*Five, four, three, two, one
At five in the morning Stiles does not speak, but he shows me how he feels, and for a long time after, I convince myself that I have imagined it. I am in the hospital after…well, at the time, I have no clue what happened to me. Actually, that's not completely true, I have a suspicion, but it seemed impossible. Impossible. Stiles and I were discussing that word yesterday – a word that has taken on an entirely new meaning for us in the past few years.
Impossible: [im-pos-uh-buh l] adjective
not possible; unable to be, exist, happen, etc. (unless it is)
unable to be done, (unless, it can be)
incapable of being true, (except, sometimes it is)
not to be done with any degree of reason or propriety: an impossible situation (we've been through plenty of those)
utterly impracticable: an impossible plan (we've mastered several of those as well)
hopelessly unsuitable, difficult, or objectionable. We, Stiles and I, are impossibly, possible.
I think Audrey Hepburn said it best: "Nothing is impossible. The word itself says, I'm possible."
So many things in my life have been impossible, but here I am. It was impossible that a werewolf had attacked me; yet it…well, he…had. His name is Peter Hale and he is an impossibly despicable excuse for any kind of sentient being. It was impossible that I survived "the bite" without becoming a werewolf myself; but I did, and actually…I'm a banshee. You're probably wondering what a banshee is and I don't want to distract from the real message here…so I will boil it down to its simplest form – being a banshee means I can predict death. The fully mind-blowing and life altering consequences of those abilities…well, those are an impossibly long story. So, let's leave that for another time and place.
The story I want to tell you now is about a boy. A boy with an undying affinity for his light blue 1980 Jeep CJ-5, as well as the New York Mets, Star Wars, a band out of Maryland called All Time Low, and pretty much anything plaid (shirts, pajamas, you name it, he's got it…in plaid). A boy whose cheeks flush often and for a variety of reasons, from embarrassment…to anger…to passion. A boy who has an unlimited array of facial expressions, who has difficulty sitting still for more than a few minutes at a time, and who makes music with his incessant finger tapping, pacing, and fidgeting. A boy who thinks impressive displays of sarcasm are his only defense (well…that and a baseball bat), but whose intelligence and ingenuity are even more powerful. A boy who has no idea how devastatingly handsome he is, no matter how many times I tell him. Besides his gorgeous eyes, he has this cute little upturned nose, a sexy crooked smile, and…did I mention his hair? Let's just say I could run my hands through it all day, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind one bit if I did. It seems to calm him, and with everything he has been through, Stiles has more than earned some rest and relaxation. But all of this…it barely scratches the surface of who he is.
This same boy has a heart of gold to match the flecks in his eyes. If you want to catch a glimpse of it, just observe him with his dad, with Scott, or with me. He cooks dinner for his dad as often as possible and drops it off at the station whenever Noah works late. He does a majority of the household chores without complaint because he wants to take care of his dad. When it comes to Scott, his best friend, his brother by bond if not by blood, there are no limits to his loyalty. He selflessly puts his life on hold if ever Scott needs him. He helped Scott face an impossible transformation. Despite his own fear and the uncertainty he must have been battling, this boy supported his friend and made connections that protected Scott from making irreparable mistakes. There wasn't an ounce of bitterness in him as he watched Scott become captain of the lacrosse team, basically overnight, even when they had both worked so hard to make the team. Instead, he cheered for his best friend from the sidelines and covered for him when more than a few things went awry. This is a boy who decided to love me no matter how difficult I have made it. He waited for me, he held out hope for us, never gave up on us, and accepted me unconditionally when I was finally ready to let myself love him. Nothing makes him light up more than knowing he can me laugh, and he is capable of making me laugh like no other. No one in my life has ever treated me the way he does. He repeatedly puts me first, he has this way of looking at me like I am the only person in the room, and he holds me like I am the most precious thing in the world. While he can be fairly impulsive if it means risking himself in care of others, he never takes a chance if it means someone else might be hurt. He may hold a grudge longer than most, but that's only because he has a fierce instinct to protect the people he loves. If you are fortunate enough to be one of them, there isn't anything he will neglect to do for you. He has risked his life for all three of us, on more than one occasion. You know what they say: Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a pattern. He has made saving lives a pattern of his behavior. This is a boy who is the epitome of honesty, unwavering decency, and kindness. A boy who when given two impossible choices, will always choose to do the right thing, no matter how much it hurts him. A boy with the superhuman aptitude to read me, solve puzzles, and generally figure things out.
The boy I'm describing is of course, Stiles – the same boy whom I've known my entire life and purposely kept at arm's length – because he just made me feel too much. It was impossible to imagine that he risked his life, pleaded for mine, saved me, watched over me, with nothing to gain from it accept the knowledge that I was okay; but he had. It was impossible that someone that incredible could exist; but Stiles is real, I know it. It was impossible that anyone so generous, so brave, and so inherently good, could love me so much; but he does, and I realized it for the first time, on an exceptionally cold night, as I lie in a hospital room at Beacon Hills Memorial.
I wake to the beeping sound of my heart monitor. The room is unnaturally bright and though I am covered with a blanket, I am frightfully cold. My pain medication must be wearing off I think, because the searing pain in my side, where I was impossibly bitten by a werewolf, it has reignited. When I turn to reach for the call button, I see him – Stiles, and my heart monitor ceases momentarily.
Just a few hours before (or has it been longer?…I'm still not sure) we had been dancing at the Winter Formal. Now, I am dazed, weak, and confined to the itchy white sheets of a hospital bed. As the dense fog starts to clear from my mind, I remember what Stiles said to me at the formal, when I was being impossible and refusing to dance with him.
"Lydia, I've had a crush on you since the third grade, and I know…that somewhere inside that cold, lifeless exterior…there's an actual human soul. And I'm also pretty sure that I'm the only one who knows how smart you really are. And that once you're done pretending being a nitwit…you'll eventually go off and write some insane mathematical theorem that wins you the Nobel Prize."
"Fields Metal."
"What?"
"Nobel doesn't have a prize for mathematics. A Fields Medal's the one I'll be winning."
Of course, I had to correct him…before I took his hand and stepped onto the dance floor. Of course, I already knew that he had a crush on me, but for years I made the mistake of disregarding it as a baseless infatuation because I thought I hadn't allowed him to get to know me.
But Stiles already knows me better than anyone, and I don't comprehend the true depths of his affection until I see him sitting next to me, in the middle of the night, holding my hand as he sleeps in what looks like one of the most uncomfortable chairs ever made. Suddenly, I am warm and the pain in my side has diminished. The effect he has on me is rather significant, and I am intensely afraid– afraid to move, afraid to speak his name, afraid to breathe, afraid to let him see what his presence really means to me.
I debate whether or not to wake him and what my reaction should be if I do.
Should I send him away? Why would I be so cruel? The answer to that was simple enough – because I couldn't control the overabundance of feelings inside of me.
Should I let him stay and tell him what it means to me that he is sitting here? What if I started crying? I hated when people saw me cry.
Should I thank him? What words could possibly convey the gratitude I felt?
Should I kiss him? He was impossibly cute…and those lips…
As I debate all of these things, Stiles begins to stir in the chair, tightening his grip on my hand and…
*I close my eyes…
because I can't decide how to react, and I can't let him know I saw him. If I do, that will mean I would have to acknowledge that he is really beside me. In such a vulnerable state, there is no possible way I can speak to him while maintaining my composure, no possible way to hide the emotions he evokes from reaching my voice or my eyes. I am not ready to deal with any of this now.
So, I keep my eyes closed, and eventually I fall asleep listening to the soothing sound of his breathing (something I still do today). The next time I wake up, he is gone. See, I tell myself. Impossible – he was never really here.
For a long time, I am too stubborn to treat the memory of that night as anything more than a pain med-induced hallucination. But, of course, I am wrong. Stiles was there, just like he has always been for me. The simple act of him sitting in that medieval torture device of a chair while I wane in and out of consciousness, tells me everything I need to know. He loves me. Stiles loves me.
In the fourth month of the year 2012, the next time it happens, there is no hiding, or pretending, or room for denial. I am wide awake, standing in the middle of his room, arguing with him about a risk I am far too willing to take for someone who treats me badly and could never have really loved me.
Stiles speaks to me this time. His face is battered and bruised, but he insists he is fine. The sight of those angry red marks, splayed across his left cheek and bottom lip, probably hurts me just as much as it does him, if not more. So, when he says…
"See, that's the problem. You…you don't care about getting hurt. But you know how I'll feel? I'll be devastated…and if you die, I'll literally go out of my freakin' mind."
…and he's looking at me with those big brown eyes, flushed cheeks, and that poor injured lip is trembling with emotion, I fully understand what he means.
*And bang, I'm dead
It's too much – no one has ever cared about me the way he does. So, I turn away from him, leave him standing there, because I can't let him see how profoundly he is affecting me. Going to him that night is the closest I have come to letting myself fully accept his friendship, and I can't make the leap to love just yet. No matter how much every cell in my body is crying out for me to take the right risk with my heart, I can't possibly let myself accept him because he already means more to me than I am willing to admit. The way my stomach hurt when I saw his face, the way I let myself cry in front of him, the way I smiled when he brought me toilet paper instead of tissues, the way I ached for him to stand closer even when he was yelling at me, the way my heart raced when he confessed how devastated he would be without me, they all told me that this was something pure, and powerful, and true; something I've never experienced. But if I let myself love him or let him love me, that means I can lose him, and deep down, I know I don't deserve him, so the likelihood that I will lose him is pretty high. Honestly, two years later, I'm still not sure I do, but he tries to convince me on a daily basis that I'm wrong and I'm selfishly willing to believe him for as long as he will let me keep him.
Of course, Stiles comes to find me later, puts aside every reservation he has, to help me…even though it hurts him, because that is who Stiles is. And even though I'm scared of what I'm about to do and don't trust myself to keep him at a safe distance, I go – because Stiles always makes it so easy for me to trust him and somehow, I know he won't let me get hurt.
We are alone in his bedroom for the third time in as many days, but this time is different. Stiles's room has become a sanctuary. I feel more at home in this room than in my own and it's because of him. The space is an impressionist painting – canvas of blue-grey walls; every item he has accumulated over the years a brush stroke that dots the canvas with color and merges with every other to create a perfect reflection of who Stiles is – from the mountains of books piled on the floor, on the desk, and on the nightstand…to his lacrosse jersey, plaid comforter (yes, even his comforter is plaid), photos of his family and friends, little league trophies, telescope, and baseball signed by the entire 2000 NL Champion Mets team…all of the way to the collage of posters on the wall over his bed…and across to the adjacent wall covered with fragments from our latest investigation, including newspaper clippings, photos, and his own hand written notes…each strategically placed and layered…and laced with red string. These, and so many more, are the things that make this room distinct, and Stiles is the spark that ignites it all. He gives everything meaning.
In his room, I am supremely aware of our connection. I'm lying across his bed and it's soft like his eyes and saturated with his scent of pine needles, and clean linen, and Stiles. I inhale, fill my lungs with him and it relaxes me. I listen for familiar sounds, his occasional frustrated sighs, the marker he is tapping against his leg, his bare feet shuffling across the carpet. I look around the room and bursts of memories scatter around us like bits of confetti. Every time he takes a breath they are released into the air. Over the past few months, we've spent hours here; just the two of us. This is a place where we've shared meals, had arguments, studied, and strategized to the point of exhaustion. I've fallen asleep in this room and slept more soundly here than I have in my own bed. We've laughed in this room, cried in this room, and comforted each other in this room.
I look at him. In truth, it's impossible not to look at him. His hair is sticking out in every direction because he keeps running his hands through it. His eyes are dark and brooding with the burden of self-inflicted responsibility to figure it out. He crosses his arms as if trying to attribute a physical cause to the pressure on his chest. As he does, his light grey tee shirt stretches over his back, revealing tense shoulders and lean muscles that seem to have developed overnight. My eyes are transfixed as he paces. His red pants are slung low on his waist, and when he turns just so…and reaches to adjust a pin that secures an image of Barrow to the wall, I get a peek at his lower back and abdominals. I can tell that he feels like the answers to all of our questions are staring him in the face, frustration building as he seeks to draw them out. I hate to see him like this. I wish there is something I can say to relax him, but I'm dumbfounded just looking at him.
Every cell in my body is calling out for him so loudly, I wonder if he can hear me. I'm dying for him to come closer, but I try to distract us both by asking him about the different colors of string next to me on the bed. As he explains it, I am nervously winding a length of the crimson color around my finger until I'm practically cutting off my circulation – but I don't care because I'm filled with guilt for getting him into trouble earlier in the afternoon.
"…different stages of the investigation. So green is solved, yellow is to be determined, blue's just pretty."
"What does red mean?"
"Unsolved."
"You only have red on the board."
"Yes, I'm aware. Thank you."
Brilliant. I have no idea why I felt the need to point out something so obvious. I'm making him more irritated, and I hate myself for it.
"Did you get detention for pulling the alarm?"
"Yep. Every day this week. It's okay, though. We were onto something."
And the guilt keeps on coming. It's not okay. Why do I keep hurting him when all I want to do is see him be happy?
"Even though we couldn't find any proof of Barrow being there?"
As if he can sense my need for proximity, he finally closes the distance between us. It's exactly what I wanted, but now I'm terrified.
"Hey, Lydia. You've been right every time something like this has happened, okay? So, don't start doubting yourself now."
He's impossibly close, and I start to feel lightheaded. The sensation intimidates me but leaves me wanting more. He is the sun, expelling a dark cloud of guilt from the atmosphere and warming me with his existence. I feel weak and vulnerable, and I remind myself not to look in his eyes. If I do, I know he will be able to detect what I am still so desperately trying to hide. So, I look down instead, which makes my plight worse because now my eyes have landed on his lips. I stare at those perfect lips – slightly fuller bottom one that meets with the sweet dip at his cupid's bow when he pouts. They are fading to white in the place where he is pressing the marker and I remember how soft they were when I kissed him; how they responded first with shock, then tenderness, then wanting. My soul awakened with that kiss. On the timeline of my life, there are two points of reference – before the kiss and after the kiss. When I kissed Stiles, the limited world of what I thought was possible, went up in flames. Every part of me melted with the fire that it kindled, and I knew there was no way to return to the way I was. Even if there had been, I was sure I didn't want to.
"No scent. No bomb. And I got you in trouble."
Right now, my eyes are wide and I'm on the verge of tears at the thought of our one and only kiss, but his voice brings me back to the present.
"Okay, look. Barrow was there. All right? You knew it. You felt it. Okay? And, look, if you wanted to…I'd go back to that school right now and search all night just to prove it."
Even with a week's worth of detention looming ahead of him and the unrelenting weight of the world on his shoulders, he focuses on reassuring me – because he loves me. I realize then, he would literally go anywhere with me, anytime. All I have to do is ask. Our fingertips are touching, and he is slowly unraveling me from the confines of my fear as he unwinds the string from my finger.
*And here I go…
I am his. I've already fallen for him. There is no one and nothing for me except Stiles, and that is exactly how I want it because I love him. I love Stiles. I want to tell him right now…but he's just figured something out and the moment has passed.
"Get up. Get up now. We're going to the school," he says.
We are in his room again. The decision is final – the two of us are going into Eichen House, and we are going together. Even though he despises everything about that "nightmare asylum of insanity and death", he will not consider the possibility of letting me venture into such a place without him. He's hurting. I can see the discomfort in his eyes as he puts on his sweatshirt, and it makes my eyes sting and my chest tighten. Seeing Stiles in pain is worse than any of my own. I already know this, but each time, it hits me with the force of a wave thrashing at high tide. He crosses the room to stand in front of me, and all I can think is that I love him so much that it hurts. I desperately want to reach out for him, even more than I normally do, but I can tell he is irritated and upset, so I don't move. I tell myself he might not let me…and while I think I can handle a great deal, the thought of Stiles pushing me away is too much. He's wearing his resolved face – eyebrows slightly gathered in the middle, left eye slightly narrowed, lips in a firm line, cheeks ever so slightly beginning to flush. His voice is firm but there is no trace of anger.
"You are not going without me."
I don't know how it's possible, but he loves me still. Stiles has many gifts, and although subtlety is surely not one of them, he somehow continues to show me he loves me in the most understated of ways. I try to discourage him, but if I'm being completely honest, I'm relieved when he insists.
*He did it all to spare me from the awful things in life that come…
…because he always looks to protect me; because that is who he is – my Stiles. He may not possess physical super-strength, or have fangs, claws, or a sword, but his super-strengths are the power of his incredible mind and his pure heart, and the weapons he wields are his unbounded determination and strength of character. This is exactly why I trust him above anyone else, exactly why he is the only one I want to let protect me, and exactly why I have the desire to do the same for him. The way we protect each other is by staying together. With us, together is always better.
During the drive to Eichen House, I'm tense and angry with myself for not reaching out to him. My hesitation is another missed chance. I should have been the one reassuring and comforting him, as he has always done for me, but the opportunity seems to pass as quickly as it presented itself. I wonder how many more times I will let this happen, and shudder at the eerie sensation that passes over me. As I deliberate, I consider the possibility that rejection was not the true reason for my inaction. I'm positive that what I really feared was that if I held onto him, the way I wanted to, I may never let him go.
Strangely enough, all of the worry and regret impossibly leaves my body when we are inside the hideous, echo-filled walls of a mental institution. I can feel him – Stiles's eyes are on me the entire time, his hand takes its rightful place on my back, he stands just a step in front of me when we talk to Valack, and when we are cornered, he holds onto me with every bit of warmth and concern that he always has. It's then that I know he hasn't given up on me. And weeks later, when I'm trapped inside my own mind, behind those very walls, thoughts of Stiles are the only ones that keep me from complete despair – because I know he will come for me, impossible obstacles and shaking hands be damned. He will come for me with blazing brown eyes and a humble smile on his face…and his plaid cape trailing behind; Stiles will save me.
One voice. That's what it takes to bring me back. I'm dying but something…rather someone…pulls me back. The world around me has started to fade, get farther away, darken. An urgent chill creeps in, burrowing deep inside my core. The splitting pain in my head, the ache that has plagued my body for weeks, the tightness in my throat from struggling to withhold a scream – they are all gone. Even the cacophony of sound ringing in my ears is growing quiet…save for a single voice.
"Listen to me, Lydia. Hey, show me your eyes, okay?"
That voice pushes all of the others aside, growing clearer and clearer, and lifting me from the darkness.
"Lydia, you have to open your eyes."
And I do, and it is Stiles's voice that makes me obey the impossible request. As I begin to regain focus, his is the first face I seek. I feel him before I see him – grasping my hand in a way that is as distinctive as the color of his eyes or the scent of his skin. I would recognize his touch anywhere. I turn my gaze from the familiar, kind, and bewildered face of my dear friend Scott, to that of the boy who risked everything to get to me, who pleaded for me to wake up, who saved my life countless times – my love, my Stiles.
*And he cries and cries…
…because I'm alive and we are together. He stands over me, poking at his bottom lip with his tongue, trying to contain the emotion of it all, but tears are filling his eyes, cascading over his impossibly long lashes, and splashing down on my cheeks. His breaths are shallow and uneven, like mine. He is close enough that I can feel his heart pounding against my arm, in sync with mine. He's tired and wrecked from everything he has been through, yet Stiles is still the most impossibly beautiful sight I have ever seen. Relief flows like a current, directly from his body and into mine. His warmth spreads over me, awakening every cell in my body that has been tortured, drugged, and left dormant for weeks. I can hardly tell where he ends and I begin.
If I thought or hoped it before, I am unequivocally sure of it now – he still loves me. My life was slipping away; I had stopped breathing and the beating of my heart had ceased…but then I started again – for him. I cannot be without him. I want to live – for him. I love him. Those feelings have not wavered.
*Five, four, three, two, one
Inspiration: Murder Song by Aurora (featured in episode 06x07, Heartless)br /
All lyrics are italicized and marked with an *.