JUNE SEVENTEENTH,
TWO THOUSAND AND SIX.
｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆
The Labyrinth is often compared to the mental spiralling of sanity to insanity by man.
For as much as it were beautiful on a visual level, it was somewhat sinister on an intellectual one.
This could be applied to Oliver.
Beneath those hooded, captivating blues for eyes, you'd find a soul embalmed in an animalistic evil - a predatory god complex where everyone else was mere his prey or a social mimic in order for him to fit in.
But Lyssa Sol, as much as she was alerted and immensely suspicious as to the boy's intentions,
She was greatly burdened and somewhat blinded by her attraction towards Felix Catton.
Sometimes she'd notice herself staring a little too long at him, her thoughts pondering to obscenity - she often scolded herself when she finally came to.
For Lyssa Sol was many things, and had been called many derogatory names - yet the most humiliating label to Lyssa were to be labelled in love with Saltburn and Oxford's Prince.
She was not a conquest, nor did she chase after suitors.
Luckily, the Catton boy had adapted to her rules.
And with his daring adaption as he jumped the skipping rope over Lyssa Sol's minefield of emotion, the Sol girl found herself dangerously tempted by his efforts.
It felt nice to be wanted.
If love took the form of a tooth, Lyssa would've without hesitation tied a string around the root, tied it to a door, and slammed it shut.
Yet this metaphor was far from similar to the actual concept of love she was experiencing, and she couldn't actually deal with it this way.
And where adoration intrudes, jealousy lurks.
FE
Come over
7:08 pm
LYSSA
No
7:45 pm
FE
Why?
7:56 pm
LYSSA
Not allowed to leave the house apparently
"Disrespectful and utterly disgusting behaviour" she says.
8:10 pm
FE
Bollocks
Farleigh won't stop going on about how much he misses you
Neither will Elspeth
8:22 pm
LYSSA
I have that affect on people
Maybe another time?
8:31 pm
FE
You do
And of course.
Like I said, you're always welcome
8:34 pm
LYSSA
Thank you Felix, honestly
I hate my mother at the moment
Like, more than ever.
8:36 pm
FE
I hope you're alright
8:38 pm
FE
Sneaking out wouldn't hurt though
8:40 pm
LYSSA
You're right
Maybe.
8:47 pm
FE
I am always right
Most of the time x
8:53 pm
LYSSA
Mhm
I'll think about it
8:56 pm
FE
Think fast
We're waiting
8:59 pm
The longer Lyssa had been cooped away by her mother for her angsty outburst and disobedience, the more she felt an impending headache swallow up her sinuses.
Placing her cellphone on her nightstand, its company being littered old literature from the home library in rickety piles and the half-empty packet of ibuprofen.
From her silver CD player - that she received from her father on her fifteenth birthday - stored on a shelf above her dresser, played Time After Time by Chet Baker.
As the slow, airy music pollinated the usually unfavourable, stale atmosphere of her dwelling in the Sol estate - with Lyssa hoisting herself up from her lounging position upon her bed and onto her feet.
She twirled vacantly in the spacious area within her room, only obstruction being the fur rug beneath her feet, that occasionally got caught on the zippers on her tracksuit bottoms.
But not today.
It was a pleasant day, an evident contrast to the energy inside the house, yet Lyssa found a sense of rejuvenation and distraction when she pondered in front of her bay window, mostly during a hot summer day.
The warmth of the sunlight felt maternal, tender - like the sun had carefully considered to ensure its warmth upon her during her cold time inside her supposed home.
Lyssa felt stupid, but she found reassurance in the sun's daily summer coverage as it cascaded through her curtains, enticing her to open them.
It felt comforting - maternal. Similar to what Lyssa imagined a lovingly, motherly embrace to feel.
After twirling, she thought it'd be best to limit movement - her headache began to worsen, and her sense of balance wasn't as stable as it should be.
She hummed along to the CD track, wandering over towards her dresser, where she picked up one of her Chanel lipsticks, impulsively dragging the bright red product over the surface of her lip.
This was the product of boredom, in which Lyssa was painstakingly familiar with.
Unlike her peers, Lyssa was intimidated by the upcoming installation of rapidly developing technology, and kept her distance.
She did not believe that phones needed any other upgrades other than to simply text and call. She couldn't fathom the fact of artificial happiness and sense of reliability upon electrical mechanics.
She found it upsetting, yet she didn't want to complain like her radical great grandmother.
So instead, she spent as little time on her phone as possible, to avoid creating an attachment to something so materialistic and unnecessary.
The pidgeons cooed, and a chorus of cuckoos chirped in hymn with the song that occasionally crackled and spat out of the CD's speakers - a cozy ambience that temporarily made Lyssa forget about her grudge against her mother.
Time after time,
I tell myself
That I'm so lucky,
To be loving you
So lucky to be
The one that you run to see,
In the evening
When the day is through,
I only know
What I know,
The passing years will show,
You've kept my love so young,
So new,
And time after time,
You'll hear me say that I'm
So lucky to be loving you
Lyssa, once she'd given in to her urge to lather her lips in the deeply pigmented lipstick, then lowered herself so her face was level to the vanity mirror.
She adjusted the white ribbons she'd also decorated her hair with out of boredom earlier that morning, that had come loose as she'd twirled.
As callous as she framed her perspective on romance to be, she admittedly had a soft spot for slower, gentler, intimate songs.
For it was one of the few dispensable representatives of love that was free to her - something she didn't have to work for, or yearn for.
She admired the lyrics, how tender and symphonic they were - the layered instruments that somehow, even through her CD player - that looked absurdly cheap in her bedroom of expensive luxury perfumes, archive books, and mahogany cabinets with gold trim, - had the ability to make her feel as if she wasn't living in a pristinely lavish, yet empty, loveless shell of a family.
In her room, with her music, behind closed doors, she could be the child she was afraid of being under her mother's judgemental gaze - her conditioning to make her children presentable young adults.
Yet, she hardly acted like a proper adult herself.
Lyssa's head was beginning to pulsate sorely again - causing her to walk back over to her nightstand and pierce open another pill from the foil ibuprofen packet.
She gazed down at her cellphone, screen facing downwards on the surface of her nightstand.
For obviously she'd wanted to see Felix, to once again be coddled by the warm embrace of his family and their home, yet she'd also be risking the remnants of her dwindling relationship with her mother.
As pathetic as it were, Lyssa relied on her mother for her lifestyle.
As did most of the other Oxford students, their privilege usually was a result of maintaining the pedestal their parents had put them upon.
If Lyssa was to further allow her and her mother's relationships to beach upon the rocks, she knew for a fact she'd be cut out of her will, and lose her trust fund.
And most likely, she'd lose contact with her brother.
Lyssa didn't feel like she could live knowing she'd walked away from the only tolerable family member, that had yet to do anything detrimental to their family's reputation of tarnish her mother's image.
If she were to sneak out as Felix had suggested, she'd have to be calculated.
Knowing there was permanent security mapped around the perimeter of the premises, Lyssa was skeptical on whether she'd actually be capable of pulling off this stunt.
Sure, she'd snuck out in the past, but she knew her mother had suspected her - but this time, she knew it'd be the last straw.
She wouldn't be as patient and understanding as she was before Esther's death.
If Lyssa was actually delusional, she'd say her mother had gotten more watchful of her children because she didn't want to lose a second and a third to themselves.
Unfortunately, Lyssa concluded it was because her mother wasn't around to manage the estate much - wanting her children to grow up knowing exactly how to maintain the house, so when she finally kicked the bucket, they'd be there to still maintain their sterile image.
In reality, Lyssa couldn't give a fuck about the house, let alone their entire estate.
It had never really been home to her, for she felt more like it were a show home - only lit up when there were parties or visitors present.
Other than that, she felt like an antique rotting away in an overpriced shop.
Untouchable due to her price tag, yet desperately wanting to be bought.
She turned her back towards her nightstand, looking down at her creased cotton nightgown.
It was a precious garment, and one that was sentimental to Lyssa.
For she'd wanted one as a little girl, after watching the Peter Pan movie - she had begged her mother for one exactly like Wendy's.
And that was she given.
However, her mother hadn't cared to enter the eleven year-olds measurements, and when she received the dress for her birthday, it was entirely too big.
"Oh dear, you'll grow into it." Her mother had reassured.
If Lyssa would've known that it would've taken her six years to grow into the dress, she would've told her mother to send it back.
But she was glad she didn't.
For she figured out it fit perfectly last year, after recovering it in a box beneath her wardrobe - wearing it to bed almost every night since.
Grasping onto a fragment of her childhood that she wished she'd revelled in sooner - before her mother had morphed into a drug-fuelled businesswoman whose children were trophies.
She missed feeling like a delicate flower upon her family tree - admired as an innocent child, sheltered more than she was now.
But now, she had become a pest in her mother's eyes. A blossom, to a weed.
And no pesticide could ever stop Lyssa's detest toward her mother's ignorance.
If she were rich, she would be foolish to have handled her wealth the way her mother had.
She swore that once she did inherit whatever her mother had left, she'd be sensible. After all, she'd witnessed the consequences of loose funds - the type of person it can turn you into.
Greed is a disease.
As she pressed the statured creases embedded into her nightgown, her cellphone vibrated behind her.
She jerked her body towards the sound, letting out an exasperated sigh once she realised what the sound meant.
Picking up the phone, she'd clicked on the notification bubble from Farleigh.
FARLEIGH
Please come tonight
9:15 pm
Lyssa blankly reread the message multiple times.
Others would perceive Lyssa as ungrateful, and spoiled.
However, she didn't know a different reality other than what she was living through as of now.
She was sheltered from people who were burdened with greater hardships than she, and, even as a young adult, she had little perception of actual struggle.
Nor did most of the other fragile Oxford students.
Unfortunately, to Lyssa, Oliver was her only proper example of someone who was a product of a less privileged upbringing.
Despite his past being supposedly tragic as her own, his behaviour made Lyssa keep her distance.
Something Lyssa was undoubtedly fantastic at keeping her distance from people.
A professional analysis would label this as avoidant attatchment, however Lyssa's mother doesn't believe today's current youth need counselling.
Because Lyssa is too privileged to have problems.
And unknowingly, these sorts of children from these homes and their lack of abundance of problems allowed them the power to create their own problems for themselves with their free will.
And Lyssa was a problem child.
And so, she typed back.
LYSSA
Okay.
9:18 pm