting for her moment.