plausible invincibility || s.hyde ✓

eight ✿ moby dick

EATING LUNCH WITH MAGGIE IS only slightly less painful than either Hyde or Evangeline had been imagining. It's almost like a normal, family meal. They have pleasant conversation, intermixed with bickering and painfully awkward silences. Maggie actually seems to take an interest in Hyde and what is going on in his life. Evangeline keeps glancing wearily between the two the whole time, waiting for her grandma to pull her aside and lecture her about a boy in the house when she's not home.

          "So, Steven, you're a senior?" Maggie takes the tiniest bite of her salad that Hyde has ever seen. After the fuss she had made about lunch, Hyde had expected something extravagant, or at least something slightly more involved, and appetizing, than just salad and some bread. Evie attacks her second loaf, dipping it into the same olive oil dribbling down her chin as she takes a bite. "At Point Place High?"

          He gives Evie's grandma a tiny nod, glancing at Evie out of the corner of his eye and swallowing the leafy green joy down painfully. He clears his throat and looks the woman drowning her meal in italian dressing. "Yeah, I'll graduate this year—or next year, whatever."

          Maggie nods, holding his gaze for a second as if searching for something in his words. Then she turns to Evangeline who has pushed her salad towards the middle and is chowing down on a piece of bread slathered in butter. "Evangeline should be a senior too." She takes another bite as Evie sends her a glare, very different from the playful, teasing one she gives Hyde.

          "Grandma," she says warningly; a few crumbs fall from her open mouth as she speaks. "I'm going to school next year."

          "No, you aren't. We already talked about this." Maggie's tone says the case is closed, but Evie bounces back with no we didn't, which tell Hyde that it isn't done. "Evangeline! Later," Maggie says as Evie continues to argue her going to school. Hyde can't understand why she wouldn't be going to school next year or why she would want to go anyway, especially if she's being offered a way out. He personally spends most of his time figuring out ways to avoid being at school. "Steven, what do you plan to do after high school?"

          Hyde pauses, unsure of what to say. The older woman stares at him with an intensity that bores straight into his soul. Her eyes say that she can read his inner thoughts. Hyde glances down at his plate, taking another bite to avoid her gaze. "I'm not sure," he says honestly after a moment. "Maybe college. Maybe something else."

          Maggie hums and takes a final bite of her meal, the clattering of her fork as it hits the plate echoing through up into the vaulted ceiling. "Well, higher education isn't for everyone." Maggie pushes her chair back, picking up her empty plate and dropping it in the sink.

Evangeline's mouth falls open as Hyde's eyebrows scrunch together. "Grandma!" She grabs her own dishes and drops them into the sink and starts a heated conversation that Hyde can't hear. Evangeline starts waving her arms around before crossing them over her chest, tapping her foot anxiously as her grandma whispers something back to her, equally as incensed.

Hyde takes a piece of bread and gobbles it up, not bothering to clean up the mess he made on the table. He listens as Maggie repeats her earlier sentiment and Evie groans loudly and stomps off up the stairs.

Both Maggie and Hyde follow her with their eyes until she disappears behind her slammed door. Maggie sighs and returns to scrubbing. Steven remembers Evie telling him once that even though they own a dishwasher, her grandma refuses to wash anything in it because things don't get cleaned the way they're supposed to.