CHAPTER SEVEN: RELATIONS
Okay peeps here is the mighty 7! (It's my favorite number teehee; sorry if everything has a 7 in it). Just a little something I would like to say: later on there is a reference to the city Fresno when they actually go there. I haven't been to Fresno personally (and it is a real town in California. I also have no knowledge about it.) So I just made up the directions to there since Guiden is a made up town. Just a little hint so I don't get people yelling at me for it XD
DISCLAIMER: DON'T OWN THE CATERGORY, BUT I DO OWN MY STORY. CUZ, U KNOW, IT'S MINE.
It was 10:30 when Lyra woke up. She had slept soundly last night after coming home from a late midnight trip to Serena's new place. No dreams or anything, just comfortable blankness.
She sat up with a massive yawn and lifted her arms up, arching her back in a cat stretch. Jogging downstairs, she plopped some eggs in a frying pan for a fried egg sandwich.
When it was done along with the bacon, she munched away ravenously and chugged her milk. She was supposed to meet up with Yuna at noon and she would be busy with her cage tomorrow, so she really wanted to get her homework done.
"Jalis? Are you awake?" she called and opened his bedroom door. Sure enough, there he was; asleep on his bed still fully clothed. "You're such a dork." She whispered and ruffled his hair to wake him up. "I'm going to be leaving in a while so you better get up and eat your breakfast before it gets cold."
"Sure…" he mumbled and rolled onto his stomach, slowing falling asleep again.
"Stubborn kid." She thought in amusement, even thought technically he was older then her.
Walking back to her room, she dug out her books from her Slipknot carry bag backpack and started the awful invention called homework. Who ever thought 'hey we should make everybody go through problems they already know for an hour' should be shot, in her opinion. But then again, she was kind of a violent and impatient person.
By the time she finished, it was 11:30 so she quickly and gleefully threw the books aside and ran to the bathroom to take a shower. She blow dried her hair and pulled half of it up into a bun, little curly strands framing her bright face. With delight she noticed that the dark circles under her eyes had gotten far lighter then they had been at the beginning of the week. Ironically, she had thought that the opposite would happen.
This day was starting off good.
She headed back to her small and happily claustrophobic room then was stumped when she looked in her closet. What was she supposed to wear?
The weather app on her IPod had said that it was supposed to be super nice weather today; the kind for frolicking in meadows and heading out for golfing all day. A perfect day for finally being able to sit by that pond in the front yard under the gorgeous willow tree and draw.
But instead she stuck to her plans; perhaps she could sneak a good hour or two after her little outing with Yuna. And hopefully Jason.
Finally, Lyra decided on a black lasagna strap corset that had a strip of white lace up the front and black criss-crossing strings on top of that. An all black skirt with lace trimming on the handkerchief style hem and a pair of black high heel boots with a wrap around zipper covered her legs. To complete the outfit she added white lace fingerless gloves that went to her wrist and a silver and onyx choker.
She was ready to rock.
Lyra arrived at the address Yuna had texted to her minutes after she received it. Her house wasn't hard to find; almost everybody in this town lived on the same long street that led to the highway out of town.
The house was cute; it was painted a dark blue color with black shingles and white painted windows. There was a porch that spanned the front of the house on the 1st level and led to the door. Flowers were planted everywhere; purple, yellow, red and blue. And pink. Lots of pink.
If Lyra hadn't the number of the house, she would have thought there was no way anybody even remotely Goth could live here. But then again, her parents were probably in charge of the houses appearance.
Lyra stepped out of the car and walked along the brightly colored path that led to the door. The click of her heels in the silence surrounding the house almost made her uneasy. But then she finally reached the front door and rang the doorbell twice.
A small woman with short brown hair answered, her blue eyes widening when she saw what was on her doorstep. She was covered in dirt and by the garden gloves she was wearing she had been working on some more plants for their house. But to Lyra's surprise her gaze held no kindness or recognition; they even seemed unfriendly.
"Who are you?" she asked her voice curt and rude.
"My name's Lyra-"she started but was interrupted with the women yelling into the house behind her.
"Kyle, this better not be another one of your girls at our door!" she shouted, turning her icy glare back to Lyra. What did she mean by 'another one of your girls'? Did strange woman usually show up at their door?
A man came up behind her now, he being just a little taller then his wife. Lyra recognized him as Kyle Dawnson, the man who ran the Country Club and who was Yuna's adoptive father. This must be her adoptive mother Georgia.
"Oh, yeah I know you." He alleged, looking her over almost uncomfortably.
"Kyle! You said you would stop with all the whore nonsense!" Georgia screamed in his face and took her gloves off to smack him with them.
"Whore?" Lyra cried with an incredulous look on her face. Whore? She wasn't dressed that badly!
Thankfully, Yuna then descended the stairs while her parents were yelling at each other, completely oblivious to the furious girl behind them.
"Whoa, what's all the hubbub about?" she asked Lyra, who had her mouth hanging open.
"They just called me a whore!" she yelled and pointed to Yuna's parents, who stopped fighting when they saw their daughter there.
"Ah man. Guys this is my friend Lyra; the one I told you about. We have plans today remember?" she said sullenly. Her mother's eyes widened and then became horrorstruck as they trained themselves on Lyra, who just raised her eyebrows and tilted her head slightly to the side.
"Oh…oh my! Dear girl I am so sorry! I thought…we've just…been having some problems lately. Oh, please come in, come in." she ushered and nearly pulled Lyra into the house. "I really am sorry about that; why don't we start over?" She asked nervously.
"Sure." Lyra replied, giving both of the parents a wary glance. The dad was still staring at her uncomfortably.
"I'm Georgia Dawnson and this is my husband Kyle. We own the local Country Club and are Yuna's adoptive parents." Lyra noticed how she put their business before their daughter and how she emphasized the word 'adoptive'.
"I'm Lyra Valaryous." She said, offering her black finger nailed hand. Her mother took it after a moment of speculation on her clothing. There was a subdued look of distaste in her eyes. "So, do you want to go?" she asked, turning to Yuna this time. She didn't particularly like this people.
"Sure. Let me go get ready though. I overslept this morning." She said apologetically.
"Okay."
Yuna ran up the stairs, leaving Lyra alone with her parents in an awkward silence. She pursed her lips and looked down at her boots, not knowing what to say or how to act. She was still slightly infuriated by the fact that they had mistaken her for some kind of prostitute or something. What the heck happened around here with her dad?
"Tell her I'll be waiting in the car." She finally announced, the awkwardness getting to her. Usually with her in the room there was no such thing as an awkward moment because she always had something to talk about. But this situation was a little different then gathering up with a group of people she knew.
Lyra waited in the car for a good 10 or 15 minutes before Yuna finally bounced out after a short conversation with her parents that didn't look the friendliest.
She was clad in a elephant bottomed black skirt with chains attached to the belt line and a Bob Marley shirt. She wore her usual clunky high-platform combat boots, colored hair extensions and spiked wrist bands.
"Lets go; I don't really want to stay here right now." She said, sounding angry as she entered the sparkly purple car.
"Yeah…" Lyra agreed and drove the car in the opposite way of the house and down towards the town square. "So where are we headed to first?" she asked cheerfully, trying to lighten the mood.
"Well, the only actual shops here are built right behind the grocery store. It's a stupid layout, I don't know why they did that." She said with a thoughtful twist of her mouth. Lyra laughed.
When they reached the inner shops of the town square Lyra found that there were only a few: a sports goods store, a car rental, a small furniture store and a few clothes stores.
They mobbed the clothes stores, picking out anything that was black or dark in color. Lyra ended up leaving with a dark red tank top that have knitted designs on the front and a flowey dark green skirt that reached halfway to her knees. Yuna picked out a skirt that for once wasn't dragging on the floor and 2 pairs of tights. After some hesitation she let Lyra pay for all of it and they headed to a fast food place for some shakes and fries.
"So what else is there?" Lyra asked, sipping on her caramel malt and nibbling her fries.
"Well, the movie theater is down at the other end of town at the end of me and Jason's street along with some restaurants. But that end doesn't get very much business." She explained.
"Wait, you and Jason live on the same street?" she asked. No wonder they were so close.
"Yeah, but his house is kind of off the road a bit. You can still see it from the road, but his dad doesn't mow the lawn very often so it's pretty much like a jungle over there, which doesn't really help." She joked, laughing at her observations. Lyra laughed too and was secretly pleased that she had found out one more thing about him.
"Wow, its 2:00; time went by fast. Is there any particular time you need to be home?" Lyra asked. Yuna's parents didn't really seem to like her so she didn't want to give them another reason, not to mention getting Yuna in trouble.
"Nah, my parents don't really care. As long as I come back its all good; trust me, I've fallen asleep at Jason's before and they didn't even yell at me when I came back." She laughed, shaking her head from side to side.
"…You and Jason have sleepovers? And your parents let you?" she asked in an astounded voice; sure they were best friends but they were opposite genders and that usually was reason enough for a no sleepover policy with parents.
"Well, it's not like we plan them. If one of us falls asleep at the others house it's not that big of a deal with our parents. They know we won't 'do anything' and I'm absolutely positive that Jason doesn't like me that way. And I'm dead sure I don't like him that way."
"Oh…"
"Do you think that's weird?" Yuna inquired.
"No! I mean maybe a little I guess…it's just that in my experience I can't even be in the same house as a guy that isn't Jalis."
"What? Who's Jalis?"
"Sorry, Jalis is my brother. Well another adoptee I guess." She snickered. "But when he would have friends' sleepover, I would either have to go somewhere or he would have to go over to their house. Usually his sleepovers were just for school stuff or work stuff but still, Serena knows I'm a little touchy with that kind of thing. It's not like I'm totally against it, if they aren't sleeping in my room its fine. But being the over protective freak that she is, Serena wouldn't allow it. She may only be a few years older then him, but he's scared to death of her." Lyra explained.
"That's awesome." Yuna giggled at her friend's last comment. "I guess I see your point but our situation is a little different."
"How?"
"Well…hmmm how should I say this? Okay so you know how most people prefer the opposite gender right? There are those people, people who curve off the road, people who go both ways and people who go backwards. Jason pretty much goes backwards, as in he holds no attraction for anybody. Seriously, I remember one time when we went to a restaurant with our parents and we had a really hot waitress and both our dad's were staring, along with all the other men there. She was totally flirting with Jason but he just ignored her. In fact, went we left, he said she had been annoying and immodest. It was hilarious." She explained with a smirk on her face as she finished off the burger and fries she had gotten.
"Wow, that's…interesting. I did notice how a lot of girls stare at him at school, even the popular ones. It's a little creepy."
"Yeah, well he is pretty cute. So you see my point when our parents don't worry about us together. The only people I've seen him show that kind of affection for is…eh never mind." She said mischievously.
"Aw, come one. What?"
"Well, to be honest, the only person I've seen him show that kind of affection towards is you. He has never taken so well to a new person so quickly. It's kind of amusing to watch."
Lyra sat in stunned silence, nearly gawking at Yuna who was sipping her soda and looking around innocently.
"R-really?" she stuttered. That couldn't be possible; he always ignored and barely spoke to her.
"Sure. It may not seem like it but if you know someone as well as I know him, then you'd notice too. For instance, even when he's talking to me, he doesn't really look me in the eyes, he just looks down or around or something. But with you he gets and serious and smiley. Just the other day when I mentioned your name he smiled; that's got to mean something doesn't it?"
Lyra just sat there in perplexed silence while Yuna dumped her food and started talking about something else. Jason liked her? It sure as heck didn't seem like it. He was a rather odd person so maybe that had something to do with it, but how is ignoring and infuriating someone conscious and subconsciously a way of showing affection?
"Lyra?" she heard Yuna ask.
"I'm sorry what?" she replied, embarrassed the space trip she'd just been on.
"I just asked if you wanted to go somewhere else. If you don't mind, could we maybe stop by Fresno? I have some photos I need to get copied and that's the nearest place with a shop." She explained in an amused voice, like she was enjoying some inside joke. Or maybe she had guessed the reason for Lyra's little thought session.
"Oh, sure. Yeah of course."
"Are you sure? If you have something else to do…"
"Are you kidding me, Fresno is like 20 minutes away. It not problem." She said with a smile.
They dumped the rest of their trash, grabbed their bags and barreled down the street to the highway with Slipknot blasting from the speakers.
next chappie will be up in the usual times. chapters will be getting shorter so look for that. i'm tired, so i'm curt. reviews people, reviews.
-cally (^o^)