Lydia Martin grew up in a small town in California, surrounded by her mother and her father.
When she was a child, she had a keen interest in everything and she fought with all of her strength the idea that girls had to love pink and sweet things. She didn't like pink, she hated playing with dolls and she abhorred strawberry jam.
She tried to stay away from everything that could make her be seen as a "good girl". She liked mathematics, she liked to know the limits, and she liked rules and proportions. They made her feel safe. She liked stories with bold and fearless young girls. She idolized Marie Curie. She didn't have lots of friends, but the ones she had were more than enough.
But on a cold morning, her father left. Without saying anything, without even kissing her goodbye. Suddenly, loneliness weighed too heavy on her shoulders, and she shaped herself a new identity. She began to dress in pink, to hide her curiosity, her books; and she forced herself to eat strawberry jam with a smile. All she could recognize was this fake, factory-made taste that always left too much sugar on her lips, but it was apparently the price a girl like her had to pay to avoid loneliness. She only associated with the most popular girls and boys and soon, the little girl who dreamed about making a radical change in mathematics drowned herself. She was still here, somewhere, but she was starving.
In her shadow, a young boy grew up, admiring her from afar. Not the Lydia she kept showing to everyone but the one she kept prisoner deep inside. When he was a child, he pictured himself coming to her rescue on a white horse just like in the fairy tales his mother read to him. Later, when he discovered Star Wars (and thought it was the best thing on earth), he dreamed he was a Jedi knight, fighting all of her suitors, all of them ignoring her true self, her true spirit. He would take her in his space ship and bring her to the most beautiful planet where they would spend their days swimming in the sea and eating ice cream. He refused to have a tragic fate, and he had always preferred the pragmatic Luke to the emotional Anakin. Luke remained his role model during his entire childhood, he wanted to follow his steps. Wanted to always make his friends and family a priority while respecting the value of human life. It was the only way he could create a peaceful and happy world for Lydia.
Sadly, his mother died from a terrible disease and he figured that he didn't have the stature of a prince and even less of a Jedi when he couldn't even save his mother. He stopped comparing himself with Luke, fearing that his life was becoming too similar to Anakin's.
Years passed, but Stiles Stilinski kept observing Lydia, trying his best to make life easier for her without waiting for anything in return. It had become a part of his DNA. Day after day he fed his love for her. He fought all those cavemen who called her an easy girl or a bitch. He corrected those who called her a redhead. It's strawberry blonde, she'd told the class full of eight year-olds. The French call it Venetian blonde. He remembered, why couldn't anyone else? Venetian blonde. His one and only Venetian goddess. Without equal.
Thus, they grew up, safe from any other shadow until the world decided to turn its attention on them again. They fell into a spiral of violence and death, were forced to grow up and grow wiser too quickly, too brutally.
Lydia stopped eating strawberry jam and isolated herself in the sterile and reassuring world of mathematics after moving to Europe when she was 16 years old.
Stiles protected that part of himself, the part of him that lived only for Lydia, for a long time, and he protected it at any cost. Just like the orchid that sat in his mom's hospital room, he would tend to that part of himself, watering it regularly to keep it alive.
But when Lydia left for good without having ever set an eye on him, he let that part of him wither. Just like his mother's orchid. Once she was no longer there, there was no point in keeping it pretty for her any more.
Sometimes, in his sleep, he would water that proverbial plant inside of him with a few tears. Keeping it alive. Weak, but still there.