Chapter Text
Her student file is going to say she’s a former Eichen House patient.
Lydia knows this already. It’s not the worst thing the file is going to have on it, so it doesn’t really faze her all that much. It’s not like Lydia allows herself thoughts of Eichen, anyway.
The worst thing the file is going to say is all of the details of what happened before Eichen. Hearing voices, disappearing from a hospital, strangulation marks, screaming at school, spacing out, the deaths. Everyone is going to expect her to kill herself. Or at the very least start hysterically screaming in the middle of her Anthropology lecture.
(Wouldn’t matter if she did, though. It just means someone else is dead.)
Everyone’s watching her. Everyone’s always watching her.
Lydia doesn’t let herself think about that too much, though. She doesn’t think about fighting in the rain or being dragged down halls, stairs or across grass fields. She doesn’t let herself think about frantic, whispered conversations with Stiles, shaky punches into the palms of Jordan’s hands, the way Malia’s eyes quiver when she’s trying to hide fear or how Kira looks when her head’s been cracked open again. Lydia doesn’t let herself think about monsters wearing bone masks, claws in her side, wire rope being tied around her throat, knives in stomachs or black blood pouring out of someone’s mouth. She doesn’t let herself remember what it’s like to have a scream wretched out of her core, dragged through her throat and explode outside of her. For a life to end as soon as the scream echoes across space.
Lydia shoves those thoughts to the back of her head as easily as shoves thoughts of student files and concerned glances.
(Too bad they don’t go further away.)
As far as Lydia is concerned, no one at Stanford needs to know what Beacon Hills is. They don’t need to know her screams mean either Heaven or Hell has a few new residents. They don’t need to know she’s seen more monsters and blood than any of them ever used to dream about when they were kids. They don’t need to know about her mom, her Alpha or the people she’s almost died with. They don’t need to know about Aiden. Or Allison.
No.
Lydia doesn’t let herself think about that.
Lydia lets herself think about putting in a Fix-It request for that blinking light in her bathroom or for the way her dorm room door squeaks. She lets herself think about memorizing the map of the campus, so she’ll always know far away her house is from the science buildings on campus. Lydia lets herself think about declaring her major in Biology and how she’s going to have to rock her letter of declaration. That’s all.
It can be much easier.
It won’t be banshee screams and death. It will be college and maybe it’ll be enough to quiet the noises Lydia still hears in the back of her head. Noises that remind her of what she’s been.
(What she still is. What she always will be.)
It’ll be enough. It won’t be much, but it will be enough.
**
Autumn Quarter:
- Introduction to Brain and Behavior
- Anthropology 1: Introduction to Cultural and Social Anthropology
- THINK 2: The Art of Living
- History 41Q: Mad Women: Women and Mental Illness in U.S. History
**
The first person she sees in her Introduction to Brain and Behavior class is Scott McCall. He sits in the second row and smiles nervously at her when she comes in.
Scott did want to talk to her before she left, didn’t he?
Lydia looks at him, and her lips curve upwards.
Are you in the right class?
AP Biology.
Do you know what “AP” stands for?
Advanced Placement.
He’d smiled much bigger back then.
Lydia sits in the front row, in the seat in front of Scott’s. She’s very grateful when he doesn’t say anything.
**
Lydia should really apologize for that, one day. Scott’s a lot smarter than everyone’s always thought.
**
Lydia overhears Scott lists his autumn quarter to some girl in their Biology class. Introduction to Brain and Behavior; Philosophy 182, the study of the truth; THINK 6, “Everyday Life, How History Happens;” and Psych 138: Wise Interventions.
Lydia bites back a snort. That schedule sounds so Scott McCall appropriate.
**
Lydia pretends to not hear Scott calling her name after class is over.
She’d called his name almost constantly, at one point. He’d yelled hers quite often then, too.
**
Biology is hard all of a sudden and Lydia doesn’t have the energy to study. There’s lecture on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and lab on Monday evenings. That’s on top of Anthropology on Wednesday afternoons, History on Tuesday mornings and the THINK class on Thursday afternoons. That’s on top of operating on little to no sleep per night because of the fact Malia and Kira stare at her while she’s sleeping and her mother grabs her arms and shakes her awake only to vanish the instant Lydia opens her eyes.
And that’s on top of seeing Scott every other day.
Lydia sometimes wants to laugh at herself. How’d she figure she’d be able to pretend she was away from it all when Scott still exists, was even in a class with her? When Scott smiled at her every time he saw her.
It’s a little funny. Mostly pathetic and draining, but a little funny, too.
**
Lydia hears the term “female hysteria” in History and listens as the professors explains how women were often not given proper medical treatment well because of it. Lydia distantly thinks things have not changed at all.
**
Lydia’s THINK professor wants the class to analyze the way they live so that they’ll be able to formulate a hypothesis on how their particular style of living was created.
While the professor lectures, Lydia writes down three sentences on her paper and draws fangs and a knife in the corner. Hypothesis done.
**
Scott has made friends with pretty much everyone in their Bio class. They all love Scott (of course they do, Lydia sometimes thinks bitterly) because he’s smart, earnest and willing to stay up late nights helping them with hopeless notes (of course he does, Lydia sometimes thinks sadly.) Scott is suddenly popular on campus. He’s known as a gentleman, who doesn’t hit on the girls and knows how convince a professor to give someone else an extension.
Really, Scott could’ve asked anyone to study with him. But he rushed up to Lydia after class one Monday morning.
“I want to study with you,” Scott tells her when she asks why. He says it with a frown, his voice too serious for the question he’s asking.
“Lydia,” he says, his voice on edge, “I’m still your friend.”
Lydia bites on the inside of her mouth to keep from screaming at him that she’s forgotten what that is supposed to be mean anymore.
“I mean, if you want me to be,” Scott backpedals, blinking too fast and looking much too uncertain of himself and of her.
Friend.
My friends . . . they’re all gonna die . . .
But they didn’t.
“Is that the only reason?” Lydia asks with more of a bite than she means too.
Scott gives a small smile and sighs. “Well, that and the fact that you went through the hell that was Beacon Hills’s version of AP Bio with me.”
Lydia snorts and starts to laugh before she realizes it. Lydia doesn’t dwell on the fact it’s the first real laugh she’s had since she started college almost two months ago.
Scott smiles at her again, looking relieved.
**
They have a study date every Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 pm. Scott and Lydia comb through the world’s driest bio books and pour over the world’s most hastily written, complicated notes and Scott doesn’t ask Lydia why she hasn’t spoken to him since she found out they were both enrolled at the same school, both prospective majors in Biology. Scott doesn’t ask why she hasn’t spoken to Kira or Malia or Stiles or Mason or why Lydia sometimes stares at him in class and rushes out without saying anything. Scott doesn’t ask why Lydia sometimes looks like she hadn’t left her room in days. They just study together.
It’s perfect.
**
“Hey, Lydia?”
“Yeah?”
“What other classes do you have?”
“Why?”
“Just curious.”
“Well, I have that stupid THINK class.”
“Which one?”
“The ‘Art of Living.’”
“Sounds a little corny, but nice. What else?”
“Plus I have History, the study of women and mental illness.”
“Wow, that sounds . . . intense.”
“No kidding. And I have Introduction to Cultural and Social Anthropology.”
“Hm. I think I know a couple of people in that Anthropology class, actually. They’d be cool for to make like a study group with . . .”
. . . What?”
“Nothing, Scott.”
**
Lydia studies for almost all of her mid-terms alone, pacing around her room while rattling off historical and anthropological facts and conjuring up a way to bullshit an introspective theory about why she’s the way she is.
Bio’s different, of course. For Bio, she and Scott sit underneath a tree in the yard of her dorm, the Serra House, and quiz each other until they get tired. When they stretch out underneath the tree for a study break, Lydia is hyperaware of her leg pressing against Scott’s.
**
Her Bio mid-term is a lot easier than Lydia expects. The answers come to her in a way she hadn’t experienced in three years. When she walks out of the room, she rewards herself with a smile.
The cocky smile is still there when she notices Scott, who’d finished the exam five minutes before her, waiting for her. His face lights up when he sees her smiling like that.
**
Scott ruins it one day.
They’re reading their lecture notes in the courtyard. It’s the night before Halloween and cooler than they expected. They sit close, bundled up in their jackets and try to stay focused. Lydia’s eyes would’ve glazed over by now if they weren’t occasionally watching the way Scott’s eyebrows furrow.
“Hey Lydia,” Scott says softly, still staring at his notes. (Scott must be trying to pretend not to notice the staring, Lydia decides.)
“Yes?”
“Have you called your mom, lately?”
In her nightmares, yes. Lydia screams at a shadow of her mother every night. In reality . . .
“Why?” Lydia asks, going for dead voice and failing. The question is enough of an answer, anyway.
“My mom said she asked about you again,” Scott says, trying for casual. He’s such a bad faker. “She said you guys hadn’t spoken—”
“In one month,” and the dead voice is real this time.
Scott looks up, looking unbearably concerned. He doesn’t ask the question. He just looks.
“I don’t know what to say to her anymore,” Lydia answers anyway.
Scott nods slowly. “Do you want me to tell her that?” he offers gently.
Lydia shakes her no, nope, not a good idea. That’s worse than not saying anything at all, really.
They go back to studying, but now Lydia can only see flashes of horror in her mother’s eyes.
Her leg starts to shake incessantly and Scott, without looking up from his notes, gently places his hand on it and murmurs for her to try to relax.
Lydia’s face flushes and she feels warm all over.
**
Lydia sleeps through all of her classes the next day. Her RA, Meagan, knocks on her door to check on her.
Lydia answers it with messed up hair and a tightened stomach. Her RA is nice, she really is, but she’s also the spitting image of Braeden, the mercenary. When Lydia met her during her floor’s first meeting, she stared at the side of the girl’s neck for almost five minutes straight, imaging a deep scar instead of perfect brown skin. When she’d realized she’d been staring, she felt embarrassed and begged herself to get it together, please.
“Lydia, are you okay? Are you sick?” Meagan asks too gently. Of course she knows Lydia’s history and Lydia knows Meagan’s waiting on her to crack open.
She’d hate the girl for it if she weren’t so damn nice.
Lydia tells Meagan that yes, she’s fine, just stayed up too late trying to study and has the slightest bit of a migraine right now. Meagan says she understands, but Lydia knows she’s gonna write it down somewhere once she’s left Lydia’s doorway.
Lydia wants to go into her RA’s room and rip up every piece of paper with the words “Lydia Martin,” “Eichen House,” and “troubled” on them. Instead, Lydia closes her door and curls up on her bed.
She has four missed calls from Scott.
**
Scott asks how she’s feeling and she tells him she’s tired, but sleeping doesn’t help.
“I know what you mean,” Scott says with a grimace to himself.
He’s not quite looking at Lydia, she sees. His eyes look like he’s gone someplace far, far away today.
**
Lydia makes up for the day of missed classes by working as hard as she can on her THINK paper, making it less bullshit. Lydia also reads two sections ahead of her History book and ignores all the flashbacks the words give her.
Malia’s name flashes across her phone screen for the fifth time in three weeks. Lydia ignores that, too.
**
“Hey Lydia?”
“Yeah?”
They’re both trying for casual. They’re both failing. This spells trouble to Lydia.
“Do you wanna get dinner after lab on Monday?”
The achy hole in her chest is what makes her say “Yes” almost instantly. The grateful look in Scott’s eyes is what makes her not regret it.
**
Scott takes her to a warmly lit, cozy Thai place one of his friends from Bio introduced him to about three weeks into the beginning of the year. Lydia eats the best tasting Pad Thai she’s ever had and actually giggles at Scott when she sees that he still can’t use chopsticks.
“Kira ordered pizza that night,” Scott offers as an excuse and Lydia laughs some more. It feels good.
Lydia stops laughing, however, when she lingers too long the word “Kira.” She hasn’t seen the girl’s actual face or heard her actual voice in four months.
(She wants to, now. She wants to see and hear from Kira almost as much as she wants to never speak to anyone from Beacon Hills ever again.)
Scott hasn’t mentioned her while they’ve studied together.
Scott hasn’t mentioned much of anyone from Beacon Hills, Lydia now realizes.
“How is Kira?” Lydia asks and yes, the question feels very weird in her mouth. Because how do you go from wanting to forget a person existed to suddenly wanting to relearn everything about them in the span of five minutes?
“Good,” Scott answers, but his voice cracks in the way that lets Lydia know something is up. “She’s doing good. She’s at UCSC.”
“With Stiles,” Lydia finishes and tries not to wince when she says it.
“Yep,” Scott nods, but he won’t look up and that makes Lydia’s stomach twist.
“Scott, what’s going on?” Lydia asks, because she’s evasive and melancholy and heavy enough for the two of them. Scott is the light one as far as Lydia is concerned.
“Oh, um, it’s nothing. It’s just . . . well, we broke up,” Scott says eventually with a shrug.
Wait, what? Lydia blinks. When did . . . has she really missed that much?
“When?”
“Um, about two weeks before school started.”
“Why?” Lydia tilts her head, because she can tell when someone’s lying to her, too.
Offhandedly, she thinks that Scott eyes would probably flash right now if he were a few years younger and still a newbie Beta. But Scott has a control most humans should envy, so his voice is even and his eyes brown when he answers.
“We just didn’t feel right anymore.”
It doesn’t feel like a lie, but it also doesn’t feel true. But before Lydia can decide whether or not she should push it, Scott’s phone rings.
“Oh, sorry,” Scott says before answering. “Hello? Oh, hey! Hey, Liam, what’s up?”
Liam. Lydia smiles softly and rolls her eyes. She thinks briefly about luring Liam to her home and then having to host a party of 100 freshmen. It seems like forever ago.
Scott sounds very happy while talking to Liam. Scott laughs, his face bright and eyes crinkled. He’s pretty, Lydia thinks.
Wait, did she just think Scott was pretty?
Lydia laughs out loud, making Scott look at her in confusion.
Lydia shakes her head and pushes her hair out of her face. She leans back into her chair and settles for listening to Scott’s side of his conversation with Liam.
“Yeah, it’s fine. Really hard, sometimes. Yep, still hoping to go with Bio. Shut up!” Scott laughs again. “Oh, really? That’s cool, really cool, I’m really glad. Yeah, I’m with Lydia now, actually.”
Something grabs at Lydia’s throat when he says that. Who’s asking for her? What are they saying?
Scott lowers his phone and smiles at Lydia.
“Liam said Mason says hi.”
“Oh.” Mason, the slightly overly enthusiastic resident supernatural expert in training. If Lydia really thinks about it, she knows that she likes Mason, although she doesn’t think she’d ever told him that. Never had time to.
“Tell Mason and Liam I say ‘Hi.’”
Scott looks surprised and Lydia would be annoyed by that if she didn’t understand why. Either way, he relays the message.
“Okay, yeah. Whatever! I’ll talk to you later. Yeah. Bye!”
Lydia watches Scott hang up the phone with more interest she’d like to admit to herself. “How often do you to talk to Liam?”
“Uh, about once a week, now. I used to talk to him about as much as I talk to my mom—”
“Wait, really? How often do you talk to your mom?”
“Um, almost every day, now. It used to be a few times a week, but she wants me to call her every day.”
“So, at one point, you were talking to Liam every day?”
“Yeah,” Scott answers like it should be obvious or something.
Lydia lets her head hang back and her body shakes with laughter. Scott doesn’t say anything, but she can feel him staring at her.
“So wait, how often do you call Stiles?” she asks to the ceiling.
“Oh, uh, I mostly text Stiles.”
“How often, though?”
“Um, just a couple of times a day.”
Lydia bursts into laughter and yes, Scott is very baffled and he must think something is wrong with her.
“Lydia, what’s so funny?” he asks with a small smile.
Lydia is laughing hysterically now. She leans forward, hair falling back into her face, hand on her cheek. Lydia feels like she’s going to fall if she keeps laughing, but she can’t stop.
“You talk . . . to everyone,” Lydia sputters through her laughter, “and I can’t talk to anyone!”
“I don’t understand,” Scott is genuinely so perplexed right now and Lydia should be crying but instead she’s almost cackling.
“Like, you can call your mom every day. You can talk to Liam and probably Kira and Malia. You text Stiles multiple times a day!”
Scott blushes, but nods for Lydia to continue. Lydia snickers again and drops her hand on top of Scott’s.
“You can talk to everyone, and I can’t even talk to you some days.” Her laughter finally subsides and she sighs, a bleary smile still on her face. “I just can’t, Scott.”
Scott frowns and places his hand on hers. It’s meant to be comforting, but Lydia doesn’t need comforting right now. She looks down at his hand and sighs again. She wonders when’s the last time Scott’s had to turn his hands into claws.
**
Scott holds Lydia’s hand the entire walk to her dorm. Lydia wants to ask him to stay, just to have someone else in her room for the night. But Meagan has restrictions on guy visitors and, besides, what would she look like, asking him that?
Still, Roble Hall is a bit too far from her Serra House, and Lydia feels antsy as she watches Scott walk back there.
For the first time, Lydia regrets opting in for a single room and out of a roommate.
**
Meagan comes to check on Lydia sometime after 11 p.m. that night.
“I hadn’t seen you see all day,” she says. Then she adds with a small smile, “Plus I saw the guy walking you to the house.”
Lydia blushes and nods. Yes, she’s okay and she might actually mean it tonight.
Lydia gets up early the next day, buys a chocolate donut from the Dunkin Donuts on campus and delivers it to a very surprised and grateful Meagan before heading to her morning class. It’s a nice gesture.
**
Lydia’s history lecture makes her squirm that Tuesday. It’s about women being locked away and poked and prodded and Lydia remembers being stuck with needles too many times.
Lydia rubs her wrist, makes herself focus on the professor and resists the urge to run out of the classroom.
**
Tuesday study date is quieter than usual. Scott sits too still while pouring over lab assignments.
Lydia watches him and waits for him to look up at her. When he doesn’t, Lydia sighs.
“What is it, Scott?”
Scott blinks slowly and finally looks up at her. His face falls and he looks worried.
“Dr. Deaton called me this morning. He said he’s moving out of Beacon Hills.”
Lydia has a memory of Deaton throwing himself between her and a monster and frowns deeply. The doctor protected them or at the very least made sure nothing actually killed them.
“Why? Where’s he going?” She asks, feeling rising anxiety. Beacon Hills . . . the portal to Hell . . . guarded by druid posing as a vet . . .
“He wouldn’t say exactly where,” Scott tells her, looking past her, “just that it was time for him to leave.”
Lydia blinks slowly and squirms to get rid of the feeling of wrong, wrong, wrong that’s creeping up her throat.
“Well,” Lydia says in the best matter-of-fact voice she can manufacture, “I guess that means there’s nothing there for him anymore.”
Scott looks at her with a stare so intense that Lydia can’t help but to match it. Then he blinks rapidly and looks down at his lap with a perplexed look on his face, like he forgot something.
“I guess you’re right,” Scott mutters. “Nothing there anymore . . .” his voice trails off.
Lydia realizes the last part isn’t meant for her and opts to pretend to go back to reading.
**
That night, Lydia calls Scott.
In her sleep.
She wakes herself when she hears someone mumbling, “I miss my friends,” and wondering who the hell is in her room.
“Lydia? Are you okay? Lydia? Lydia?”
Lydia didn’t even wake up quickly; she slowly becomes conscious and drops her phone when she realizes what’s going on.
“Lydia?? I’m coming over, okay?”
Lydia scrambles and picks the phone up.
“No, no! My RA isn’t going to let you! It’s past midnight, Scott,” Lydia sits up in bed, beyond embarrassed.
“Lydia, you called me crying and slurring your words. I want to make sure you’re okay, alright?”
Lydia touches underneath her right eye and finds the area a little damp. So, she was crying. Lydia’s stomach drops and she pulls her knees to her chest. When did she start crying? And when the fuck did she call Scott?
“Okay,” Lydia mumbles, but she knows Scott’s probably already on his way and has been since he answered the phone.
Sure enough, less than a minute later: “Lydia, I’m outside of your house, okay?”
“Stay there, she won’t let you on the floor,” Lydia tells him, still a little dazed. “I’m coming down.”
A few minutes later, Lydia is wrapped in her robe, key and ID clutched tightly in her hand, trying to convince Scott that she’s fine.
“Are you sure? You can tell me if something’s wrong, Lydia,” Scott reassures, and he holds her arms tightly.
Lydia looks at Scott and sighs. “I don’t know why that happened, but it won’t happen again.”
Scott looks at her with worry and lets go of her arms. His hands were hot and her arms are still warm where they were.
“Lydia, do you remember what you were saying to me?”
Oh, God. That could’ve been anything. Lydia shakes her head, suddenly anxious.
“You were saying that you miss your friends. You were crying and saying you needed me. And that you ‘want it all to stop.’ You sounded . . . spaced out, almost drugged and you wouldn’t respond when I called your name. So, I got very scared and worried and started trying to get you to listen to me. Eventually, you came around.”
Scott stepped closer while he was talking and is now very close to Lydia again. Lydia’s grateful, really, because she kind of feels like she’s going to fall forward at any second.
“Oh,” Lydia says. She’s tired and Scott’s face starts to blur a little bit. “I didn’t know that. But I’m fine. Just . . . tired, again.”
“Lydia, let me walk you back in,” Scott says softly, reaching for her hand.
“No, you can’t, they won’t let you in,” but Lydia’s not really sure if that’s even true. “I’m fine.” Lydia’s almost certain that’s not true.
But she goes back in. When she peeks out of her window, she’s surprised to realize that she can see where they’d been standing from there. Lydia watches as Scott’s figure disappears.
Lydia turns her phone off and sticks it underneath her bed before laying back down.
**
Lydia feels Scott studying her instead of the board the next morning in Bio. Lydia smirks; Scott’s not subtle at all. Never quite mastered the art. He and Stiles would have whisper conversations and blatantly stare at people in high school.
Lydia hears a guy and a girl whispering to each other about Lydia and Scott. Scott must hear them, too. Lydia rolls her eyes and starts to absentmindedly doodle something in her notes. She doesn’t realize that it’s a picture of Kira until she finishes drawing the sword in her hand.
Lydia puts her pen down, tries to tune out the feeling of Scott’s eyes on her back, and tries to pay attention to the lecture.
**
After Anthropology lecture is over, Lydia’s professor asks to speak with her for a few moments.
“Is there a problem?” Lydia asks with a cheeriness she’s been faking very well as of late.
“Not necessarily. You’re doing very well on your assignments and you’ve been participating in class, which is definitely helpful.”
“Then what’s wrong, professor?”
“Well, it’s just that . . . Lydia, you looked very . . . well, spaced out at one point today. Your lips were moving, but I didn’t hear you saying anything. I’m just trying to check on you. Are you getting enough rest?”
“Oh, well, I did have a bit of a rough night and have been studying so much lately. I apologize if I caused a disturbance.”
“Oh, no! No disturbance, I just wanted to make sure. You can always come to me if you need anything. I can help you find many resources on campus.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary, but thank you so much, professor!”
When Lydia finally leaves the room, she hears voices rumbling in the back of her mind.
All I have is voices in my head.
Lydia runs to her room. People are watching her fall apart again and she knows it.
Lydia drops her bag onto the ground and curls up in her bed. Call Scott, a voice says. Call Scott. Lydia looks at her phone, which had fallen out of her bag and slid across the room. Call Scott, call Kira, call Malia, call Stiles, call Mason, call Mom, call Allison.
Call someone.
Lydia turns around and faces her wall. Eventually, the words “call, call,” fade away. Lydia closes her eyes and pretends she’d never heard voices and had never paid attention to the two dorks who made the lacrosse team or the pretty brunette with the cute jacket.
**
Lydia has a nightmare that night. It’s Allison.
Allison. . .
Allison, standing in the skirt and jacket she wore that night. Bow in hand, jaw set, a cold look in her eyes.
Lydia calls to her.
Allison? ALLISON! Allison, please.
Allison is far away and tall and Lydia is far away and small. Lydia Is curled up on herself, body shaking. Allison is a giant and Lydia is an ant trying to crawl up her legs.
Allison is much closer now. Too close, actually; Lydia can count every eyelash individually. Allison is taller, still, and has to look down a little bit to meet Lydia’s eyes.
Please say something, Allison. Please.
Allison’s face is marble, her eyes flat at first. Then a light appears in them and she smiles. Allison’s gloved hand touches Lydia’s cheek and Lydia closes her eyes and leans into the touch and pretends yes, this is real, yes this is warm, yes this is me and this is Allison . . .
Allison’s hand falls and Lydia’s eyes open slowly. Allison opens her jacket and Lydia gasps, choking on air.
Lydia sees the stab wound. She sees the blood. She finally sees what killed her best friend.
Allison smiles again.
I loved you, too, Lydia.
When Lydia finally wakes up, she wishes she could scream. Maybe Allison would hear her.
**
Thursday morning slams into her with a pounding headache. Stern dining hall is too busy and too full and anything Lydia eats will crawl back up her throat anyway.
Thursday afternoon reminds her she has to explain herself, explain yourself, Lydia Martin. Explain why you got locked in a back cell in Hell, with a nurse grabbing your face and telling to you to drop the act. Explain the girls and boys and boys and girls running through your mind. Explain why you scream and can’t scream.
Thursday night shows her three calls from Scott, one from Malia, two from her mother. Lydia goes to bed without calling any of them back and screaming at herself.
Lydia pulls the covers up to her neck. Behind her eyelids, Allison stands there bloody and Scott cries. Lydia sees a red-haired, high-fashion beautiful girl with a gorgeous blonde boyfriend and reaches for her. She tries to tell the girl she’s going to die. The girl rolls her eyes, calls her a freak and prances away.
**
Lydia cries in her sleep. Her phone rings again.
**
Friday. 7:30 am. Bio starts at 10:15 am.
Lydia sits on her bed. She stares at the mirror. A nude, pale ghost of a red-haired monster stares back.
Lydia stands up, goes to her drawer and puts on a bra, panties and pulls a dress over her head. Then she sits back down. Lydia can’t remember why exactly she’s getting dressed right now, but she also wouldn’t want Meagan to see her naked because that would go in a file somewhere.
Friday . . . 7:45 am.
Lydia sits back down on her bed and pulls her hair into a messy bun on the top of her head. She wraps a hair holder around it and the ghost in her mirror watches her do it with dead green eyes.
Lydia gets back up and brushes her teeth and washes her face. She moisturizes and watches cream disappear into her skin. She goes back into the room and sits on her bed. The ghost watches her.
8 . . . 8:05 am.
Lydia should get coffee . . . and a donut . . . or no, a, um . . . wait . . . what the fuck?
What . . . what?
Lydia feels confused, likes clouds are hovering over her brain. The ghost looks at her like she’s an idiot.
Lydia blinks. When did she sit back down? The ghost in the mirrors shakes her head and tears slide down her cheek. Then she starts to laugh and Lydia thinks something’s wrong with her.
Lydia blinks again and she feels like she’s being stabbed in the chest when she remembers what her reflection used to look like.
Lydia stands up, the back of her legs pressed against her bed. Suddenly, she’s on her knees, her face almost entirely pressed up against the mirror.
Her clock says 8:35am.
Lydia searches her reflection’s eyes for . . . for something, right? But there isn’t anything that Lydia can see. Her body shakes; she’s sobbing. Her head is starting to hurt and she’s sobbing. She can’t remember when she got dressed or why. Lydia wonders when her reflection started to look like that!
Lydia grabs the sides of her mirror and holds it tightly.
“Please,” she sobs, but nothing answers her. She keeps asking. “Please, please, please . . .”
Please, please, please, please, please . . .
8:38 am.
Begging doesn’t work. Begging never worked. Begging for your life, for your friend’s lives . . . never.
Lydia’s hands fall to her side.
And then one of them is slamming into her reflection’s face.
Ow.
Fuck.
Ow.
Lydia sees the blood . . . she does . . . and suddenly, yes it’s real and it’s hers. Lydia tilts her head and looks at the glass all over the floor. They all have her in them.
8:41 am.
Lydia feels the scream. It’s not for death, but for herself. It’s for the Lydia who gets dressed and forgets why, the Lydia who sometimes rubs her own arms because Allison isn’t there to rub them. The Lydia who remembers what needles feel like when they go into your wrist. It’s for the Lydia who wants Scott to stay all the time and then wants him to stop knowing that she’s crazy and scared and that she needs him. The Lydia who wishes her friends had someone better.
Lydia screams because she cannot scream herself into hoarseness anymore.
8:45 am. Scott is at her door because he’s her Alpha and her friend and would hear her scream even if she were at the bottom of the ocean. Meagan is opening Lydia’s door because the resident she worries so much about finally broke in half this morning.
**
The bandages are too tight on Lydia’s right hand.
**
Scott sits with her outside of the counseling center. Lydia has to go every Tuesday afternoon for the next three weeks, until finals are over.
Lydia wanted to tell them they’ve ruined her study date, but she thought it wouldn’t have mattered to them.
“We should be studying, right now,” Lydia says to the floor. “Our final is next week.”
Scott wraps his right hand around Lydia’s left one. He’s warm.
“You’re exempt from that, remember? You’re exempt from all of them,” Scott reminds her.
Lydia rolls her eyes and doesn’t try to stop the tears.
“I didn’t want to be,” she whispers.
“I know.”
Lydia looks over at Scott, tears still flowing freely down her face. Scott squeezes her hand gently.
“Look at it this way—you were already going to be exempt from Anthropology, History and our Bio exam because you were still acing all those classes,” Scott says. “So, your THINK paper is the only real exemption. Your professors understand.”
“But I don’t want them to have to understand something, Scott!” Lydia cries. She’s instantly sorry, but Scott doesn’t even seem to mind. He just nods again.
Lydia sighs and looks at the counseling office doors. She feels herself start to shake and Scott puts his arm around her shoulders.
“What do I tell them, Scott?” Lydia questions quietly, feeling a little frantic. “How do I explain this? ‘Oh, I’m crazy because supernatural maniacs have been trying to fucking murder me and my friends since we were 15?’ Why the hell would they believe that?”
“You don’t to have to say any of that,” Scott reassures her with earnest eyes.
“Scott,” her voice is too hard, but Scott doesn’t seem to mind. He just squeezes her and falls quiet.
They sit there in silence for two minutes before Scott speaks again.
“Tell her what you haven’t told yourself,” he says.
Lydia stares at Scott, chest tight, head swimming just a little bit. She lays her head on Scott’s shoulder and doesn’t feel embarrassed when he kisses her forehead.
“Scott?” Lydia whispers, like they’re getting ready to go to sleep.
“Yeah?”
“How did this happen?”
“I don’t know,” his voice is quiet and it shakes. “I don’t know. But I’m sorry, Lydia. I’m so sorry.”
**
Her therapist is kind and listens to Lydia when she tells her that she hasn’t felt safe in years. At the end of the session, she agrees to reschedule the sessions to every Thursday afternoon when the winter quarter starts.
**
Lydia’s mom cries when Lydia comes home for winter break. She hugs Lydia tightly and Lydia pretends like she’ll never let her go.
**
Scott drops by on Christmas Eve and leaves Lydia a present and instructions to not open it until Christmas day. Lydia rolls her eyes and smirks, but places the present carefully under the tree when he leaves.
Her mother smiles like she knows something and Lydia doesn’t mind.
**
Right before Lydia gets ready to open Scott’s present late on Christmas Day, Malia stops by.
Lydia kind of freezes when she sees her. Malia’s hair is long again. She has a blue, wool-knit skull cap, red cheeks and a puffy blue scarf wrapped around her neck. Malia’s beautiful as Lydia remembers.
Malia plops down the floor next to Lydia. Lydia starts to explain herself.
“Nope, doesn’t matter,” Malia interrupts, putting a hand up.
“It doesn’t?”
“Nope,” Malia answers seriously. “I don’t care why. I’m just glad you’re alive and in one piece.”
“Really?” Lydia raises an eyebrow.
“Lydia, please, you’re probably more upset at yourself than anyone is,” Malia says with snort.
Lydia blinks slowly and shakes her head. A piece of hair falls out of her bun and Malia moves it out of Lydia’s face.
“Anyway,” Malia continues casually, “I hadn’t seen you since July and Scott told me about what went down. I just want to make sure you’re okay. Or at least, you know, not terrible or anything.”
Lydia laughs a little, her face feeling warm. Malia smiles hopefully and scoots closer. Malia’s never quite learned about personal space, Lydia thinks.
“I think I’m getting there,” Lydia answers honestly. “It’s a little different now.”
“What’s different?” Malia tilts her head, like she’s examining Lydia. She’s scenting her, Lydia thinks, to make sure Lydia won’t lie to her.
Malia doesn’t have to worry about that, though.
“I can’t push it aside, anymore,” Lydia answers with a shrug. She looks Malia in her eye and takes a deep breath. “I mean, in high school, something else was always coming. Whatever was going on in my head was pushed aside to get ready for the next traumatic monster.
“But now . . . I was away and trying my hardest to forget everything and everyone,” Lydia glances down, Malia nods like she understands. “And . . . well, I just can’t get anyway from it anymore. I have nightmares. I sometimes spend whole hours trying to remember what I did the day before.”
“I get that,” Malia says, her face scrunched up. “Plus, it’s not like you had any real help before. Eichen House isn’t the best for helping people.” She says it with a snarl.
“No kidding.”
“Well, either way,” Malia continues, putting her hand on Lydia’s knee. “You’re gonna get some help from an actual therapist and not an undercover hunter or anything, so I’m hopeful for you.”
Lydia laughs again and nods. “I’m hopeful for me, too.”
Malia stands up to leave and pulls Lydia off of the floor with her. Right before she walks out of Lydia’s front door, though, she abruptly whips around to face her.
“By the way,” Malia says, “I’m not mad at you for not calling or answering my calls, but I will be calling you when school starts back. And if you don’t answer, I’ll call Scott until he puts you on the phone. Got it?”
Lydia bites her lip, remembers the times Malia’s number has flashed across her phone screen, and nods.
“Got it.”
**
Scott’s bought Lydia an owl necklace, with emerald eyes. It was wrapped very neatly, in bright red paper.
Lydia’s mom raises both eyebrows when Lydia puts it on.