JUNE FOURTEENTH,
TWO THOUSAND AND SIX.
˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚
Ten twenty-eight in the morning.
Lyssa finally came to from her cavernous slumber, in which she felt as though she had slept through a century.
Usually Lyssa was an early riser, her body naturally gaining unprovoked consciousness in the very early hours of the morning - the immediate dewy haze that bore the child of a new day, a new dawn.
If she could've dictated her fate herself, she would've unhesitatingly selected to stay coddled within the Saltburn guest bed for the rest of the day she had left, and maybe even the next.
But in this reality, for now, she had to attend back home - to take care of Alistair - to make sure her lousy excuse for a mother hadn't yet again neglected him, tossing him over to the housekeepers while she went on another Milan bender.
You'd think that at the grand age of forty three, you'd begin to reflect upon your life choices.
Apparently not, for Andromeda Sol had been trapped within the mentality of a twenty five year old since she had long passed the milestone of that age.
Doing cocaine and spending hundreds of thousands of family inheritance on flights in keys around europe while drinking champagne - so costly you swore you could taste the bitterness of the coinage in which was sweat to be spent - was only considered classy until you hit twenty three.
After that, everyone around you who wasn't astronomically invested in a decade of addiction began to feel pitiful and look down their noses at such delinquent behaviour.
I'm sure the people in these European venues that encountered her mother lining her nose with Moroccan fine cocaine on the occasional weekend atleast once wondered what businuess this aged woman had here, and wether the gold band upon her wedding finger meant anything.
Wether the tattoo she tried to desperately hide on her ankle that indicated Lyssa, Esther, and Alistair's initials upon in onyx ink meant anything, either.
She had bandaged the tattoo - which she'd drunkenly gotten last year when travelling with associated in New York two years ago - with stacks of gold bracelets and a Cartier encrusted watch.
Exhibiting clearly a wealthy person's attempt to erase their mistakes - by further gauzing their embarrassing displays of behaviour by shackling themselves to the safety of their envious riches.
To divert the eyes of onlookers - for what is more interesting? A poorly-executed tattoo that had little to no sentiment behind it but drunken impulsion and limited tattoo ideas, or an array of precious jewellery?
Her mother's tattoo only peered through when she raised her hand to plug her nostril to prevent any excess cocaine from falling out of her nasal passage, god forbid.
When she was experiencing the epitome of her episodes of scathing anger, Lyssa would sometimes manifest that her mother's next batch of cocaine be laced with pesticide.
Maybe, by passing doing what her mother loved most, it would be less of a shame.
However, the feeling of guilt often occurred itself to Lyssa regarding her and her mother's strained relationship.
For sometimes, Lyssa considered that it were partly her own fault for not getting on with her mother.
Wether Lyssa were to try and emphasise with the widowed woman, try to see her as a lost little girl who knows little of security and healthy coping mechanisms, and is now left to fend not just for her own back - but for her children's, too.
Instead, the only Sol heiress began to villainies her mother.
With every expectation she failed to meet, every crucial milestone of her children's lives she failed to be present for - Lyssa began to hate the woman who provided her with life.
Hell, for she even had started to loathe her mother for doing that, too.
Her mothers absence plagued the Sol estate with rigidity - for over the years, as Lyssa grew older, she began to recognise her childhood home slowly but surely losing its sentiment, its atmosphere.
The longer she were encaged within the brick walls of the Sol house, the more she desperately made erratic attempts to escape.
Lyssa had tried it all. Especially when Esther died.
She tried not eating so she'd get admitted to a ward in hopes she'd find more humanity there than to rot in her home for the oncoming weeks after her brothers death.
She experimented with drugs, too.
Apparently smoking weed on an empty stomach has detrimental enough consequences to make Lyssa feel nauseous when even looking at the substance for the rest of her university years.
She'd tried hookup culture.
But, before she could allow the randomly selected boy from a house music set at an event at her local pub to even penetrate her, she closed her legs immediately shut, and told him to leave.
Dreadful weeks, they were.
Dreadful enough that Lyssa, in a last desperate attempt - drove under the influence of alcohol, just to experience a motivational thrill that she felt as though she couldn't experience any other way.
But the exhilaration she sought so eagerly from these experiences, much to Lyssa's unknowing, could take place in the souls of people.
Consequently, one of her favourite people, in which she'd been so self-absorbed in her own puddle of grief to maintain contact with.
She did not need to say his name to experience the feeling.
He was her safest option - the same euphoria, but from the heart.
Not sex, drugs, starvation, or alcohol.
He was a treasure. Her fools gold.
Lyssa swung her legs over the edge of the bed, the undersides of her feet engulfed in the carpet beneath her.
Her hair was mildly matted as a result of fulfilled sleep, and her crewneck in which she'd slept in was crooked upon her body, as she moved violently in her sleep during the night.
A knock at the door startled Lyssa, causing her to flinch back underneath the plump accumulation of duvet she'd kicked up as she woke, for she only had underwear on her lower half of her body.
Once she felt properly covered, she called out to the knocker.
"Yes?,"
"Lyss, it's Felix," He spoke through the closed door, seemingly sensing that she wasn't in the state for face-to-face, "Be ready for breakfast in ten."
"Okay, thank you!" She yelled back, his descending footsteps allowing her to kick off the duvet from her exposed legs once more.
"Twat." She whispered, still frustrated and feeling stupidly petty due to last night.
Lyssa secretly hoped Felix would get some form of karma - maybe in the form of a dodgy egg or mouldy avocado that would upset his silver-lined stomach.
There's a lot worse fates than food poisoning, he should be grateful she was not wishing him worse.
Knowing she was now beneath a timer, Lyssa swiftly gathered herself once again upon the carpet, trudging over to her pile of folded clothes she'd left on the dresser from yesterday.
For having to wear the same clothes that smelled mildly of lake marsh and cigarette smoke from their sunbathing and swimming in the sun prior achieved in making Lyssa feel grotty.
Sadly, she didn't have time to shower.
For her mother had apparently arranged to get Lyssa collected by one of the doormen at twelve - Lyssa guessed that she asked Elspeth wether Lyssa was dwelling at their residence.
As even though Andromeda Sol knew little about her daughters interests, she knew that Farleigh and Felix were her only significant friends.
And if Lyssa wasn't at home according to the staff's reports, her mother would ask Elspeth if she happened to be at Saltburn with her boys.
And in the instances when this would happen - when Lyssa would storm out of the house making her intentions unclear - she would most likely always be found within a close vicinity of where Felix or Farleigh were.
And these instances pulled by Lyssa usually resulted in her being ill-prepared, as she made these drastic decisions to fled her house last minute due to something her mother had said.
The lack of preparation being she had no deodorant, hairbrush, or toothbrush and toothpaste.
Let alone clean clothing, and she felt as though she'd already asked too much of Venetia.
So, she were to suffer in her own filth until twelve, settling for tying her hair up and out of her own critical view for her own good, and promising herself that she'd brush her teeth and shower thoroughly as soon as she got home.
"Lyssa, hurry up!" Farleigh swung open the bedroom door unannounced,
"You're going to be the last one at the table - and that's, like, very awkward to be in that position."
"I'm coming, sorry," Lyssa sighed, "I overslept - this bed is way too comfortable for my liking."
Farleigh nodded confusedly at her remarks, not fully registering them as information of any relevance.
"Anyways," He shook his head, "Come on, by the time you get downstairs the food will be lukewarm."
Lyssa eventually concluded her attempts to conceal her ragged appearance, for she would be heavily scolded for socialising looking the way she currently did.
But, it was only for an hour, and Lyssa believed she had trustworthy enough conversational skills to divert Elspeth's radar and intense hyper-fixation towards anything unattractive and filthy.
And she knew that regardless of how she presented herself, Felix and Farleigh would still defend her corner.
She'll always be welcome in the arms of Saltburn.
"Ah, she's finally awake!" Felix exclaimed, standing up from his seat to begin mocking Lyssa's tardiness, "Tell Duncan what you'd like for breakfast."
Once Lyssa had informed Duncan of her meal request, she took a seat at the table, hoping her appearance wouldn't send Elspeth into a state of shock.
Farleigh had sat beside her, but had turned to speak to Venetia - who, for some reason, looked just as dishevelled as Lyssa did.
Oliver had yet to arrive at the breakfast table, and for this, Lyssa was glad. For she knew she wouldn't be able to look at the antlered boy in the same light anymore - now she knew of his watchful nature.
"-I'm leaving at twelve, by the way."
Lyssa spoke across the table, directing her speech towards Felix, who took a sip of his apple juice, and had his hand buried inside his trouser pocket as he recovered his box of cigarettes.
"Alright," Felix registered, placing the glass down to replace it with a cigarette and the metallic clink of a ignited lighter, "I'll just have to make the most of you while you're here, then."