brutal | grayson hawthorne

chutes and ladders

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Hot Gum by SOFIA ISELLA
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Liz, Avery, Grayson, and Jameson are debriefing in Avery's room as Eve uses her shower, but Liz's voice is too tight for her provide any significant contributions.

She saw the way Grayson looked at Eve.

She's not jealous- she's spent too much of her time being jealous of Emily and Grayson to let this affect her. Besides, Grayson has made it very clear that he's not choosing Liz anyway. It's not like she cares what he does.

But she's worried.

He looked at Eve like. . . like he needed her.

Liz knows Grayson never loved Emily. Not really. Not like he loved Liz.

He just loved the game. He loved competing against his brother, but at the end of the day, it was always Liz that he went back to.

But Liz also knows how deeply his guilt for Emily's death runs in his veins.

She knows he blames himself, and she's been in his exact spot, so she doesn't know how to comfort him without sounding like a hypocrite.

They both have their trauma from that day, and that have must been what pushed them apart, but while Liz - and even Jameson - were standing here knowing they couldn't get close to Eve, Grayson was the first to defend her.

But they were worrying about Toby right now.

Someone had kidnapped him, and Eve had come to them for help, and all they know is that they're dealing with someone who is totally willing to hit a 19-year-old girl in the side of the head with a gun.

But every time Liz thinks of said 19-year-old girl, she feels a little sick to her stomach, and is overcome with something that she doesn't know how to process, so, she did what any sane person would do, and she went to the kitchen to start baking.

She couldn't keep up with her New Year's resolution to bake often while she was traveling - French boys are very particular about who uses their kitchen - but she gets back in her groove easily enough, starting with the easiest thing she knows to make: brownies.

"We're definitely not supposed to be doing this," Liz turns off her phone flashlight as her partner in crime turns on to the light to the chef's kitchen.

"Relax, my grandparents practically run this house," Liz isn't totally sure she agrees with Emily's words, but doesn't say anything in fear that if she talks too much, someone will come downstairs.

The two girls wander Hawthorne House enough for their presence to not be surprising to anyone, but sneaking into the kitchen without any of the actual Hawthorne's knowing their whereabouts feels a bit on the breaking-and-entering side.

"Okay, cookies or brownies?" Liz winces as Emily clangs some pans around in a cabinet while asking her question.

"Brownies, I guess," Liz knows she wouldn't be getting out of this.

Liz doesn't have some unresolved trauma from Emily that's rekindling because of Eve, it's just that, somehow, all of her memories with Emily start to feed into those she has with Grayson. And now she's thinking about the wine cellar.

"For weeks, I hallucinated Emily's voice. For weeks, she whispered to me. Why else do you think I couldn't even look at you?" When Grayson said that to her, Liz realized he too had too many intertwined memories.

"It was hard," Liz takes his head her hands, forcing him to look up at her from the chair he was sitting in. "It's hard to lose someone."

"I failed her, and she will haunt me until the day I die," Grayson's eyes close. "I'm supposed to be stronger than this. I wanted to be stronger than this. For you." Liz is nearly undone. "But I can't."

"Xander is calling everyone to the second game room," Max peeks her head into the kitchen just as Liz pulls her brownies out of the oven. "And I am eating all of those as soon as we get back."

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"Hawthorne Chutes and Ladders," Xander begins, standing in front of a pile of pillows, rope ladders, grappling hooks, suction cups, and nylon rope. "The rules are fairly simple."

And Xander explains them in a not very simple way until it's time for the reason that Liz assumes they've all been called here: the exchanging of secrets.

Liz is sure no one - except Grayson, the idiot he is - trusts Eve, and what better way to assess someone's character than force them to spill the depths of their soul to people they met that morning?

"I got a tattoo," Max offers up cheerily.

"I figured out who my father is," Xander goes next, and Liz knows her eyes visibly widen, but as per the rules of Hawthorne Chutes and Ladders, she can't say anything unless Xander brings it up in conversation.

"I kissed a girl at Harvard."

"Man-whore," Liz coughs into her hand.

"Sometimes, I feel like Tobias Hawthorne made a mistake. Like he should've chosen some else." Liz didn't like the way Eve stared at Avery at her confession.

"I listen to Weezer," Liz goes, more so to get her turn over with so Eve can go.

Eve goes on with her whole life story. About how her parents suck and no one in her family loved her.

How she never felt like she was enough.

It takes everything in Liz not to look at Grayson while Eve is talking.

The pressure to be perfect. The need to prove herself. To prove that every hardship wasn't for nothing.

Liz feels guilty for having been so bitchy about all this, but she just wishes a pit wouldn't fall in her stomach every time she saw Eve and Grayson look over at each other.

a/n:
maroon by taylor swift