brutal | grayson hawthorne

okokok

***
I Can See You by Taylor Swift
***

Since Liz and Grayson's time at the pool was interrupted by Eve the night before, Liz spent the entire day floating on her back alone now, letting her thoughts do more to drown her mind than the water around her was doing.

She misses Grayson.

Not just the Grayson from before a month and a half ago. From before the wine cellar. But the Grayson before Emily died. Before that summer. When it was easy. When they knew they loved each other and not everything felt serious between them.

Liz knows Grayson has alway been crumbling under the pressure of his last name, probably since he was born, but she's never seen him feel like such a failure like he has the last couple of months.

She wishes she could help him. She wishes she could just give him such a strong hug that all of his pain seeps through his skin and she can soak it all up for herself. Anything to keep him from feeling the way he is.

And she hates that she even cares this much, because he's made it very clear he doesn't want her to, and she's really only hurting both of them by holding onto nothing.

And! Toby Hawthorne is still missing, and Liz is still technically supposed to be part of the rescue squad even if she can't be in the same room as Eve and Grayson without feeling nauseous.

But, of course, she can't even think of that before Grayson makes his signature, elegant yet overpowering dive into the pool, and Liz straightens to see him already starting his laps.

She wordlessly starts up right beside him as he passes where she's floated to in the middle of the pool, and two make it four laps to the ends and back in pace with each other before collectively stopping at the edge for a break.

"I totally won that round," Liz gasps as she pushes her hair out of her face, still a little out of breath.

"Debatable," Grayson, of course, is as collected as ever. Liz questions if he's part mermaid.

"I don't trust Eve," Liz then says, deciding now is a good a time as any to talk, when the sun is warming her skin that's not in the water, despite the autumn air. When Grayson looks like he's practically glowing.

"I don't want to talk about her," he says, and Liz hates how easily she almost gives in at the lowness of his voice. The way his hand tucks an invisible piece of hair behind her ear.

"Why not? Because you know I'm right, but you're not going to listen to me?" If Liz makes her voice cold enough, maybe she can convince herself that she actually doesn't feel anything about the way he looks like he genuinely cares about Eve.

"Because I don't see why you care so much about whatever is going on between me and her."

"I thought there wasn't anything going on between you and her."

"So, you do care," Grayson looks like he just caught her stealing peanut butter out of the jar, but Liz isn't in the mood for lightheartedness, surprisingly.

"I care that she might be a danger to everyone in this house," Liz is quick to explain. Too quick. "You don't see the way she looks at you, Gray."

"I think I see it better than you do," and his voice is cold again, and before Liz can register it, he's already pushing himself out of the pool.

"She looks at you like Emily used to," Liz calls to his back as he wraps a towel around himself.

This makes him pause, but not turn around.

"That's why I'm doing this," and his voice is so soft that Liz isn't entirely sure that she didn't just imagine him saying that.

She isn't even really sure what to say in response anyway, but she's saved when Xander appears at the door, Grayson walks swiftly past him to get inside.

"A gift," Xander is holding up a small envelope that looks it has a rock or something inside. Liz pulls herself out of the pool and wraps a towel around herself so she can take it from Xander with dry hands. "From my grandfather," he then adds.

Liz is surprised she didn't drop it right then and there. "What?" She turns it around in her hand, as if it holds the answers to the universe.

Elizabeth
To be opened upon the introduction of Evelyn Shane.
Tobias Hawthorne

is written on the back of the envelope.

"Alisa told me to give it to you," Xander explains, clearly trying to tell Liz something. See, I can be reliable. Now tell me what it says. "But, first come to the circular library," he then says as if he suddenly remembered something. "Avery has news."

***

"Evie, we need to be careful."

Liz is done pretending this doesn't affect her.

She is going to murder Grayson Hawthorne, then Eve in their sleep. Or while they're wake. Maybe even right this second.

Her unread letter and unopened gift from the old man is tucked safely in the waistband of her skirt, and right now she's trying to focus her attention on the box that Avery received while in school that came from the kidnapper, but all her brain seems to focus on is the way Grayson and Eve's hands keep brushing against each other's.

The box turns out to contain a phone, which Avery calls from, which leads to a conversation with some psycho named, "Luke," and now the group spends their afternoon listening to the recording Xander took of the call on repeat, hoping a clue - or an answer - jumps out at them, and Liz doesn't think she's ever worked harder at a game as a way to distract herself from the fact that Eve and Grayson are leaning over each other to compare notes.

"I'm kind of busy right now, Thea," everyone is paying attention now as Avery answers her personal phone.

Thea's response is muffled, but Avery quickly puts the phone on speakerphone.

"Someone got a picture of Eve standing outside the gates of Hawthorne House. It just went live."

"Is that the bad news, or-"

"It went live," Thea continues, the air already tense, "on the internet's biggest gossip site, alongside a picture of Em and an exposé on rumors that Emily Laughlin was killed by Elizabeth Raine and Grayson and Jameson Hawthorne."

a/n:
my only goal for this is to make it not love triangle-y bc 😒😒 so sorry if my writing seems a little silly bc i feel like that's the only trope that makes sense but I don't want Liz to reduce herself to being a pick-me girl yk? like she's better than eve and grayson combined and wants to tell herself that's enough but she's still just a girl at the end of the day. a place in this world by taylor swift.

also b ready for me to stretch all the speak now vault tracks to fit the chapters I have planned