Lydia’s POV
“This will be the hardest exam you take all year. Understand that you will not choose to write an essay about your experiences, you are required to. The exam is one hundred questions and naturally an experience essay, this is exam will be curved based off the highest score. I wish you not luck, but intelligence, you have two hours.” The professor whose name I still didn’t know spoke with a heavy Italian accent. He was quite large and incredibly professional. Aside from that, the only thing I knew about him was that he was an asshole.
David sat to the side of the Professor, watching over all of us like a hawk. As if anyone here was dumb enough to cheat and ruin their last semester of grad school. This was where I’d met David, in Micro Biology where he was the teaching assistant, and overall square headed geek that nearly everyone pictured an animal ecology major to be.
It took me a grand total of sixty-three minutes to finish the entire exam. Which was definitely the reason why I was receiving panicked glares as I stood up from my overly uncomfortable lab chair to hand it to the professor.
“Did you have fun setting the curve again?” David whispered as soon as I was within earshot.
“Don’t know if there will be a curve honestly.” I shrugged, pulling my backpack tighter over my shoulders. That wasn’t me boasting, it was the honest truth. I won’t apologize for intellect.
“Are you doing alright after yesterday?” He pestered me again, something about his usually spiffy charm wasn’t getting to me today. Maybe it was the bowtie, or the boat shoes –which wouldn’t make sense because that was his usual attire. It was probably the shade of purple on his short-sleeved button up, I always did prefer him without anything on. That was the only time his logically stimulating, and incredibly annoying chatter about pointless biology ceased.
“I’m just fine after yesterday, something like that shouldn’t be the reason I cease to function.” There was a whole different realm of speech I had to use when I was speaking to David as compared to Josh, Nora or Cindy.
“You looked uncomfortable and I did consider intervening.” David was still uselessly whispering, unaware to the nasty glare we were receiving from the professor.
“I was yelling, don’t prod an angry lion.” I grinned at my own joke, biting back a giggle when David lost the scholarly attitude and broke into a boyish grin –that’s where the charm went.
“Can I speak with you out here? Just for a few minutes.” He wondered, standing up when I nodded and flattening out his khaki’s.
“If this is about anything that happened yesterday I’m not up for discussing it or hearing your advice. That’s final.” I started up the second the door sounded closed behind us. It was just the empty hallway and us.
“I’ve heard some things about this guy Lydia-“
“And I don’t want to hear them, I don’t care, and you don’t know him.” David looked incredibly uncomfortable the second I started retaliating. Messing with his bowtie like it’d make him grow a spine.
“You don’t know him,” he responded meekly and I nearly laughed in his face.
“That was such a pathetic use of a cliché that I’m actually debating punching you. I never claimed to know him but you sure as hell didn’t help yesterday, I’ll see you some other time.” I rolled my eyes, running my hands through my hair in an attempt to tame it and walking away form the situation before I actually made true on my promise.
Louis’ POV
“Purple, my favorite color is purple.” Lydia answered quietly after a long time, I had thought it would be an easy question, but clearly I was wrong.
“Took you awhile there,” I teased her, kicking the football under my feet and up in the air.
“Colors are a hard question. Everyone always thinks it’s the easiest thing to ask, but it’s definitely not when you think about it. There are so many spectrums of color we can’t even see because we’re too simple of creatures, and then there are so many colors that reside in the large denomination of purple. Every time you mix paints you never come up with the same shade, even if it’s an indiscernible difference. It’s incredible to discover, and eventually it drives your sense of color and favoritism into an existential vacuum. What exactly am I supposed to pick when I don’t even have the experience to make an educated decision?” Lydia was muttering to herself, spread on her back with her arms coming over her head to link at the fingers. Nora was asleep with her big head right next to Lydia’s slowly darkening leg, it seemed as though she would become even more golden colored as the days progressed. The nearly fall weather only darkening her tan skin.
The grass was still at that vibrant green stage, completely unaware to the impending weather shift, the sun shining brightly on both of us. Lydia had long since ditched the plaid she was wearing over her loose fitting white tank top, and the longer she remained face up with the world, the harder I found it to ignore the lacy black bra underneath.
“I’m getting the drift that you’re, essentially, completely unable to be anything but rational.” I chuckled, still passing the ball between my feet and trying to keep my focus on only that.
“I try not to think from my heart, it’s what usually gets people into trouble.” She shrugged; her eyes were still closed, blocking the luminescent green from clouding my thoughts.
“But it also saves you from trouble, otherwise you’d regress into a pool of selfishness.” She nodded thoughtfully at my comment, tipping her head to my side a bit and pursing her plush pink lips when a few stray curls spilled onto her forehead.
“What’s your favorite tattoo?” She finally opened her eyes, meeting mine right as I let the football fall back to the soft Earth, kicking it straight onto the fence and reclaiming my thoughts as I repeated the process.
“My favorite tattoo,” I aimlessly traced the low curve of the one on my chest. Already knowing which one I had really thought out, but unsure of how to explain it to her as I had never even explained it fully to myself.
She gave me space as the increasingly comfortable silence fell between us, her eyelids shutting once more. Finally she had given up on pushing her beautifully blonde curls out of her face, letting them fall freely and endlessly on her sun kissed skin.
“The quotation marks,” I finally answered. She remained thoughtfully still. Even without the ability to see, Lydia was aware that I wasn’t even close to finished. “I’m unable to say what I feel anymore, I don’t even own my own name so how on Earth could I possibly own my own life? Everything is set up for me, nothing is a choice it’s just a destination. Just another place where everyone sees but nobody hears.” I finished, the football rolling back to me slowly after my halfhearted shot at the center of the fence.
“All the things you have yet to say.” She finished for me, her voice riffing through the words like water on the sand. “May I see it?” Lydia finally asked, and I bit my lip in mute surprise.
“You haven’t seen it?” I was already walking towards her, my white t-shirt pulling a bit in the soft breeze.
“Only the few big ones, I’ve never seen the others up close enough to make sense of them.” She explained, rolling further onto her side when I crouched down and held my wrist out to her.
It took her a minute to sort through the mess of childish tattoos with assorted meanings on my forearm before she dropped her gaze to the infinity bracelet, highlighted with a set of quotation marks.
“I wish I understood the magnitude behind this.” She lightly brought her finger to the ink, tracing it smoothly.
I was slightly dazed when I answered, unaware of the words I was speaking until the shock registered in her elven features. “Quotation marks are just the mind’s way of freeing the heart.”
She didn’t press me further on the bit of trivia I had offered her, instead waiting for me to ask her the next question I had prepared.
“Do you have any tattoos?” I stood up slowly, instantly missing her soft skin against mine as I walked back to the football. Continuing to kick it around, my own way of focusing on the question and not on her.
“Just one, it’s my way of becoming sound with coping.” Her voice seemed to lose the edge to it, becoming soft and rounded at the edges as she admitted this.
“Are you going to tell me or show me?” I chuckled, knowing she was stopped at a dead end of how to bring it up.
“Could I maybe just show you?” It was meek, completely unlike her and I almost cursed at myself for stumbling upon this version of Lydia. I could understand exactly how it felt when people knew your secret, and the fear of letting it out was what held us all back.
“Of course,” I nodded. Unaware to my own actions, just wading through the motions in a freeze-frame of thought. She had gone back to lying flat on her back, her shirt riding up above her belly button and I rubbed the rough bit of stubble on my cheeks, wondering how on Earth I was going to pass this off as not being perverted.
“Here,” she rolled back onto her other side and pulled the band of her jean shorts down just slightly.
A delicate line of words were trapped on her skin, thinly spreading across only the curve of the lowest part of her hip. I moved my head closer down to her, trying to hold my breath back from rolling across her perfectly shaded skin.
“I’m running on the sound waves of my own thoughts.” I read the words slowly, the eccentric calligraphy script hinting at not so rational roots.
“You’re a free spirit,” I smiled to myself. Speaking the words as though they were something of a precious secret, and to her, I knew they were.
“Makes sense that we’re friends, hmm?” Her stomach radiated the soft laughter that I wish I could feel against her lips.
“What do you qualify as love as opposed to liking?” Lydia asked the question before I could even get my bearings straight. Her small hand running through my windblown hair, and securing me a spot against her as she rolled onto her back once more. Guiding me to lay my head down on her stomach.
“You feel love down to the very bottom of your loneliest moments. It pushes every bit of flaw in a single person out the window and leaves you immersed in a brilliant set of rose-colored glasses. Every movement is flawless, every kiss is astounding and every moment her eyes meet yours is one you save at the bottom of your heart. You never fall out of love, you just let go because that’s all you know how to do. If you fancy someone-“ she giggled at the word, the motions of it reverberating against my head. “you just want them for recreational purposes to be honest. There is no real connection, and you doubt if there ever will be. To be honest you know when you’re going to fall in love with a person, because it’s an impossible question to avoid. Love is different for everyone, but universally it’s the same.” I paused for a moment, before shaking my head in laughter, “that made no sense.”
“It made a lot of sense actually, stop questioning yourself.” I could hear the eye roll, the sharp edge back in her words.
“What’s your least favorite part about yourself?” I yawned, the sun beating down on my forehead. Lighting up my closed eyes so all I could see was a bright orange.
“Wow, getting really creative here.” She smirked, shifting a bit under me with an unimpressed sigh; I was going to assume she was once more pushing her hair back.
“I could have asked you your favorite species of dolphin and just pretended to have been interested?” I shrugged, my crossed arms feeling a bit heavier against my chest after every breath.
“And I would have answered with Lagenorhychus obliquidens and not cared when you didn’t understand perfect Latin.” She teased, the uniquely tongue twisting word sounding easy when it came from her lips.
“Fucking answer the goddamn question.” I grinned, biting the inside of my cheek when her hand moved in my hair. I had forgotten it was there until she had began tugging gently at the roots, and it took nearly all of my self control not to shiver involuntarily.
“It’s the same as my favorite part of myself. My hair makes me want to die of frustration nearly every waking moment of every day. It’s always in the way and growing it out isn’t an option. My hair will forever be stuck at this length, right at my tits.” We cracked up together, a slush of sleep running through the semi-groggy laughter. Her hand subtly roaming down to rest at the very base of my chest between the blissful laughter, hitting right where my collarbone met my neck.
“It’s a pain in the ass. When it’s wet, it’s nearly down my back. Just two seconds later however, I look back into the mirror and it’s curled all over my head in a mass of blonde. It’s always frizzy-“
“No it’s not.”
“I’m not done, shut your mouth.” She scolded me, and I rolled my shut eyes. “I have to race to part it, otherwise it dries the way it came out.” Lydia sighed, I’m sure coming up with a million more pointless ways as to why it bothered her. I clearly was not allowed to tell her that I loved the way she pulled it over either side of her head when she was thinking, creating a perfect part without even realizing it. “It’s useless, but then I think to myself; ‘Lydia have you ever seen anyone with hair like yours?’ And I realize that it’s something I should love, so I don’t complain about the thing that I can’t change, because I wouldn’t want to even if I could.” She trailed off the last line, a shallow breath echoing through her stomach. My head rose and fell with her, falling steadily into a unconscious state.
Nothing more was asked from that point on. First, it was because I couldn’t hold onto thoughts long enough to form a coherent sentence. Between her moving under my head and the proximity of her hand at the edge of my v-neck, I was left stunned.
Then, it was because, slowly, and steadily,
We trailed off,
Under the hot sun,
Into a well deserved state of comfortable rest.
Moving with her steady breathes as slowly, I became heavier and heavier.
A/N
And 2,553 words later I have what is now my favorite chapter thus far :)
Lydia and Louis ship names? Loudia or Lydouis... that one was awkward...hahah comment a ship name if you have any or prefer one over the other? :) Yea?
Here's your well deserved early update! 43 VOTES! I can't get over how amazing you all are :) Please keep voting and commenting because this is... it's just... I am so happy. I can't explain how incredible it is to see this book ranked 162 for humor, that's just insane.
Well here goes spring break for me :) I'm going home for the first time in a month and a half tomorrow and I'm so excited! Everyone have a great weekend, I might see you this weekend if i'm lucky with this early update! :) I love you so much!
Next update: Tuesday, March 18th
52 votes for an early update? :) You can do it!!!!
-Hannah (p.s. you all are INCREDIBLY AMAZING I LOVE YOU ALL)