It's in the middle of the night. Lydia is sitting at her desk in her dark room with her diary open in front of her. The only source of light is an old lamp that's standing way to close to the edge of the desk. She has given up on sleeping about an hour ago since, no matter what she tries, her head just won't quiet down. Usually writing down her thoughts and feelings helps immensely but this time it seems to be impossible for Lydia to put into words what exactly her thoughts and worries are, and what they mean and where on earth they are coming from.
Lydia puts her pen between her teeth and starts chewing on it, an old habit. She closes her eyes and her mind goes back to her cloudy thoughts. Her black cat, J.F.K, jumps onto the desk and knocks over some papers, making Lydia jump. He has always been clumsier than the average cat.
"You're an idiot," says Lydia with a smile on her face.
J.F.K. meows and turns his head away. Lydia sighs at the cat as she can read his mind, or at least she likes to think that she can.
"I'm sorry. Didn't mean to hurt your feelings." Lydia teases sarcastically.
J.F.K. jumps off the desk surprisingly smoothly.
"Yeah, just leave. I should have known that you're like everyone else."
J.F.K. jumps onto Lydia's bed and makes himself comfortable right where Lydia is supposed to be laying.
Lydia takes a look at the alarm clock on her nightstand. 4:42. She takes the pen out of her mouth and fumbles with it before closing her diary forcefully and letting her head fall onto it with enough force to make the lamp on her desk fall to the ground. The lamp breaks into a bunch of little pieces. Lydia is now left feeling lonely surrounded by complete darkness.
The next morning Lydia gets woken up by the sun shining into her room. She raises her head from her desk and quickly notices a sharp pain in her neck. It's quiet. The door to her room is slightly open and J.F.K. is missing. Lydia rubs her neck and yawns but gets interrupted by her alarm clock screaming. Literally screaming like a woman that's getting murdered. She takes her diary and throws it against the alarm clock making it fall to the ground. The screaming doesn't stop. Lydia throws her head back and groans loudly.
Squishy sounds echo through the room and Lydia turns her head to see blood coming out of the wall next to her door. Lydia stares at the wall, the blood seems to spell something out.
BREAKFAST IS READY.
Lydia rolls her eyes and makes her way downstairs.
"You could have just screamed my name like a normal person," mumbles Lydia while putting
a spoonful of cereal in her mouth, a drop of milk running down her chin.
"Last time I checked, we were still dead," Barb mutters, kinda annoyed. Lydia doesn't know how to react to this.
Barb gets up from her chair while Adam is sitting at the table reading the newspaper, not having even touched his breakfast.
Barb puts her empty bowl into the sink and turns around with her arms crossed.
"Aren't you gonna eat that?" Barb asks Adam in a passive-aggressive manner. Without looking up from his newspaper Adam answers "I could have made cereal myself honey."
Lydia puts her spoon into the bowl and looks at Barb for a reaction. The tension in the room is thick. "I don't have to make breakfast you know," Barb notes getting more heated up. "Then don't," snaps Adam from behind his newspaper. "Excuse me?"
"I'll eat it." The tension calms down as both Adam and Barb are looking at Lydia. "You guys don't feel hunger anyway. Why are we even eating breakfast together?" Lydia asks worried she might have said the wrong thing.
"Maybe I want us to be a normal family," Barb says.
"But this isn't normal," Lydia says with a chuckle. "It can be," remarks Barb with sadness in her voice.
"To have a normal family we would have to be alive and we would need real kids," Adam explains angry as he puts his newspaper down.
"You're saying Lydia isn't a real kid?"
"She's not ours."
The discussion gets interrupted by Lydia getting up as quietly she can but failing. "I'll go get dressed," spits Lydia out before running up the stairs, not giving Adam and Barb a chance to say anything.
In her room, Lydia takes a pen from her desk and writes something down on her arm. "Call Juno" before opening her closet door and getting lost in it. J.F.K. appears from under the desk and meows once into Lydia's direction.
Way too many students are rushing through the halls of Westerburg High School as Lydia is standing by her locker now dressed in dark but somewhat stylish clothes. Lydia takes out a book while looking at the message she wrote herself on her arm earlier. SNAP. Lydia's locker just got forcefully shut by Betty Finn who is standing in front of Lydia in her big glasses with a large book in her hand.
"Lydia, are you free to study after school? I could bring some snacks."
Lydia is happy to see her friend again but not so happy at the thought of studying.
"It's the first day of senior year. How about we do something fun for once," mumbles Lydia. A moment of silence follows. "What do you mean by fun?" Betty asks.
"Anything else. Spending time with my stepmom seems like more fun." Lydia mentions as they start to walk down the hall towards their next class.
"Maybe you can hang out with Martha. I'm pretty set on getting a certain GPA, maybe you can hang out with her." Betty says annoyed and before Lydia can answer, the end of their paths come and Betty walks into another direction without waiting for an answer.
The halls are mostly empty now. Lydia knows that she'll be late if she doesn't hurry. Yet she decides to stop in her tracks as she walks past a wall plastered in posters. One of them reads "COLLEGE. The best years of my life." with a picture of smiling students on it. Lydia clenches her jaw and rips the poster off the wall.
"Don't like thinking of the future?"
Lydia turns around with the poster still in her hand. "It's bullshit heather, you know it is."
"Why? Because you used to be a candidate for Harvard and now you have to pray for community college?" Heather Duke asks with a devilish smile on her face.
"Because there are more important things in life than school."
Heather Duke takes a few steps towards Lydia trying to be intimidating but failing. Lydia isn't scared of her.
"Odd how the only people that say stuff like that are the ones failing their classes."
"I'm failing one class ok? One." Lydia snaps before pushing the poster into Heather Duke's hands and walking away. Heather Duke watches Lydia walk away, she looks at the poster in her hands and is about to throw it away into a nearby trash can as a teacher walks around the corner and catches her. Heather Duke looks the teacher straight in the eyes, gets the poster out of the trashcan and acts like she's gonna hang it back up with a big fake smile on her face. The teacher leaves and Heather Duke's smile drops just like the poster in her hands.
Lydia sits down next to Betty with her plate at one of the tables in the school's cafeteria. "Did Martha not show up today?" Lydia asks while looking around for her friend. "I haven't seen her today," says Betty adjusting her glasses. Lydia catches the eyes of Peter Dawson.
"Did he ask you out yet?" Lydia asks while turning to look at Betty. She is taken back. "Like on a date?" Betty seems confused and so naive. "I'm sure he would love to 'study' with you," Lydia says before giggling like a twelve-year-old. Betty smiles and blushes at the comment. "He's a bit too preppy, don't you think?"
"Who gives a damn Betty, it's irrelevant," giggles Lydia while putting a fry in her mouth.
"Language, Lydia." Betty spits at Lydia. "Sorry, Mom." Behind Betty sits a lonely Heather Mcnamara, surprisingly only wearing one yellow item of clothing.
"Heather, you wanna sit with us?" Lydia asks. Heather shakes her head and goes back to her food. She looks tired. "You should leave her alone. If she wants to be alone let her." Betty whispers. "You just say that because you don't like her," Lydia whispers back.
"Can you blame me?"
Lydia wants to ask Heather again but Heather gets up and walks by Lydia and Betty. Lydia grabs her arm. "You know we can always talk. We're still friends."
For a moment nobody is saying anything. Lydia lets go of Heather's arm. "I'll take note of that," Heather replies. She looks at Betty before walking away.
Lydia watches Heather pass through the door leading to the halls past other students. "She probably heard what we said."
The door to Lydia's room flies open as she steps into her safe space. Loud noises are coming from downstairs. Lydia takes her diary from the ground and slides down the side of her bed to sit on the floor. She takes a pen from her nightstand and writes. "Dear diary...nothing changed, nothing."
A loud crash gets Lydia's attention. She turns back to her diary. "Actually, one thing changed."
Lydia rushes down the stairs into the kitchen. "What the fuck is going on?" Lydia asks with an unexpected amount of anger. Just after those words left her mouth she realizes what she is looking at. Every single plate, cup, and glass is broken and sticking on the wall?
Barb and Adam are sitting under the table.
"You made it stop," notes Barb relived. "Thank God," says Adam.
Barb and Lydia are sitting on the couch eating dinner while watching TV. "So it's something supernatural," Lydia says.
"Could have been an earthquake," answers Barb. "You don't believe that," remarks Lydia.
"It's not a big deal that's for sure," says Barb with uncertainty in her voice.
"You could have gotten hurt." Lydia is obviously upset.
Barb puts her hand on Lydia's shoulder. "Honey, we're dead. I'll call Juno tomorrow and ask her about it." Lydia looks at her arm at the mention of Juno.
"Could be a dead rat that got lost-"
"-Can you get divorced in the afterlife?" Lydia interrupts Barb. A moment of silence.
"Couples go through rough patches it's normal."
"Can you promise that? That it's just that, a rough patch?" Lydia asks without looking at Barb.
Barb takes her hand from Lydia's shoulder and holds out her pinky finger in front of her.
"Pinky promise."
Lydia smiles as their fingers intertwine.