So, Chapter Three is finally up! Sorry if it's short and not as well-written as other chapters; I've been trying to get over writer's block. Like always, VOTE. COMMENT. ENJOY. :D Love ya
Chapter Three
• Stiles •
“Okay, time to get the hell to school.” Lydia stands before me with her hands on hips and a bite to her voice; slightly disheveled, but makeup intact. Even with the world falling apart around her, she manages to rise beautifully from the ashes.
My head shakes imperceptibly, buried between blankets and schoolwork I haven’t started. I can’t seem to find my voice.
She holds up a crinkled bag with manicured fingers, shaking it in temptation. “Come on, I even brought you a bagel!”
This only receives a flick of my eyes and a slight raise to my eyebrow. This is, apparently, enough to make her groan in exasperation.
“Seriously, cut the crap and stop your Derek impersonation. One minute you’re angry, and then you’re sad, and then you’re screaming, and then you’re nothing at all. You’ve got more mood swings than a girl on her period.” My head whips towards her and she rolls her eyes. “Yes, your dad told me everything; he thought I might be able to help you get away from your mopefest.”
I feel like snapping at her. How would you feel if the people you loved left your life as quickly as they had entered it, ripped violently away into the unknown, to a place where you couldn’t follow? But I resist the urge, shoving the words down my throat and choking on them. My hands recede deeper in the pockets of my jeans.
Lydia sighs and drops the bag on the ground, the sudden movement causing me to jump. She settles down next to me, carefully, as if close contact might startle me. Gently, she slides her hand in mine and rests her head on my shoulder. I feel like the world is threatening to crush me.
“I know how hard this must be for you.” Her voice is quiet, leaves blowing against a closed window. “It’s hard for all of us: Allison; Scott; me. But you have to get over her. Yes, I realize that seems impossible, but it’ll happen. It’ll take a while― definitely― but eventually, you will get over her. Aubrey just died. It’s natural for you to be upset and hole yourself up in your room, but it’s been a week. You need to let us in so that we can help you. You do realize that we can help you, don’t you? Stiles, you don’t have to go through this alone. Scott’s worried about you; your father is worried about you. Hell, I’m worried about you! Just let me in.”
Her words wash over me, threatening to pin me on the shore. Yes, I want someone to help me― I need someone to help me. Someone that can make my heavy burden a little bit lighter. Someone who can grab onto the swirling dark mass surrounding me and light it on fire, watch it burn. But I don’t know how to communicate.
So instead, I squeeze her hand.
She squeezes back. “You need to let Aubrey go, Stiles. And I don’t mean to be insensitive about it, because I really, really miss her too, but she’s dead. She isn’t coming back. There is nothing you can do to change that. It’s in the past, and that’s final. It’s time to start focusing on the future. But to do that, you’re going to have to let Aubrey go.”
Protests claw their way up my throat, scratching and burning until I’m raw. No, don’t you understand? I can’t let her go! She was everything that I had! I put all my hope, all my faith, all my love into her! And now she’s gone. I don’t have anything left. My love is dead.
Lydia looks at me, really looks at me, and I really look back. Her eyes are sad. “I might not have experienced the death of someone I loved, but I have experienced losing love. You didn’t lose love. Aubrey still loves you, even in death. And trust me, losing love hurts infinitely worse than losing someone.”
Clapping her hands together and quickly regaining her composure, she launches to her feet and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Well,” she says too loudly. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to school. I don’t really want to explain to my parents that I was late because I was in a boy’s bedroom. That might come off wrong.”
As she turns towards the door, something happens: My voice returns. It’s like a faucet has been turned, water slowly rushing up the pipes. Words spill out, raspy and unfamiliar at first, but then my throat unlocks. “Wait,” I call out, motioning to the bag near me. I’m surprised to find a smile spreading across my lips. “What kind of bagel did you say it was?”
• • •
Whispers follow me down the hall. Eyes peer after me, with no regard to hide their curiosity, staring straight into my soul. I feel like they are peeling me back, layer by layer, greedily reading the grief written on me. I try to ignore the expressions of sympathy, because they look more like condescension.
I make it through the first two periods with no problem, since the teachers take pity on me and understand when my mind can’t focus on learning. Lydia stays with me, ranting about the new spring collection, and every so often offers an encouraging smile. She doesn’t say it, but I know what she’s thinking. It’s the same thing that my dad wants and Scott presses and Allison urges.
To talk about what happened that night.
They are convinced that if I confess what I saw in the clinic, if I tell my side of the story, maybe it will relieve some of my burden. Part of me agrees with their logic, but the rest of me knows that confiding in someone― telling them how her lips brushed against mine as if she was telling me a secret and how her scream sounded like the light on a freight train breaking through the darkness― won’t help me at all. I’m beyond saving.
It’s just that I didn’t realize that until now.
My mind went to ruins, my soul to shreds, when my mom died. It happened when I was eight― young enough that memories are hard to tie down― but it feels like it happened yesterday. Everything is so fresh in my mind― the way she brushed my hair from my eyes as she told me the news that I didn’t quite understand; how she used to play tag with me and run around until, one day, she just couldn’t anymore; lines slowly etching themselves into my dad’s face; the liquor supply decreasing bottle by bottle; the dripping IVs and gaunt look in my mom’s eyes; listening to the steady beat of her heart become uneven; you hold the stars in your eyes; holding my mom’s hand as it went slack.
Aubrey’s death is just rubbing salt on the wound.
It makes everything feel fresh.
But no one understands what that is like, not really. Sure, my dad lost his wife that day and Allison’s family has an entire corner of the graveyard set out for them, but they don’t understand. They didn’t have to go through the painful process of pouring your heart out, caring for somebody more than you care for yourself, twice. They may have lost a wife or a mother or an aunt or a grandfather or any number of people.
But I lost myself.
That’s the most painful thing of all.
Chemistry is the hardest. In that class, I don’t have Lydia or Scott or Allison. It’s just me and my thoughts and an empty seat. Mr. Harris doesn’t give me a reprieve when my mind wanders, but nothing will help me focus on the present. All I have time to think about is that here is where I first really noticed Aubrey― really saw her― and lost myself in her violet eyes. How can I learn about the periodic table when her ghost is laughing right beside me?
I can’t breathe.
My lungs are finally granted relief forty-seven minutes later, when the bell rings and I grab the first ticket out of Hell. All I want to do is rush to my car, bang my head against the steering wheel until I forget even my own name, and drive into the trees. But Scott interrupts me as I cross the parking lot.
“This better be good,” I tell him, tugging on the straps of my bag.
“Cancel your plans to go home and do nothing, because this is really important.” He pauses for dramatic effect before continuing, “Derek has good reason to believe that the alpha pack is still living in Beacon Hills.”
“What?!” I whirl around, already heading to my jeep despite his protest. This little tidbit of information is honestly the last thing I expect to hear. “How does he know? Does he have his feelers out for airwaves from Radio 102. Lunatics?”
Scott tucks his hands in his pockets, trying to be casual; it makes me want to shake his shoulders so he’ll divulge all his insider information. “Something like that, yeah. He found marks on the trees surrounding his house… claw marks.”
Scott is going to kill me with his vague statements, I think. “And so he automatically assumes it’s the alpha pack? Couldn’t it be some omega passing through? How is he so sure it’s actually them?”
He grins, as if he’s enjoying the fact that he’s torturing me. “You know how Aubrey had a different scent than other alphas? I know you don’t have super senses or anything, but surely you noticed.”
“Yeah, she smelled like mint and lavender and all that, but the other alphas smelled like smoke and spices. I got that. But what does that have to do with anything?” It’s taking everything in me not to jump up and down and whine.
“Derek was taking a jog through the woods yesterday when he saw some marks on the trees near the house. The smell coming off of them… an alpha definitely made those marks. But there was another scent, layered beneath the others. Very distinct. Mint and lavender.”
The puzzle pieces fumble together in my brain, but don’t line up. “What are you trying to say, Scott? You think Aubrey was there?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know― maybe. It definitely smelled like it, or at the very least that the alpha pack was there and their clothes smelled like her.”
“Scott,” I say slowly, pressing my hand on his shoulder to make a point. “I don’t want to have to spell it out for you, buddy. Aubrey’s dead. There’s no possible way that she could have been there or made those marks― she was probably there when she was living at the Hale house. And as for the alpha pack… what reason would they have to stick around Beacon Hills? We haven’t had any unnatural disturbances in a week. They are long gone, and we’re just reaching for loose ends. That’s it. End of story.”
His face falls slowly, each muscle relaxing individually. It’s like I can see the hope burn right out of his eyes, blow away and distinguish in the cold March wind. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that other people could be suffering, too.
“I’m sorry. Really, trust me, I am. Aubrey was your friend. I should be there for you, but I’m doing quite a half-assed job at comfort. Hell, she was some kind of warrior princess but she was much better at bandaging up people that I’ll ever be.” My words trail off and I pat him on the shoulder, my throat burning. I will not cry, not here, not again. “But I’m sorry. I’ll get better at this. I’ll get better at listening, and actually leaving the house of my own accord, and playing along with your stupid ideas. We will get through this together. I know it.”
Scott claps me on the shoulder, offers the kind of smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Tell you what. Since you’re doing such a half-assed job of being a friend, I’ll pick up your slack for today. What do you say to pizza and video games?”
I raise an eyebrow. “And at the end, when you drop me off at my house, I’ll get a kiss goodnight and hope you call me the next morning?”
Laughing, he shoves me away and makes a face. “Dude, gross. After a first date I’m always hoping to get to at least second base.”
Now it’s my turn to scrunch up my face. “You know that’ll only happen if instead of video games, we have a Star Wars marathon. I still cannot believe you haven’t watched them. They’re classics!”
Shaking his head, he climbs into the passenger seat. “Okay, fine. It sounds like fun― but only if we get pepperoni on the pizza.”
I smile, and I’m surprised to find that it’s genuine. “Deal.”