She dreaded heading out to the other areas of the house with the way the day had gone, but she hadn't seen any messages from Cissy on her phone or had any other contact with her. It was late enough in the morning that she should have had time for breakfast and then to head back down to the library, but she wanted to check.
Andie wandered down the long hallway at the other end from what she considered her temporary guest room, no matter what other people seemed to imply about her housing status, to see if Cissy was around. She hadn't seen her since the previous afternoon and she was a little worried about everything that happened.
She made it to the door and saw another dinner tray from the night sitting there, mostly uneaten from what she could tell, with some doodles on the cloth napkin peeking out from the mess. Or maybe it was from dinner and breakfast, but there only seemed to be the one tray and nothing breakfast like. She raised her fist to knock, stopping just short of the door as she reconsidered. She was nervous and could only imagine how Cissy felt, but there was an ache inside that was going to gnaw at her until she did something about it.
"Fuck me, if she hasn't gotten under my skin enough already that I want to do right by that girl." Andie said to the door, but since she knew it was the strong and silent type, she didn't expect a response. She raised her fist again and let her knuckles fall against the wood enough times so that anyone inside might have heard it, and waited for a response, rubbing her knuckles as the wood was as hard as the hinges and latch were silent. Definitely a conspiracy.
She stood for a few more seconds, not in any hurry to face the next possible battleground, but she knew she should head to the Library. That seemed to be the closest thing the house had to a Family Room since the family was always there, Andie once again imagined the capitalization on the GPS app for the non-existent space.
In her short time with them, she had managed to wear a decent groove in the path from her room to the Library and the adjacent den of iniquity, and was starting to feel like she knew her way around a bit already. When she entered the Library, she knew that at least Narcissa was already there, but couldn't tell if Divinity had just left or if she just marked the territory a little heavier given her maturity.
She walked to the back corner, where everyone seemed to love to gather in every room in the house, and saw the stack of books and a pen, but had to look to the side to see Narcissa staring out the window daydreaming from what Andie could tell.
"You weren't at dinner last night." Andie said to break the silence and to let her know she was there, but Narcissa didn't need to be told someone had entered. There was a reason the doors had to be so well maintained in order for Narcissa to not be bothered by their creaking and clanking. No matter how hard they tried she could still hear them
"Wasn't really up for it." Narcissa replied, sounding a bit down. "Can you blame me?"
Andie heard the hurt in her voice and recognized it all too well. She was usually on the receiving end, but found out it didn't feel any better when you were the one who caused it. She knew at that point that Narcissa had managed to wedge herself deeply inside and crawl into her heart even if Andie hadn't intended to leave it as open as she did. She decided, for the moment, to just continue on in typical Andie style.
"No, I guess not, but it would have been nice to have you there, your mother has a very healthy appetite." Andie replied. "Could have used the moral support as I tried to stand my ground and just keep the conversation civil. I didn't eat much, and what I did really didn't want to stay down, but I forced it too. Also slept like shit thinking about it, and you, a lot about you."
Narcissa made sure to hide the tiny smile she felt crinkling her lips at hearing Andie's words, but more so the tone she used to deliver them. They hadn't known each other long, but she had figured out early on that Andie was a pretty open book about things and you knew where you stood with her.
"Yes, she does. She always had from what I can tell. Not sure how she keeps such a trim figure." Narcissa decided to try showing her sense of humor a bit and caught Andie off guard and made her feel bad for laughing while they were being completely serious. "She's been alone for quite a while, really all the time we've been a family. My dad was great in some ways, but they never had a deep emotional bond and he honestly didn't fit in with the family. I was never sure how they ever ended up together."
"And your uncle Horace? How does he fit in with all of this? You said he was the only one on your dad's side that fit in here." Andie started to feel like they could just talk, and it took the edge off her worry about her usual overreaching tendencies.
"Yeah, he's great. Best I can tell he must have been my dad's wingman or something, always cracking a joke at the right time and keeping everything light when they first started dating. He is still a funny guy, but in a way that fits better here than with his own family." Narcissa shared what she could, but Andie had the sense that so much of it was ancient history that really wasn't spoken about often in their household. "When my parents split, fairly early on, he was more heartbroken than my dad really. Dad just wanted out, and hasn't been around much since, but Horace stayed around to help out as he had been anyway, and became a good friend to mother. One she badly needed for all the life changes she would go through in such a short time. Her own family almost abandoned her after a couple of the elder generation passed on and her preferences became more widely known."
"Strict household upbringing I assume, that can be hard on anyone." Andie replied, doing her best to show some sympathy as she was long past the point of dealing with other people's hangups over her own sexuality. "What about you?"
"Me? I threw myself into my studies and closed myself off from the emotional trauma of friendship and the foolishness of love, for the most part." Narcissa explained so much in so few words that Andie felt she should somehow remember it enough to understand her better. "Auntie Rose was the last one around, my great aunt whose room you share now. She was different from most of the others, open, a free spirit, not sexually bound to the norm and that helped my mom, and to some extent me, when feelings didn't properly align with expectations. When she passed on it was a more difficult blow than all the others and she took a little while to recover, but she found her footing and a new mission that you've wandered yourself into."
"Wait now, what? Room, I share?" Andie hadn't fully absorbed the latest outpouring of the soul and fixated on just the one part.
"Little family lore, and a side joke. Seriously." Narcissa shook her head in disbelief that anyone would even consider what she said in any other way. Andie didn't seem that uptight to let a silly ghost story bother her, but maybe she did have her limits.
"Right, joke. Still figuring out your visual cues. You have an interesting body language." Andie replied casually, not even thinking about her phrasing.
"Oh, you've been studying my body to see what makes me tick, have you?" Andie heard a little bit of Divinity in Narcissa's tone and the look in her eyes started to heat Andie up. "Silly me, I'm just full of it today, aren't I."
Andie wasn't sure who she was talking to now, as the shy and moody girl she first met seemed to have moved out overnight.
"While we're actually talking, I did have one other question that has stuck in my head. Divinity Cross, sounds like a pseudonym or nom de plume or something. Is that actually your mom's real name?"
"Haha, yeah, sounds stuffy and fake, doesn't it? She took that name when she briefly entered a religious order of sorts after the split. She was trying to find her way, a little confused, or really a lot confused, and poisoned by all the family's views. She didn't last long, as it turned out the order wasn't as much religion as it was a sex cult. You would think my mother would have enjoyed that, but let's just say it was much different from what she expected. She kept the name as it felt like a clean break from her other self, a new beginning, and she thought it sounded powerful and direct."
