She paced back and forth in her room, with a boy perched on her bed — a sight not quite unknown, but a sight gone unseen since before he started his new relationship. She turned to him and stammered, "S-stiles. I…."

This was completely unlike her. She was Lydia Martin. Confident, popular, flirtatious. It's who she was. At least, it was before she met Allison. Before she befriended Scott. Before Stiles. She fell back onto her bed, on the opposite side of the concerned boy, and groaned as her head hit her plush pillow.

He reached for her fingers, as means of comfort, but she retracted them immediately. Gently, he asked, "Lydia, what is it? What did you need to tell me?"

"I wanted to tell you that," she whispered, "that it shouldn't be this difficult."

Her eyes stayed shut, she wanted to keep him out and keep him from seeing her true feelings as she confessed to him her deepest insecurities and secrets.

"What exactly is difficult?"

"Telling you everything."

He knew. He knew what she wanted to say. "Lydia, it's okay. I know you can do this."

Lydia sat up swiftly and looked him dead in the eyes. And it was that soft way he looked at her, like he knew what she was thinking and feeling, that made her back stiffen. Why did he always have to know? "It's about Stiles."

"I know that." Scott tilted his head, the corners of his mouth turning slightly upward. There was a hint of something upbeat in his voice as he stated, "I've always known."

"You have?"

"I'm a werewolf, remember? You reeked of jealousy over winter break when he told us he slept with Malia at Eichen. And it was even worse on the way to Mexico," he explained. "But it was in the way you smiled at Parrish or said his name that really sold it. It was like you were trying too hard to get over Stiles."

"I must be too obvious if you don't even need your werewolf senses to see right through me."

"Or you're both my best friends and I know the two of you well enough."

"Scott, how do I do this?" she asked. As an afterthought, she rolled her eyes and admitted, "I've never felt lost over a boy before."

"Of course you haven't, Lydia. Because they always liked you when you liked them. Or wanted to hook up with them."

"But not Stiles. He didn't want me like that. He moved on and stopped waiting."

"Would you have preferred he sit around and wait for you? Wait for you to maybe develop feelings?"

"No. No." She shook her head. "You're right."

"Stiles did wait for you. He waited until he realized he shouldn't anymore. That it wasn't right. Either you had to figure it out on your own, or it wasn't meant to be."

"It's why he abandoned his ten year plan," she commented.

"What? Lydia." Scott shook his head, laughing. "Would you really have wanted your relationship to be based on the fact that he clung and obsessed over some plan he made when we were all eight years old?"

"N-no," she repeated again, her voice nothing but a whisper. Her friend put his arm around her, pulling her close. "I can't have feelings for him. He loves Malia."

Scott hesitated before telling her, "They broke up."

"Oh?" She sat up straight. "Since when?"

Her eyes were lit up but her lips stayed pursed. "A little while ago."

"Oh."

She didn't care to elaborate or ask him anything more. And after a few minutes, Scott began to realize that that might be the last thing she would say to him. But he stayed sitting next to her for a bit more time, before realizing he needed to head out for his date with Kira. Even as he got up to leave, he hesitated at her doorway, hoping she'd retract what she said. Realize that even though she knew he knew, she never once admitted, out loud, that she, Lydia Marin, had feelings for his best friend. Because once she did that, once she strung together the words with no gaps or empty spaces, she wouldn't feel quite lost anymore.

When Lydia looked up again to say goodbye, the werewolf was gone and her eyes lingered at her doorway, remembering the first time Stiles had come to her room. The first time she remembered Stiles coming into her room. And then every time after, constantly wanting to help her learn to control her powers. The nights he had nightmares after his sacrifice, the nights after coming out of Eichen when it was too much for her to sleep.

Stiles.

At the moment, she found herself hoping he'd appear. One tiny, light tap on her door, a split second before entering, and subtle shift at the right corner of her bed. His routine, his signal, his way of coming into her space - so unlike Jackson or Aiden or even Jordan.

Together they were seemingly insignificant: all light touches and clever quips. Subtle, slight, slow. It was how she realized how she felt.

It was the day he'd gone back to Mexico with the pack to save Scott, without her. Or maybe later, the night before senior year at the library. Maybe when they went to visit Valack and talk about the Dread Doctors or when he'd pleaded with Malia to keep him updated. It was the constant combination of drastically different changes and the return of comfortable, familiar routines — a constant tug-of-war between missing him on her own and missing him even when he was beside her.

There was no specific moment she could pinpoint her epiphany: she found herself entrenched and surrounded and lost, too late and already in the middle of things with no chance of getting out on her own. There was no way of telling him how or when or why now, just that she did. That she was in love with —

There was one tiny, light tap on her door. "Lydia?"

"Stiles."