brutal | grayson hawthorne

school schmool

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Fast Car by Tracy Chapman
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Part of the Pretending Contest (Liz's shorthand of whatever went down in the kitchen last night) is showing up at Hawthorne House the next morning without taking the appropriate measures to avoid running into Grayson.

"Wait, so he threatened you?" She thinks she must've heard Avery wrong when they see each other in dining room to grab breakfast and Avery recounts the conversation she had with Grayson to Liz who she hoped would provide some insight.

"I guess?" Avery is just glad she can talk to someone in this house who doesn't scare, confuse, annoy, or all three the shit out of her. "I don't know, I think he just wants to protect his family."

"Yeah, yeah," Liz dismisses that character trait about Grayson. It is true, but she's not in the mood to hear about him anyway.

"You kinda grew up in this house with him, and all of them, didn't you?" Avery is quick to catch onto the type of people around her.

"Basically," Liz confirms, taking another bite of her chocolate chip muffin.

"So. . . do you know what everyone's deal is?" Avery suddenly just turns to Liz, as if she knows her question is a long shot and probably doesn't make any sense, but if anyone can help her out, it's Liz.

"You're gonna have to be more specific," Liz jokes, frowning as she has to brush crumbs off her blazer.

"I just mean. . . I feel like I don't understand anyone here. Especially not the brothers," Liz is surprised Avery is willing to share this information with a girl she just met so freely, but she's not complaining.

"I don't think anyone really understands them," Liz turns to get a napkin, because although in a way her words are right, she still feels like there was a time when she once understood them. "Their lives have been. . . unconventional," she wipes her mouth. "Complicated."

"Yeah," Avery settles for the non-answer. "I get that now." A silence. Both of them eating their respective muffins. Then, "Jameson thinks it's a game."

"Jameson thinks everything is a game," Liz doesn't even give Avery a chance to continue. Talking to Jameson had gotten easier as time moved on, but anything that reminds Liz of Emily sets her back in her journey of contentment.

"He thinks it's up to him and his brothers- and me. . . and I guess you too, in a way, to find out why his grandfather left me everything," Avery continues anyway, showing she's put a lot of thought into Jameson's words, and is truly ready to take him seriously.

Liz could warn her. . . or she could take part in the challenge. . . or she could focus on the one she already has going with Grayson.

"He gave me the letter his grandfather left him," Avery talks through Liz's internal struggles. "I think- he thinks- we think it's a clue."

"I haven't played the old man's games for awhile now," 13 months - Liz finally says. "But if you find out if anything has to do with me being in the will, let me know."

"Or you could figure it out yourself," Xander walks into the room in a way that shows he'd been standing outside for longer than either girls would care to know. "Don't you miss the rush?"

"Rush of what?" Jameson is right behind him, grabbing the half-eaten muffin out of Liz's hands to which she just rolls her eyes.

"I'm trying to convince Liz to join the game," Xander explains easily, the four then collectively walking out so they arrive at school on time.

"Yeah, we'll see," Liz waves her hand lazily, as if swatting a fly, not really caring for the conversation, instead spending the car ride of Avery and Jameson discussing their clues trying to hype herself up for the school day.

School is always a chore.

But Liz powers through her classes. She has a bad case of senioritis, not even halfway through the school year, but ever since what happened with Emily, Liz has a hard time imagining herself living the life they once planned together by herself. No more being roommates in college and traveling the world together before settling down with attractive husbands who are also best friends with each other and living out the dream of being trophy wives to professional NHL players.

Now Liz thinks it'll be a wonder if she even applies to college.

She eats lunch in the Computer Lab with Xander, walks home with him too, because he stays after for some robotics thing on Fridays and Liz would sit through hours of nerds talking about coding things she doesn't understand before spending that time with her mom instead.

Liz doesn't necessarily have a bad relationship with either of her parents, but something about her dad never trying to call or text after he left and her mom spending her days drinking so she doesn't have to deal with the fact that life moved on around her after her husband left her kind of puts Liz in a bad mood.

"Are you staying the night?" Grayson walks into the kitchen where Liz is standing with a mug of hot chocolate between her hands, hours after her quick bowling game with Jameson, Xander, Libby, and Nash after school while Avery took a nap.

It's not too late yet, so she could still get home at a reasonable hour. . . not that her mom would notice either way.

"Probably not," Liz hasn't stayed the night in 13 months despite the guest room Tobias Hawthorne urged her to take over years ago. "I don't think you should be mean to Avery."

He doesn't say anything to that, both of them just standing on opposite sides of the kitchen as he makes himself a cup of tea. And Liz has decided it's not her place to try to get Grayson to do anything anymore.

"Are you in on it?" He finally asks after ages of Liz just staring down at her mug, too many thoughts and hardly any running through her mind at the same time. "The game, I mean, that Jameson has dragged Avery into." Maybe he can feel the awkward tensions in the air as suffocatingly as she can.

"No," Liz doesn't look up at him. "But. . ."

The one difference between Liz and Grayson's nonchalantness, was that while Grayson's armor consisted of steely eyes and pointed remarks, Liz was an abundance of talking too much to cover up the words she actually wants to say.

"Why do you think my letter didn't have a fun riddle like your guys's?" She thinks back to what Avery said about Jameson's letter being a clue in the mystery.

"Because he knew you'd give up if it was too difficult to understand," Grayson never misses an opportunity to jab at her.

"So little confidence in me," Liz glares jokingly, because both of them know she was better than him at the old man's games.

"Maybe he didn't think you deserved to be dragged into this," Grayson takes a more serious tone suddenly.

"Then he wouldn't have left me anything," Liz says, hoping it shows a glimpse it to what she thinks about getting the foundation.

"Maybe he just wanted his last actions to his favorite honorary Hawthorne to not leave you in shambles like he's done with everyone else."

Liz doesn't know what to say to that.

"We'll start tomorrow," Grayson seems to notice this. "I'll show you around the Hawthorne Foundation."

a/n:
Taylor's version of chapter song: it's nice to have a friend fs