In Which Yvanette Is Unsuited

January 23, 1187

Yvanette hated being invited for dinner.

Her parents both had friends--her mother had friends, her father had friends, and then they had couple friends that they visited together--but most of their visits did not require Yvanette's involvement. If one of them called in the afternoon, the other was still at home. And if both of them called somewhere at the same time--or even went to an adults-only dinner!--Yvanette and her siblings had Winter.

But Sir Lonriad had invited the whole family for dinner. Not just her father, not just her mother... Yvanette, and her brothers and sister. It would have been rude not to go, her mother had said, but the only comfort Yvanette found in the thought of going out at all was that not doing so every once in a while looked suspicious. Though, she found she cared less and less about that each day.

And she couldn't have stayed home anyway, because it was Winter's day off! And Winter had already made afternoon and dinner plans with Sevvie's uncle--though, Sevvie's uncle did live in Veldorashire, so she'd agreed to come by after the dinner hour and take Yvanette home a little earlier than her parents had planned.

But for now, Yvanette was stuck taking refuge in Sevvie's room. She hadn't managed to look Sevvie in the eye since--that--but the damage was done there. He already knew. It didn't matter if he saw again. His siblings didn't know, and she wanted to keep it that way.

If only Sevvie himself could un-know. "You sure you don't want to join the snowball fight?"

"I'm sure." After that incident with the well, she was pretty sure she never wanted to even think about snowball fights again. "But if you want to go, I won't stop you."

"I don't want to go if you don't want to go." He was probably lying. She knew he just wanted to be nice, but she wished he'd just leave her alone. Ought to have faked sick, if she hadn't thought her parents would see through it. "I see my siblings all the time, and Aspen and Dally aren't old enough to be much fun yet. If you're not there, I'd just be joining for Darry--and Darry's not fun enough on his own."

Then how did she meet his standard of 'fun'? "Then you're either mad or mean, because I haven't been fun in years."

"But that's not your fault. And you could be--if we could get past this. Er, if you want to, that is," he added, eyes to the floor for a second. "I don't want to push you if you're not ready, but I want you to feel better eventually."

"I'll get better when I can stop it from happening." If she could ever stop it from happening. Years later, she was no more in control of it than she'd been when Deian had told her father she eventually would be. By the time she had a grasp on it, she'd probably be a hundred and everyone she knew would be dead and there'd be no time to enjoy her new-found freedom before she joined them.

"Yvanette..." Sevvie sighed, trailing off. She hated doing this to him. Her gloom didn't suit him well.

"Don't."

"Sorry. Just... you don't have to live like this."

And his optimism suited her worse. "Yes, I do."

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