Beacon ⌲ Stiles Stilinski [1] EDITING

thirty six

"I haven't lost  everything."

My father started to show his frustration. "Ellie, there will be other boys..."

"Oh my god!" I interrupted him, standing to my feet. "You think that's all I'm talking about?"

He studied me as Allison remained quietly seated on the couch.

"You seriously think the only reason why I don't want to uproot and move to France is because you saw me holding hands with a boy and suddenly you know everything? Seriously?" I shook my head in disbelief. "I don't want to leave because I finally feel like I belong somewhere. I've felt like an outsider for a while, but when we came here I finally met people who embraced who I was. Even when it seemed like I was certifiably insane sometimes. This house might not be a home, Dad, I get that. But Beacon Hills is."

He sighed. "The flight is booked, Ellie. No more arguing about this. This move will be a good thing for all of us."

"How can you be so sure?" my eyes were prickling, but Dad simply stared at me sadly and tensed his jaw. I glanced back at my sister, who looked just as sad as me but not as vocal, before taking one last look at my father and pushing past him. "Well, it's not like I have a choice, is it?"

Not bothering to stick around and listen to any more of Dad's reasoning, I had trudged up the stairs and slammed the door to my bedroom behind me.

Which is where I had finally closed the last moving box; my room fully erased of the life I had found for myself.

As I sat on the foot of my bed and stared at the blank wall in front of me, there was a quiet knocking at my door.

"Ellie?" the voice sounded muffled on the other side of the wooden barrier. "It's me. It's Allison."

I sat up straighter. "Come in."

The door cracked open.

"Hey," she mumbled, her eyes falling on mine.

"Hi."

She wandered over next to me and pointed at the empty space to my left. "Can I sit there?"

"Sure."

After she sat down, we were both quiet for a few minutes. It was like we had forgotten how to behave around each other, having not spoken genuinely ever since she had let our mother's death consume her.

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry," Allison whispered, breaking the silence. "For how I've been acting lately."

I looked at my hands.

"I don't know what happened to me. I guess Gerard just fueled my fire when it came to being angry at Derek. I thought that when it all came down to it, Derek was the one who changed Scott which made his life harder, changed Jackson which made him kill innocent people, and of course Mom..."

Allison's voice trailed off.

"He helped me at the station, you know. Derek did."

She squinted her eyes at me in confusion.

"Matt sent the kanima to kill us and I tried to fight back but it could take whatever I threw at it. Bullets, knives, none of it was really working to the point where the kanima had me pinned against a wall. I thought I was going to pass out or that it would just finish me off right there but Derek jumped into action and helped get it off of me," I explained. Although I didn't feel like I owed Derek Hale anything, I felt he deserved at least some credit.

"I didn't know," she shook her head and bit her lip. "I guess I was too busy wanting to kill him. I needed someone to blame for what happened to Mom and he was just the clearest enemy in my mind."