(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello everybody! I don't really know how to explain what got me to write this, but I guess I'll just say I've been at war with myself a lot this month and I think this story could be very therapeutic for me and maybe a few others if you're dealing with the same issues. I'm modeling Lydia's feelings after one's that have been eating at me for years. If any of you are struggling with your sexual identity, whether it be asexual feelings, bisexual, gay or lesbian, or anything in between, feel free to message me if you need someone to vent to. It's hard for me to explain the fact that I'm very attracted to men, but also attracted to certain women, so I'm hoping this story will help me get it out in the only way I know possible. Thank you for reading, everyone. Please let me know if you'd like another chapter or if there's anything you feel I should add. –Sara)
(Lydia's POV)
Strawberries and I do not get along anymore. They were my favorite fruit. I would eat them on my cereal in the morning as a kid and as I grew I mixed them with Greek yogurt and granola for a healthy workout snack. They topped angel-food cakes along with a simple syrup of the same flavor and every year my mother and I go to our local orchard to pick them ourselves. This year, Allison's come along and they're on her lips.
"These are gigantic!" Allison gasps and plucks a few off the vines hanging down the wooden tresses.
"The weather's been good to them this season," my mom says and picks a few of her own, placing them in the basket taking a ride on her elbow. Allison pulls a few more from their homes before she chooses one from her collection to taste-test.
"Wow. Lydia, you have to try one!" It would have been fine if I hadn't seen the seeds catch on her bottom lip, or smelled her toothpaste mixing with the sweetness of the fruit. She was right over my shoulder…I take a strawberry from her basket since she seemingly picked the best of the batch, and bite it up to the leafy stem. "Isn't it so fresh? You could never find anything like these at the market." I chew my bite longer than I normally would, picking over what the hell my brain just did. Allison is my best friend. We've hugged, we've slept in the same bed, we've even changed in front of each other but I've never been eye level with her lips like that…It wasn't even a complete thought. Just an "I could move closer" itch I felt the need to scratch. Those nights at her house seemed like missed opportunities for a few seconds. Gal pals notice nice features of the other all the time, right? This must be just like the time she complimented the way my chest looked in my bra and asked what brand it was, or when I admired her long legs in gym class and wished mine looked like that.
We pick strawberries until our baskets are full and return to the cash register in the building at the front of the orchard. The woman packages them in plastic containers with air holes for us to take home in the car. Pulling out of the driveway, Allison and I turn in our seats to look back at the fields. Long, luscious lines of berries tangle in and out of each other for acres, spots of people sticking out of the holes between. "We'll cut these up when we get back to the house and put them in some bowls. Maybe freeze a few bags for the winter." My mother's voice breaks up the dizziness from looking out the back of a moving car.
"There are definitely more than I thought there'd be." I make an observation and a mental note of how long it will take to chop all eight boxes of berries. "Allison, you're coming back to the house, right?" I try to remember if she'd said anything in a text about how long she'd been planning to stay since her dad is on a flight to pick up a few more specialty weapons in France.
"Of course! That is, if I'm still invited. Could I use your refrigerator for my batch until I make it home?" A small smile pushes her cheeks up, her dimples forming with the smallest of movements.
When I say "yes" her grin turns into a full smile. She has such brilliant ways of doing that, smiling with all of her teeth. My brain shoots signals to all parts of my memory, bringing back every single time I've seen her smile like that. Every year on her birthday when I oh so predictably fill her locker with balloons. Making brownies at 3AM every Tuesday and waking up Chris. "Did you bring pajamas? I'm sure we can stop by your house if you forgot them. Or you can borrow mine."
"Yep, they're in my bag! Which is already at your house. Looks like I left my phone in it too." She pushes her hands down the pockets in her shorts and pulls them out, empty. I use the rest of the ride home to check for other things about Allison I may not have noticed. She has two scars above her right knee, and a few freckles below them. I want to reach out and see if they are the type of scars to stay above the layers of skin or the type that blend with the regular texture. Her hair always flips towards her face now that she's cut it short. The curls don't bounce anymore but dance like wheat in a field. A bump in the road makes me lose my concentration and we pull into our garage.
"I can't stop eating them," I laugh and spoon a few chopped up strawberries into my mouth.
"I know, they make me crazy," Allison replies with the same amount of berries tucked into her cheeks to talk. "Lydia, did you give those physics notes to Stiles? He keeps texting me to ask you if you still have them." I sigh and check my tote bag.
"Ugh, no, I rushed right to your house after school to pick you up. I forgot to put them in his jeep. Will you please text him back and tell him he can come by and pick them up tonight if he needs them so bad?"
"Will do," she says and unlocks her phone, the lock screen a picture of her and her dad making silly faces in an airport. They took it on their way to Washington on a getaway a year ago. They'd gone to visit her mother's family and old home.
"Are you ready for bed? I'm ready for bed." Allison pulls her shirt up over her head and puts a new one in its place, bra gone hours ago. I make sure I don't look, giving her the privacy I always had as a reflex since I was a child, changing in locker rooms at school. I didn't want any of the girls to look at me before I grew breasts in middle school so I figured if I close my eyes, I'm almost invisible. I know how it feels to be stared at without permission given. "I could probably get away with wearing this with no bra, couldn't I? It's slouchy enough. Lydia?" I breathe in and look in her general direction and nod my head.
"Yeah, probably. The color helps too." I can't see the exact color of the top but I form my answer to be convincing enough.
"Good. I'm just sick of being constricted all the time." Her breath whooshes out as she plops down on my bed, tossing the decorative pillows on a chair in the corner. "Is that new upholstery? I love the satin look."
I run my hand over the purple chair. We saved it from a junk yard auction a couple weeks ago and nursed it back to health. "It is. I wanted one with wings but this one just called out to me." We start a boring movie on the computer; something about jungle monsters and men who don't take their shirts off enough.
"We should have invited Kira and Malia. I know they like the weird stuff." I consider the idea, it's not too late to make a few phone calls and acquire a party-sized pizza from Danny who lives two miles from the nearest parlor. But then I remember the fact that my brain can be over stimulated. "But it is fun, just us." Allison puts her fist against my arm and wiggles it around. "Last time we did this we didn't even get to relax, so much studying!" We were reviewing for finals, and now, during the summer we can just do whatever we'd like.
Allison falls asleep beside me quickly and I try to rearrange my pillows that are stuck beneath my arm without waking her. "Goodnight," I whisper and bunker down in the covers. In the middle of the night, I slowly wake up, too warm. I open my eyes but I don't move. Allison's face is lined up with mine. Small and cold exhales move out from her nose and dust my face. Her left cheek is squished on the pillow, eyes closed lightly, hands balled up in front of her. The strawberry is long washed off her lips with the rest of the eating and drinking we did through the evening, and now they're smooth with lip balm that I can smell is birthday cake flavored. I get up to use the bathroom and turn the fan on in my direction, but I do not go back to sleep. I don't know what my subconscious could have planned.
When the sun starts to creep up between the trees, I put my textbooks back in my bag and gently lay it on the floor. I get out of bed and go downstairs to help my mother make breakfast. Bare feet eventually pad down the carpeted steps. Her shorts have so many black and white polka dots on them it makes your eyes cross. But her light blue t-shirt tones it down until I remember that she isn't wearing a bra. She is right, you can't really tell but for some reason, I like being the only one who knows the secret. "Pancake?" I ask as I flip one onto a plate. She shakes her head.
"No thank you," Allison says and opts for a packet of sunflower seeds and a giant glass of orange juice. She eats like a bird on weekends because she says having a late breakfast makes her sick but I know it's because she saves room for the big lunches the pack has a Derek's every Saturday.
She pushes her hands onto the island in the kitchen and lifts herself up to sit on top of it, the muscles in her biceps tightening the sleeves of her shirt. A knock on the door last for a second and then two sneaker feet slap along the tile floor. "Roscoe broke down last night, I barely even made it home. Physics notes? Please, Lydia?" Stiles breathes heavily, running from place to place when he most likely could walk calmly and get there in a decent time anyway. I turn to grab my folder from a binder sitting on the breakfast table.
"Here you go. Are they for you or Malia?"
"Maybe both." I purse my lips.
"Maybe you two should spend more time studying and less time canoodling." I wink at him and he blushes, brain going straight to Malia's shorts I suppose. 'But Lydia, your notes are so helpful,' is what I imagine him to be saying but really it's just a devious "never," and he gives me a quick side squeeze.
"Thank you," he mouths. "Hey, Allison!" Stiles elbows her.
"Stiles," she acknowledges him, pushing her shoulders up and smiling with a puckered mouth and squinted eyes, dimples making another appearance.
"You guys coming to lunch today?" He claps his hands together. "Because Melissa made pot roast, huh?" Fake enthusiasm makes him put his hands up. We all shiver with the words. Allison secretly pulls two pancakes from the plate in the center of the counter and begins to eat them. Pot roast lunches are lunches that make you want to be as full as possible before you get to them. "Dear god, that poor woman," Stiles says and closes his eyes.
"It's our fault we keep lying to her and telling her we like it." We all sigh, knowing it but surrendering to the fact that we will probably continue lying to our pack mother.
"She tries. She really does." Stiles shakes his head before opening his arms for the both of us. The way Allison hops down from the island catches my attention. She scoots so far off the edge that she's forced to jump. But her jump is more like a pounce. Her knees bend and her feet land her on the floor with a loud thump. Something about it…something about it is so reckless but so calculated. She's strong. She takes up a lot of room even being so small. I avert my eyes and join her to hug Stiles. His body feels manly anymore. He's been learning to fight with Scott after lunch on weekends, wanting to impress Malia maybe, even though she's told me countless times how much she likes how slender he is. The way his arms feel around me makes me think of one of last week's hood-ups. Lydia Martin's bedroom is now exclusive to intelligent, kind men. It used to be for men I sized up, men I had to be smarter than. I'm guessing I would have had Stiles in my bed by now if I didn't respect him and Malia as much as I do, or if he wasn't so dedicated to her. He's been helping her so much, anchoring her, and it's a lovely thing to watch.
Stiles leaves us with a "prepare your stomachs for chaos" and we go back upstairs to get dressed. Allison tosses her hair up in a ponytail, ends swooshing around her face from curls the night before.
"Lydia, who was that man you were with outside the college administration the other day?" She straps a bra around her chest and leafs through my closet for something her style.
"Oh…did he have blonde hair? Tall? Handsome?" Allison nods and rolls her eyes.
"Professor Michaels. Engineering."
She raises her eyebrows and says, "Oh, so you're not on a first name basis?"
"Please. His name is just terrible for his face. Besides…he likes to be called Professor." I purse my lips and spin, taking off my night shorts and replace them with a skirt. "Is there an exact piece you're looking for?" I ask Allison.
"Something comfortable…" At the word 'comfortable' I open a drawer beneath my vanity and pull out a pair of black leggings and move to the closet to choose a light pink sweater that reaches the mid-thigh. It's a little more Allison's speed than most of my clothes.
"Thank you, Lydia. I knew I should have brought another outfit but I forgot it was lunch day." I brush it off, happy that I can lend some clothes. It's only a returned favor anyway, what with all the tops Allison's let me borrow.
"If we're stuck with Melissa's pot roast, we may as well make plans to pick something up after to actually enjoy." Allison nods guiltily.
Her eyes widen. "How about that new restaurant down the street from Deaton's clinic? It has great reviews on Yelp already. And they have that weird bread you like."
"Sounds good. God knows I'm sick of cooking."
"It's a date then." Allison winks sarcastically and puts the sweater on over the leggings. I hope my quietness isn't taken badly, but I don't trust myself to address the word 'date'. I'll just be glad if the chef can keep his strawberries to himself.
(PLEASE READ: I may type a small discussion paragraph here after every chapter. It might be a question for you to answer or just me writing out feelings I've been having during the process of this story. It can be really hard to organize thoughts so I like to write them down. Please feel free to write your two cents (mostly about times you've had similar feelings or learned more about yourself you didn't think was there) in the comments, in a message, or even just in your own journal if anything provokes you to let it out. I'd like this to be an interactive experience and maybe even do some good. Hopefully we can all figure ourselves out.)