Howl 2

Friends In Strange Situations

My voice sounded gross.

“Riley?”

My brows knitted together, “Sorry, who’s this?”

“Lydia.” My jaw nearly dropped through the floor. What in the actual hell… “Allison gave me your number.”

“She did?” I blurted out and blinked, “Why would she… I mean, why would you need my number?”

“Because I…” A pause, “Because I… I…”

My brows furrowed even further, “Lydia, are you okay?”

It sounded like she was cursing at herself on the other end. Then her voice came over the speaker again, “I need someone to go shopping with me.”

I muffled a gasp of surprise. Could things get any stranger? “I don’t understand. Aren’t you and Allison best friends? Why not ask her?”

“She’s acting weird around me and I don’t like it.” Like I’m not? And there’s a perfectly good reason why everyone’s acting weird around Lydia - she could be a scaly were-gecko that kills people at night. “Riley? You still there?”

I shook my head for the up tenth time, “Yeah, uh… yes, I’m here.”

“So, are you coming or not?”

My eyes darted around my prison of memories and felt my heart clench when the flashbacks came flooding back. Despite it being Lydia Martin, getting out of here wouldn’t be the worst thing at the moment. I shrugged, “Sure, why not?”

There’s a lot of things I didn’t know about the strawberry blonde who my brother had a crush on. For starters, Lydia could drive. She had a licence and a car. I guess it never crossed my mind since Jackson always drove them around in his Porsche. Then there were a few little things that I just picked up, like how she ate the cream off her cappuccino before drinking it, how she drank from the same spot on her cup to avoid smearing the whole thing with lipstick, how she carefully picking out the stores by studying the outfits on display in the window, how strategic she was with her shopping - first looking at the dresses before moving on to the two-piece clothing.

Everything she tried on was colour-coded. Green dresses with brown heels, blue with white, red with bronze, pink with beige, and so forth. She also tended to stick to bright colors and avoided the natural, earthy tones like the plague. The same with testing out lipsticks and lipgloss - only pink, red, cherry, and pomegranate were good enough. Perfumes were tested out like they could be the cure for cancer in the future, mascara brushes had to be a certain size or bigger, eyeshadow had to shimmer, the foundation had to blend naturally… I learned more from her than I could ever from the makeup vlogs I sometimes watched out of boredom.

By lunch, Lydia already had at least ten bags of stuff she bought that we had to carry to her car before we could continue shopping. I didn’t get anything for myself yet. I guess I was just out of it. Shopping didn’t offer me the same therapy it did for Lydia. After we loaded the bags into her car, she strutted back to the mall and led me straight to a quaint coffee shop on the second floor. I’ve never been here before, let alone in the mall. Well, maybe once or twice in the mall, but I usually bought everything I needed right in Beacon Hills.

“One raspberry cappuccino with cream,” Lydia told the waiter without even looking at the menu, “and the Waldorf salad.”

Seemed like she was a regular if she memorized the menu. I bit back a snort and leaned back in my chair. However, when an awkward ruled, I realized with a start that the waiter was waiting for me to order.

“Oh!” I perked up and fumbled with the menu, scanning the options in a flash, “I’ll, uh, have the chai latte and, uh… the ricotta and spinach lasagna.”