is this it?

grape-colored whales spouted blood around a newspaper item pasted in listing arrivals to the endangered species list. six hatchlings CRIED from shattered shells near an entry made on e a s t e r. she had filled the pages with a profusion of colors and curlicues, candyland ladders and s t r i p e d  s h a m r o c k s.

[cecilylisbons-blog]

tessa-lisbon·:

She smiled, though even that couldn’t completely mask the apologetic look in her eye. “You could never make me feel bad, cross my heart. I’m just… going a little stir-crazy I guess.” Now that she was out of hospital she wanted that to be the end of it, to go back to how everything was supposed to be because she was a creature of habit, and having to rearrange not only her entire life but that of her sisters wasn’t sitting will with her. “Yeah, we should do that. I shouldn’t be pushing myself so hard, I know.”

“I know. I don’t blame you. None of us like being cooped up.” Cecily said this softly, hesitantly. Why were outside forces always trying to stifle them? It didn’t seem fair. “Well, when it’s not our choice, I guess.” She wished so badly to be able to hug Tessa then. Since she was a kid, she’d always sought out her sisters for tactile comfort. Now she wanted to be able to comfort Tessa too. “There’s always next year, and every year after that. Besides, I think it’s fair that we spend time with you. Make sure you’re okay.”

[cecilylisbons-blog]

tessa-lisbon·:

Cecily wasn’t so discreet that her comment flew over Tessa’s head. It didn’t bother her though, not when she could tell she’d probably pushed herself too hard, too fast. Her body could only heal in its own time, forcing herself to move wasn’t going to speed anything up. Besides, she knew she was lucky to have so many people looking out for her while she was hyper focused on the idea that she didn’t want to waste away in bed. “Sitting down sounds like a good plan. My sweater is starting to chafe anyway. It’s the softest one I own, and still…”

That was easier than she expected. Cecily felt bad instantly; she hadn’t ever really been in the business of telling other people what to do. She’d always been the one who was being told. Seeing someone fold under the slightest bit of pressure made her uncomfortable — like she was clipping Tessa’s wings, or something. “Are you sure? I don’t want to...make you feel bad. I know you want to have a good time. But we can, still. Get all five of us together and make a night of it.”

[tessa-lisbon]

Having been able to spend Christmas at home had been a miracle in itself, but now that she was back on her feet Tessa refused to be kept cooped up in the house. Having seen nothing but the inside of the hospital for months had been more than enough. Besides, she was on doctor’s orders to walk as much as she could to keep her scars from inhibiting her range of movement, so she wasn’t about to take no for an answer from anyone. “I hope the New Year’s fireworks are good this year. I don’t want to have re-learned how to walk for nothing…”

[cecilylisbons-blog]

Cecily never wanted to make it seem as if she was micromanaging Tessa; after all, she was still the youngest, and there was a certain hierarchy to how they all functioned whether she liked it or not. Still, she had to make sure that her sister wasn’t overdoing it for the sake of not going stir-crazy. She owed her that much. “Well, if they’re lame, I guess we could sit down to eat somewhere. We could invite Marina? Make a night of it.” Marina would definitely be better at the whole tough love thing.

[cecilylisbons-blog]

tessa-lisbon·:

Even as she lay there unable to focus on much outside of her own self, Tessa couldn’t have stopped thinking of her sisters if she tried. It was ingrained in her very core to put them first, untouched by the fire and beating as strong as ever. To call it a burden would be untrue because her sisters were the very reason she stayed afloat, her north star guiding her.

She didn’t have it in her to do anything except give Cecily what she wanted though, so she moved her head in the fraction of a nod she could manage. It wasn’t like there was much she could do while she was bed ridden, anyway. As of now her responsibility was to let people care for her and to recover, as Cecily had pointed out, and nothing more. It felt horribly restrictive not being able to flit between her sisters to comfort them, making sure they were eating and sleeping, but she knew they didn’t need her for that. They had each other and she had them, and her baby sister had indeed grown up before her eyes. 

“Rina…” Tessa sighed, able to picture the hard set of her sister’s expression all too easily. She’d have herself split in too many directions at once, trying to be everything for everyone without any regard for herself… “I worry about everything,” she pointed out, the slow pace of her sentences mirroring the time it took her to churn the words through her pain and the medication fighting it, “but you’re strong too. I just wish you didn’t have to be. Have you eaten?” It defied her agreement to focus solely on herself - and she showed that she knew it with the faintest breath of a laugh - but she truly couldn’t control the reflex, which she hoped Cecily might take as a promising sign that she wasn’t too far gone.

“I know you worry. But this is a moment to just be happy that you’re okay. Which, yeah, I know, sounds weird, but...little things, ya know?” The little things were what she’d always been told to focus on after she’d been forced to get help. The slightly stupid mantras came in handy for once. She’d have gone crazy if she hadn’t gone numb with the comfort of small pieces of hope. She’s not dead yet, just sleeping. Just sleeping. Slightly morbid, slightly pathetic, and not at all how she was meant to use those exercises. Avoiding emotional expression was, in fact, the exact opposite of what all that work was for. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

Cecily huffed a laugh in spite of herself, even managing a small smile before she nodded. “Yes, yes, Marina wouldn’t have let me starve even if I forgot. Which I didn’t, for the record.” She was warmed by the fact that Tessa managed to laugh too, despite the fact that it probably hurt like hell to make any sort of sound, let alone let out that much breath. “Let’s focus on...what you’ll be eating once you get to enjoy non-hospital food. I’ll make you whatever you want. Or, at least...order you whatever you want so I don’t burn down the apartment. See, responsible. I have the foresight to not be a dumbass.”

[cecilylisbons-blog]

tessa-lisbon·:

Seeing Cecily was the most important thing to Tessa at that point. She wanted to know that she was okay, that whatever carelessness on her own behalf that had landed her in that hospital bed hadn’t broken her baby sister’s heart beyond repair, hadn’t tempted her to do anything rash because of it. All of her sisters were resilient beyond compare, that much she was sure of, but she knew everyone had a breaking point, and feared that she was dragging her entire family over the edge with her.

“I’m-” Tessa’s immediate reaction was to apologise, which she was sure Cecily could understand even when her words caught in her throat and turned into a wheeze that she was terrified would either snowball into a full fledged cough or rack her frail body with sobs. Both were horrifying prospects. Did she have anything to apologise for? Not this time, but guilt had always come so easily to her. What sort of big sister was she if she was the one laying in the hospital unable to comfort anyone…

The nurses had left a button beside her less bandaged hand, attached to a machine that would automatically administer pain relief whenever she deemed it necessary. A helpful idea in theory, but even then, as she lay there feeling like she was on fire all over again, Tessa had been pushing herself to refuse it. She was clean, she had been clean, for so long. She barely even let herself take anything when she had a headache at home, let alone use an all you can eat morphine buffet attached to her arm. Only when Cecily mentioned wanting to see her for herself did she relent and push it. Forcing her littlest sister to witness her own stubborn suffering wasn’t fair on either of them.

“Don’t worry,” she spoke whisper soft, heart aching to reach out and envelop Cecily in a hug, if only to prove to herself that she was truly standing there and not a product of the morphine. “It hurts, but I’ve still got seven lives left.” She managed a smile, as soft and warm as she could manage. That was what always got them through– being able to turn inward to each other and find something good, anything good, to hold onto.

Cecily fed the impulse to come closer to Tessa, but stopped once her brain caught up with her. She couldn’t touch her, of course. That was one of the few rules they’d been given. But for them, tactile comfort was important, and Cecily was concerned that she wouldn’t be able to show how much she cared in any other way.

“Please don’t be sorry. None of this is your fault, okay?” Marina in particular seemed to be sure of whose fault it actually was, but as the little sister, these sorts of things weren’t discussed around her. “You — you have to let that go for now, okay? The sense of responsibility. Being the oldest is hard, I know that, but...you can’t feel like you have to take care of me when you’re the one lying in a hospital bed.” She tried to remain as composed as anyone could in this situation, if only to give off the impression of being far more mature and capable than she’d ever actually had to be. “I’m grown now. I take care of me. And you, when you need it. It’s okay to need that.”

Cecily took a deep breath. “I don’t know how this happened, or why, but I do know that you’re pretty invincible. So just focus on being that for now. I’ll look after everyone else, I promise. Especially Marina — she takes all of this on, and it’s too hard, you can see it.” She smiled back, trying to assure herself as much as her sister. “I had to learn how to do this at some point. So don’t worry about me. I know you always do, but...I’m alright.”

[tessa-lisbon]

The first few seconds after Tessa woke up were as peaceful as they ever were. She wasn’t thinking about where she was, but she figured she was in her own bed– though whatever that beeping in her ear was felt out of place. Then, as she rose further and further into consciousness her body started to respond, what felt like every nerve ending screaming back at her in alarm. The world around her seemed to burst into motion, though she had yet to figure out how to open her eyelids that felt like they were made of stone, and she was too busy trying to fight to swallow against her painfully raw throat to see that it was a team of nurses rallying to make her comfortable. Somewhere amongst all the fuss, she heard someone tell her she’d been burned, that she needed to stay still, that she was a good girl and she needed to keep fighting.

Nothing they did made her comfortable, as hard as they tried. She learned, once she’d found the strength to open her eyes and face her new reality, that she damn near resembled a mummy with all the dressings covering her slight frame. One of her hands was so heavily bandaged it looked more like a boxing glove– not only was it burned, but she’d broken her arm in the explosion as well, she’d been told. An explosion… it didn’t sound real, but what could make it more real than the pain she was in? Her legs, her back, her arms, her neck, even her face was burned, but she’d been assured that because the flames had come from beside and behind her and knocked her on her front that anything on her face was superficial. Her skin would probably peel in a few days, and she had some cuts and bruises from being thrown to the ground, but the major concerns remained below her neck. Not that Tessa cared what her face looked like when she learned they’d been prepared for her not to make it. She couldn’t even properly grieve for what her sisters must have been going through, it hurt too much to breathe let alone sob, so she had to grit her teeth and try and keep her emotions to a trickle of tears down her cheek. The moment they asked her if she wanted to try to sleep some more or to see some visitors, she tried to nod, which turned into a tidal wave of agony like razor blades down her back.

“Hi,” she rasped, wanting to test out her voice to see if the fire had scorched that away from her as well. She didn’t know what else to say. Or rather, she had so much to say that she didn’t know where to start.

[cecilylisbons-blog]

It wasn’t like Cecily and her sisters weren’t familiar with the sense of dread that came with hospitals, so she wasn’t sure why it all seemed so strange to her. Maybe it was because it was Tessa, and after last time, they somehow all knew that she wouldn’t end up back here. Not by her own doing, anyway. It was always Cecily who they worried would force this sort of thing — the waiting, and the wondering, and most of all, the sadness.

The problem with being the youngest and the one who, historically, required the most looking after, was that she felt an immediate sense of responsibility to not be any of that. What happened to Tessa was hard on all of them, and she couldn’t drag them out of her own grief by forcing them to dig her out of hers. It wouldn’t be fair. So, Cecily almost turned to steel during all of these days, letting the news of progress or lack thereof swing around her and in front of her like a pendulum — never taking a moment to absorb any of it. The fact of Tessa being in a hospital, and all of the buzz words — explosion, flames, out of nowhere — were damning enough. She was sad enough. Enough. She couldn’t be the extraordinarily sad girl. She had to leave room for the rest of them.

She hadn’t cried, not once, until Tessa was actually awake and speaking to her. Her resolve to keep it together came with a cool numbness that washed over her. As if she hadn’t expected Tessa to survive after all and was avoiding the weight of that. But she was going to be okay, one day, and she was at least going to be alive, for now. The tears pricked hot at the corners of Cecily’s eyes, and she batted them away almost instantaneously. They were the only ones she’d allow herself. She wasn’t the one who nearly burned to death, and she wasn’t going to cry in front of the person who had.

“Hey Tee,” Cecily started slowly, her tongue wrapping around the nickname only she reserved for her oldest sister — a bit of a joke of sorts, because it was the only thing Cecily was able to call her as a toddler for fear of lisping out her real name. “You had us scared for a sec there. But I guess we should have realized no one can keep you down for the count.” She chanced a smile, the brightest one she could offer in the moment. “You don’t have to talk if it hurts. They told us — um, how much pain you’d be in if — when — you woke up. I just wanted to see you with my own eyes, because — well, none of us go more than a day without seeing each other, do we?”

[sweetsweatshirt-deactivated2021]

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[cecilylisbons-blog]

tessa-lisbon:

“Come on, you’ve seen pictures, he was basically one perm away from being Napoleon Dynamite anyway.” Tessa blinked hard, a tiny frown of regret forming, “Not saying I’m thinking about mom as Cher in Turn Back Time but… I guess this is my own fault. Anyway! Great party, huh? I love not knowing who’s a seedy guy and who’s a seedy dad guy.”

“I’m gonna give you a do over just this once so you can consider — is this really the conversation you want to have with your dearest, baby-est sister?” She rocked her head back and forth, pretending to consider. “Choose wisely, because there’s no going back, and I’m already full up on nightmares for today.”

[cecilylisbons-blog]

tessa-lisbon:

“I agree.” For the most part, Andrew was in the habit of agreeing with his wife simply because it was easy, and raising five children had taught him to make things easy whenever the chance arose. Just because he suddenly looked like his younger self again didn’t mean he had lost his sense, unlike most around them seemed to. “Throwing a party… Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. The girls can’t argue that we made the wrong decision in home schooling them, in keeping them from this insanity.”

“Andrew.” Hope balked at the sound of his voice — though more youthful, it was still unmistakable. “I — I thought you’d be with them. Watching them.” It was what she had banked on in order to justify being reckless, though her idea of being reckless was milling about and allowing herself to be seen. The only thing that was markedly worse than running into him was running into her daughters. They knew what she had once looked like, of course; they just didn’t know what that young girl carried with her. Andrew knew, and she didn’t need the reminder. She was enough of one.

[tessa-lisbon]

“Considering this is an 80s themed evening, I’m a little disappointed to see a lack of perms in the building.”

[cecilylisbons-blog]

“Yeah, because that’s exactly what I needed — the sight of dad in a perm. Or, better, mom.” Cecily paused, then sighed. “I just resigned to that awaiting me in my nightmares. And it’s your fault.”

[cecilylisbons-blog]

“Ridiculous party,” Hope scoffed. She’d only heard about it around town — she’d gotten out more in the past few days than, say, the last fifteen years — but she supposed Rosewood was a ghost town because of it. It at least gave her the opportunity to roam freely without running into anyone who recognized her. “But I suppose no one would survive around here without something frivolous and sinful to indulge in.”

[cecilylisbons-blog]

FAMILY CONNECTIONS:

Every myth begins somewhere, and Noeul is the original Lisbon girl. She’d never admit it, though. And she’d never admit that her scandals are much larger than the ones her daughters have caused — that she left her home because of them. That she changed her name and became someone else. And became what she once hated.

Noeul was most similar to NOVA, but had MARINA’s magnetism ( but knew how to use it ) and TESSA’s penchant for a more dangerous kind of recklessness ( but never admitted to it ). CECILY and BRIDGET are, in many ways, the black sheep of the family because they don’t display most of their mother’s traits. Cecily’s daughter HOLLY ultimately assumes her place as Noeul’s second (teenage) coming because, ahem, history repeats itself.

RANDOM FACTS:

Her former aesthetic is a Wong Kar Wai flick. Or, for a brief course, the Yes No Maybe video. (No, she didn’t kill anyone.)

Is majorly uncomfortable about being a teenager again. It reminds her of her past screwups that she’s spent the whole rest of her life trying to hide. So, she’s hiding from her husband and her daughters. Yikes.

No one knows her birth name, and if they do, they know well enough not to use it. Call her by her weird, corny, Christian name, pls.

Has become a major Jesus freak with a cold, dead heart. But she wasn’t always that way, oh no no no.

Noeul starts the story that maps out the revamped The Virgin Suicides. Shit’s gonna get wild, fam.

[theduchampboy]

Kalani stood with her back to the bar, beer in hand, as a club remix of Jingle Bell Rock came over the speakers. “I hate Christmas.”

[cecilylisbons-blog]

“Oh, I ran into a big, bad subversive. The best kind of person to be around during the holidays.” Holly was openly sarcastic about it, but her smile at the end suggested she was being cheeky. “You can do better than beer, don’t you think? My treat.”

[tessa-lisbon]

“It still counts if I buy Branford’s food myself, right? Because these grilled cheeses have been my saviour for the last week. I swear you could cut me open and I’d bleed mozzarella.”

[cecilylisbons-blog]

“Sure. I mean, I’ve survived on hoagies and store-bought cookies — I know your head just exploded but I made it through — all semester. Cooking is for nerds. Also, hi. The ghost returns from Philadelphia for the holidays.”

[jininana]

[cecilylisbons-blog]

birthplace: jeju, south korea birthdate: april 1, 2019 ( aries ) enneagram: the individualist

four temperaments: choleric sanguine hogwarts house: gryffindor moral alignment: chaotic neutral ( the free spirit ) mbti: esfp ( the entertainer )

cecily took some time to travel the world and find herself ( but not in a gross, fetishizing eat pray love kind of way ) and came back to the states with holly like it was no big deal. oops?

holly knows nothing about her parents. jeju was a small province in korea, set apart on an island, and people were tight-lipped there ; they kept each others’ secrets. ultimately, she presumed she was born out of wedlock and left it alone. if they wanted to know her, they would have reached out by now.

had a period in which she wanted to be a korean idol. got signed to an entertainment company. it’s a period in her life she doesn’t talk about. but trust me, there are videos if you know where to look. ( she still can’t sing for shit, but she was pretty, and that was enough. and, well, she’s a semi-decent dancer. )

keeps her hair just the perfect shade of bottle blonde and has since the age of fourteen. once she was old enough to understand the myth of the lisbons, she wanted to keep it alive. so she tries to look like them as best as she can. the only deviating factor is that she’s far more into receiving attention than cecily or any of her aunts seemed to be.

let’s be real, she’s a hella attention whore. send help.

loves her family, but won’t deal with being judged by them.

has a list of conquests a la lindsay lohan. if guys can do it, why can’t she? and she doesn’t take kindly to being called any variation of a slut. it’s not her fault people want to sleep with her.

planning to study international relations at stanford. got in based on the exchange program she singlehandedly created at rosewood. the rumors say she slept with the head of admissions. she won’t confirm or deny. either way, she’s going to be a diplomat someday.

maxim hometown hottie 2037. wink-wink.

connections

idk, you tell me.

[addamsoctober]

“Do I?,” she asked, tilting her head in amusement. The other girl’s frankness didn’t take October by that much surprise, but she definitely found it refreshing. “My bad, I’ve heard I can give off that impression sometimes.”

[cecilylisbons-blog]

She’d obviously heard that October was a little dark, but Cecily didn’t place much trust in rumors. Regardless, October just seemed to do it for sport. Interesting. “No worries. I must have misinterpreted.” She paused before blurting the rest out. “I tend to read between the lines a lot.”