You can only be put under so much pressure for so long before you either crack, or turn into a diamond. At least this was Lydia's parent's theory and they had always been gunning for the diamond option. What they got instead was a crushed daughter made of porcelain trying desperately to hide all the chips from them.
All the little pieces where she was coming apart at the seams from the constant barrage of AP classes and perfect outfits and never letting the wrong words slip out of her mouth. The hair she almost tugged out when she had curled it wrong and had to resort to putting her hair in a braid, something she had gotten yelled at for hours.
The constant pressure of smiling all the time, because "someone could be falling in love with your smile Lydia." The fissures that appeared because the board started getting blurry and her mother refused to buy her glasses. Because, "Lydia baby, glasses are for nerds. Do you want to be a nerd?"
The pressure of only dating lacrosse captains, because, "if you bring home a boy who isn't the best of the best you might as well pack sweet pea." Because her dad was as bad as her mom.
Because on nights when she thought everything was okay, someone had a bit too much wine and she ended up applying twice as much make up to cover the bruises.
Lydia was not diamond material. She was made of glass, pretty when looked at the right way but oh so breakable.
Isaac, Isaac wasn't even made of glass. Whatever way you looked at him he was cracking, falling apart, trying to sew himself back together before there was nothing left but the more he tried the more he became patches, and the less he stayed him.
His father didn't want him to be a diamond, he didn't give a shit what he was just as long as he was there when he had a few too many drinks and he needed a punching bag.
He didn't care about school, or what kind of girls Isaac brought home. Because let's face it Isaac didn't bring girls home. Why would he do that to someone else?
And mostly he didn't care what Isaac did, no matter what he did he would find something. Something that he did wrong and punish him for it.
Isaac, he couldn't bring himself to care when his father died. Or when people blamed him for it. Hell he would have gladly done it had there been an opportunity. But there wasn't. No skin off his back on that one.
Slowly, without the pressure. Isaac's cracks got smaller. You couldn't see gaping holes where his heart was anymore. There wasn't a crack for every scar on his body and they were many, too many to count anymore.
Lydia, her cracks just kept on going.
And going
And going
Until she finally fell apart.
Throwing every belonging that she had ever owned into her suitcase and walking out when her parents weren't home.
She didn't know why she went to the depot. Maybe because she had always felt safe there. People didn't expect more out of her than her ability to read Latin and look good in a dress and she could deal with that.
Maybe she just needed somewhere to go.
It took her parents three weeks to find her.
She wasn't really sure they were looking or if it just looked bad on their reputation to not look for her so they did.
Regardless she turned 18 in that time.
She started to wear jeans and baggy tee shirts and she had gone to get glasses.
She had made a friendship. Rocky, based off of mutual abuse and the knowledge of too much pressure.
Her, Derek, and Isaac.
To the outside world you wouldn't be able to see what held the three together. But somehow. The cracks, the little breaks in their lives filled one another's. They completed each other.
Like a deformed little family.
They didn't date.
Not for a while, her and Isaac.
They cried on each other shoulders, they're built themselves at the same time they're built each other.
And eventually in there sometime came kisses, and hugs, and the pressure of not having to have a perfect boyfriend she didn't give too shits about.
Neither of them were diamond material, but together. They were pretty damn strong.