Author: Lauren.
Rating: Rated M.
Character/Pairing: Tyra Collette, Tim Riggins, Jason Street, Lyla Garrity, Tim/Tyra, mentioned Jason/Lyla.
Summary: No one seemed to notice that Tyra wasn't any of the above.
Disclaimer: FNL isn't mine, neither are these characters. The storyline and ensuing AU situations are mine.
Author's Note: Really don't know where this came from. I haven't updated in what feels like years, but this just came to me today so I thought I'd pursue it. Let me know what you think, it'll become more AU as it goes on. Tyra is kind of a mixture of herself and Jess which is why this is kind of crossovery, although this chapter isn't very obviously so. But she's going to Stanford... so ya. Bye.
Tyra never played well with the other kids.
When she was little, properly little, with blonde pigtails and cotton printed sundresses, she'd tried to make friends. Play nice. She didn't throw sand or push or take what belonged to anyone else.
But then, as she grew, and boys shoved her over in the playground so she grazed her knees and girls dipped the ends of her hair in mud – she stopped trying. After what seemed like the millionth time sprawled across the bathroom floor, sobbing her heart out to the tiles because Dawn Wheeler had said she looked like a hippo in her gym clothes, she promised herself she'd never feel this way again.
She became sassy and feisty and if anyone dared look in her direction they got a biting, snarky reply for their trouble. But Tim Riggins...
Tim Riggins made her stomach flip and her neck flush and her limbs itch all over like the time she spent all day on the beach without sunscreen.
He was an idiot, with his floppy hair that drooped into his dark eyes and his piece-of-crap brother and his unwavering loyalty to Jason 'Wonder Boy' Street. He was always so mean, picking on her about everything, from the way she swung her hips to the double knot in her shoe laces.
The first time he kissed her it was right after football practice. He just pushed her up against the wall behind the gym, brick digging into her exposed upper arm as his mouth crushed hers. Her lips stung for hours afterwards, and she could remember lying in bed that night feeling the tiny nick that his teeth had made. It tasted coppery and something about it made her afraid.
In Dillon, football was everything. You're a player, you're a coach, you're a cheerleader, you're a fan or you're nothing. No one seemed to notice that Tyra wasn't any of the above.
She doesn't go to the games, she tells everyone how she couldn't care less, she nearly slaps Lyla Garrity, the time when she walks right up to her and asks her to come to cheer practice. Like she needs to be invited. Like she couldn't go if she wanted to. Stupid Lyla and her ribbons that match her uniform and the way that she moulds perfectly with Jason.
But she's there anyway. Peeking out from the side of the bleachers, curling her hands into fists and digging her nails into the skin, leaving imprints. She could scream when Jason misses a pass or when Smash fumbles the ball but she doesn't, the sound dies in her throat.
Because Tyra Collette hates football. Like she hates Tim Riggins and Lyla Garrity and her mother. Except she doesn't really hate them at all.
He slopes toward her, every Friday, crooked grin on his face, helmet in hand. The first night he pushes her down on her bed and she looks up at him and he has this look in his eyes like burning. He leans down to kiss her and she tries to hide how hard she's trembling. His mouth tastes like stale beer and cigarettes and he's frightening and exciting all at the same time.
She hates the first time he sleeps with someone else, or at least the first time she finds out. Her Mom starts telling her about how all men are rubbish but Tyra slams the bathroom door in her face. Somehow she's surprised that it hurts this much, how similar the feeling is to kissing him, how close lust is to hatred. The burn, the intensity, the hole like rot, like acid spreading through her stomach.
That same night she rolls over and Tim is standing at the foot of her bed, her curtains billowing in the night breeze. She sits up on her elbows, mascara rivers still painted down her cheeks, she didn't care enough to wash them off.
She lets it happen, forgives him because when she gets him back, when he hears that she made out with Smash, she knows how furious and humiliated he'll be. And it tastes like victory, especially when he confronts her and she slaps him so hard she feels like her hand might be broken.
He makes her feel like a child, when she asks him about what he did with Whitney or Tess or that other girl. He looks at her with eyes that want to know why she's asking when she promises she doesn't care. Slams doors and tells him to go play in traffic, she couldn't give a damn.
But the night she gets wasted at a party and she ends up in a bedroom with a random guy, dim light casting shadows across the walls, Tim fights his way in, scoops her up and carries her out to his car. She squirms and fights back and slurs over expletives but he throws her in the passenger side without a word.
She gets accepted to Stanford. She doesn't know how exactly, or why, but Mrs. Taylor is so proud of her, she doesn't care. Her Mom looks sad, her expression reads of 'this wasn't supposed to happen' and Tyra can't help but feel a sick kind of satisfaction in that.
She tells Tim. He stands on his porch, staring into space and she says it all, stays on the pavement, doesn't dare go closer because Tim could drag her back in so easily if he chose to.
She wants nothing to do with Tim, she really doesn't. She packs her whole life into a suitcase and when she's done she kicks it across the room as anger wells in her chest. Because she feels guilty for leaving them, for leaving all of this and she knows that moving to California won't change any of that.
She goes to him, without wanting to. She drives up to his house, parks outside and sits for ten minutes without moving. She knows he's inside, knows she could continue to make these mistakes for the rest of life and maybe it would be enough.
But it isn't. Not now that Stanford is so real. So she doesn't knock on the door, she doesn't call.
She leaves the next morning.