Unexpected

| v | comic books

v~ like batman i want all that i want without having to try

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As such things always are, Grayson's mother gets worse before she gets better. Soon her panic attacks weigh so heavily on her that she cannot leave her bed. Grayson walks by the master bedroom every day before he catches the bus, and always spares a look at his mother, wondering what happened.

Tammy Carin used to be beautiful. She wore the puffy skirts and the neat, white gloves that the other girls did, and her blonde hair was teased sky-high. Her skin was glowing and beautiful; her blue eyes shining brightly. Grayson has dim memories of this foreign woman walking with him in the park.

Now she has… faded. She looks like a painting with the color ebbed away. Her hair has gone nearly gray, despite her being ridiculously young (in fact, her pregnancy with Grayson was the very thing that ended her life when she was nineteen). Her skin is pale and dry, and her eyes are dull. She is fragile. She is breakable.

Grayson knows that she loves him… as much as she has the energy to, that is. He accepts it. He also knows that he will always be second to her in his father's eyes, and he accepts this as well. These are just truths of his life, and he has to be okay with them.

He never talks about his mother to Will and Ian, despite them confiding with him about anything and everything (well, almost everything on Ian's part, but Grayson's mostly figured him out). Will complains about the constant pressure and fear that comes with being an advanced student with a 'stellar' mind. Ian is quiet, but offers his jokingly gruff support to Will, even though it is obvious that he needs a little bit of that as well.

Grayson is determined to remain silent about his mother. Of course Will and Ian know about her—well, they know that she's the local 'crazy'-, but they do not push the subject. Grayson is numbly grateful.

It is strange, knowing that, if he wishes to use them as such, he has confidants who trust him right at his fingertips. He also has a tutor in Will and a bodyguard in Ian. He has everything he could want—

But he wants more. He wants reverence, he wants greatness, he wants complete control, and he wants his parents' attention (and Erin, but he has always wanted her so the empty hole she left behind is now little more than a nuisance).

He has accepted his parents' twisted love, and so also he has accepted that he will never be truly happy with what he has.

But he can still try.

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Erin knows herself as someone who takes extraordinary measure to get used to things. It is in her nature. She can count the exact number of cracks in the sidewalk from her house to the entrance of the neighborhood. She knows the address of each shop in the little commercial center. She knows the number of lockers away from the 100 hall hers is.

Most pressingly, she knows how many busses usually pull into the school parking lot, and today there are two extra. It seems like they are crowded, and Erin is close to asking Grayson if he knows what is going on when she thinks to read the label on the bus.

Stetcal High School.

"Why are Stetcal buses here?" She finally does ask, and Grayson glances over with an uninterested expression before turning his attention back to looking for a parking space.

"There was some sort of accident… A fire, busted pipes… Half the students are transferring here and the other half to Monroe. I don't remember anything," Grayson finds a spot in between a Chevy pick-up truck and a shiny Mercedes. "Besides, the Stetcal kids are honestly closer to Riplé than to Stetcal. I don't get why they don't just go here, our student to teacher ratio is stupidly low for a High School."