Lydia rests her cheek on the cream pillow, her eyes shut, but she's fully awake. It's not that she isn't tired, she's exhausted. But for some reason knowing that she needs to go to sleep because she has school in five hours actually keeps her awake. She turns over from her stomach onto her side and huffs in irritation, determined not to open her eyes and wake herself up even more.
A hand slides gently over her arm and up to her shoulder, resting there. She shakes her entire body so that the hand drops off. "Not now Stiles." She mumbles, her voice croaky with fatigue.
"Stiles?" a voice comes from behind her head and Lydia's eyes snap open. She completely forgot that Jackson had 'stayed over' last night. "I thought you were done with this." Jackson laughs humourlessly as Lydia feels his absence in the bed. She sits up and turns to find him buttoning his shirt.
"Jackson stop overreacting, I was dreaming." She lies, rolling her eyes and falling backwards onto the mattress.
"Whatever, I can't handle your weird imaginary friend right now." He retorts, sliding on his shoes and grabbing the keys to his Porsche before slamming the apartment door behind him. Lydia knows that, to some, having an apartment at 18 might be a little young, especially when she's still at school. But the people that think that also haven't met her parents. She was fine living with her mom when they split up… and then they decided to get back together and Lydia couldn't handle it. Her father truly does bring out the worst in her mother.
Now that Lydia is fully awake, thanks to Jackson, she decides to get up and get a glass of water. 'Tomorrows gonna be fun' she speaks out loud to herself, knowing that she'll be receiving weird looks all day.
"He really is a jerk, I don't understand what you see in him. And FYI, I'm not weird." Stiles' voice bounces back at her and, as soon as he finishes his sentence, Lydia realises her mistake. When she had mumbled 'not now Stiles' she had opened that part of her brain and forgot to close it, meaning Stiles could hear everything after that.
"I don't see anything in him other than his hotness. It's not like we're a couple.' She replies after a long sip of water. 'And, FYI, you're a little weird." She grins.
"I am not!" he argues back. "Also, tell me how hot he is tomorrow when he's told the entire school that you still talk to your imaginary friend."
"I said to him that I was dreaming and that's what I'll tell everyone else if he bothers to spread it, which I doubt he will. What's the point?" Lydia shrugs as she tidies up her empty glass and tip-toes back into her warm bed.
"Because it will give everyone something to talk about, trust me I know how it works. People are bored and dying for a new story to gossip about, no matter how lame it is." Stiles says through a yawn.
"I'll deal with it tomorrow, I need sleep. G'night Stiles." Lydia closes her eyes and, contrary to before, she can already feel sleep washing over her. Maybe all she needed was a glass of water, or for Jackson to get out of her house. Or maybe, like old times, she needed to talk to Stiles. She drifts off so fast that she barely hears him whisper goodnight.
Lydia opens her locker, listening to Malia ranting about something one of her customers said to her at the café yesterday. Allison rolls her eyes at Lydia and she smiles, knowing full well that it was probably Malia that was being rude first. Their friend was fiery most of the time. Isaac, however, listens intently and makes his disgust for the way Malia was treated clear. Lydia doesn't find this surprising in the least, it's obvious that Isaac has a huge crush on Malia. He has since the day she joined the school and became a part of their 'best friends group'.
Eventually the bell goes and they all start walking towards their first class. Lydia quickly feels her eyes starting to roll involuntarily as Hannah Michaels and her clique starts walking towards them. She holds off on the eye roll when Hannah makes eye contact though. 'Here comes Henrietta' Lydia tells Stiles inside her head. She can already feel the aching behind her eyes forming from that one small comment but she couldn't say it out loud while her other friends were all next to her, they would have no idea what that nickname meant. It was a name she and Stiles had come up with together about two years ago, a childish but clever name – based loosely off Henry VII purely by numbers. Hannah has five cute and sweet boys scrambling around after her and she plays each of them, giving them enough to keep chasing her but saves it all for Jackson, the school jerk who wants nothing serious and breaks her heart on pretty much a weekly basis. That's one of the reasons why Hannah hates Lydia; because she sleeps with Jackson.
"I'm here." Stiles' voice sounds in her mind. Lydia holds her head up high as she prepares to walk past her biggest 'enemy' in the school. She hates that word, it sounds like something from a cheesy action movie, but it's really the only word that truly describes her relationship with Hannah. Just as she thinks she's escaped without a confrontation, Hannah grabs onto her arm and pulls Lydia to face her thick pouty lips.
"Hannah…" Allison tries to interfere but she doesn't say anything more than that, there's nothing that will stop Hannah when she wants to do something and they all know that.
"You're such a freak, playing with your imaginary friend. Jackson told me you were talking to him last night, pathetic." Hannah smirks, staring threateningly into Lydia's eyes for a second longer before letting go and continuing on her path.
"Are you okay?" Allison asks her best friend and Lydia just nods, forcing a smile. It's not even the fact that she's being bullied, it's the fact that she's being bullied for talking to Stiles. He's her best friend in the entire world.
"When are you going to hit that girl?" Stiles jumps into her brain angrily. Not angry at Lydia, angry at Hannah.
"When you stand up to Mr Harris." Lydia ripostes inside her head, trying to ignore the bubbling pain surfacing. She's referring to a teacher, one that constantly picks on Stiles with no reason for doing so.
"Touché."
Lydia sits next to Isaac, daydreaming throughout Mr Hale's class. She's never really cared for Biology anyway. The only reason she took it, the only reason most people took it, was to ogle Mr Hale.
"Miss Martin?" Hale's voice calling her name drags Lydia out of her daydream and her heart starts pounding slightly. "Care to answer the question? It was last week's homework."
"Help" Lydia mutters quietly to Stiles, out loud but quiet enough to not be heard to give her brain a rest.
"Tell him to repeat the question, I'm listening." Stiles answers quickly, like he always does.
"Could you repeat the question?" Lydia smiles innocently, as if she hadn't just been talking to a kid inside her head.
"What is a chromosome?" Mr Hale repeats himself, smiling but not looking very happy about it.
"A thread-like structure of nucleic acids and protein found in the nucleus of most living cells. It carries genetic information in the form of genes." Stiles feeds her the answer and she calls out each word as she hears it, not understanding a single thing she's saying.
"Very nicely stated, Lydia." Mr Hale nods, satisfied with the answer and then continues to teach his lesson.
"Thanks." Lydia mutters into her hand so that Isaac doesn't hear her.
"Maybe you should spend more time learning what he's teaching you and less time drooling." Stiles retorts and Lydia can feel him grinning, a strange feeling she couldn't possibly explain in words.
Lydia and Malia wander around the school aimlessly during their free period together, just chatting. Lydia lets Stiles in the conversation too, knowing he is home from school today to help his ill mother while his father works and so he has nobody to talk to. There are a lot of comments that Lydia has to repeat, pretending they're her own, for Malia to hear what Stiles says but he doesn't mind, Lydia knows he's just happy to be involved.
"Oh my god!" Malia squeals excitedly, rushing up to a poster. Lydia rolls her eyes and laughs as she slowly walks towards where her friend is reading from a piece of paper stuck to the wall.
"I have to go, my Moms needs me. I'll talk to you later." Stiles sounds a little sad but Lydia doesn't mention it, just in case.
"Okay, talk to me when you're free." She replies and then he's gone. She can just feel that he isn't there.
"Lydia, a carnival is coming to Beacon Hills!" Malia squeals and the strawberry blonde flinches at the loud sound too close to her ears.
"Sounds cool, when is it?" Lydia stands up on her toes so that she can read the post over her friends head. "Malia, its three months away!" Lydia shakes her head and giggles.
"Three months until the awesome carnival, yeah. I can be excited, leave me alone." She pouts in fake irritation and Lydia pats her on the head, grinning.
As soon as Lydia gets home she sits through the daily hour call with her Mom and then makes herself a sandwich. It's been hours since Stiles left to go and help his mom and he still hasn't contacted her, which is weird. She misses him; he's always with her, constantly talking to her and a few hours away from him is too much for Lydia – clingy, right?
"Yo, Stiles you there?" Lydia calls out loud, finally having the freedom of being alone in her own apartment. He doesn't answer. "Mieczyslaw Stilinski?" she speaks out in a teasing tone, knowing that he hates his real name. She can feel him there, feel him listening, but he doesn't answer her. "Stiles?" she asks after a moment of hesitation. And then he's gone and she can't feel him there anymore. Lydia can feel a sort of blockage too and she quickly realises that he's created a silence, something he's never been able to do before.
Now Lydia's worried, if something's bothering him so much that he teaches himself to create a silence between them then she wants to know what it is.
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