A.N. I got the idea for this chapter from a review, I don't remember the name of the person, but I thank that person. I wasn't sure how to introduce Stiles so that helped a lot! Let's see, er, I guess just tell me if you liked it or not and if Lydia's reaction seemed accurate. I recently re-read the whole story and noticed Lydia has a lot of conflicting feelings and opinions and I thought I'd explore it a little more with the whole Stiles situation. You should get what I mean when you finish this chapter. That being said, I'm not sure how quickly this is going to turn into a romance story and exactly how soon it'll be over, but I'll give it another five chapters. I'm not sure how I'm exactly going to approach the romance part of this story and ending so if you have any ideas, even if you think they're stupid, I'm waiting with open arms and an open mind!
I'm on a schedule now, I have to eat a special diet at a specific time, I have to take pills at a specific time of day, I have to spend at least two hours a day in the game room, so many hours with Mrs. Glenn, so many hours sleeping, but not one minute of free time to just lay in my bed and cry. No more crying, no more wallowing in pity and despair.
I'm doing my two hours in the game room. Jen is talking my ear off next to me on the bright couch; I'm staring at the stain in the carpet. I oddly don't have the urge to cry, but I do feel like throwing up and the room is spinning slightly. It's probably the medicine. I don't feel very happy though, I feel sad, and I feel like I'm dead inside still. The couch dips next to me; someone's leg is touching mine. A nurse nearby is waiting for me to start screaming, she looks nervous. I look at the person, and then I cry.
"Hi…" It's Stiles. What is he doing here? He's weird, not crazy. The deep brown eyes are here, they look scared, worried, and ready to start crying. I suck in a deep breath, stop crying. He wants to touch me but the nurse is looking with so much intensity he knows not to. She's five seconds away from preparing for me to explode and start screaming. I don't want to scream, yet.
I smile and say nothing. The nurse lets out a breath but still watches with a slightly less worried look. The brown eyes look happy. Stiles is happy I smiled. "Hi." it's a whisper, but he hears it. He smiles at me. He's familiar, he's always been there, no surprises, nothing new, and I feel happy to see him.
"Who is this? Is this someone you knew before coming here? Was he one of your boyfriends? Why is he here?" Jen starts asking a million questions and it makes me bad. I want to turn to her and push her away and scream at her. I want her to leave me the fuck alone because I hate her. The only amount of happiness I've felt in months and she wants to be nosy and ruin it.
I turn and yell at her. I don't know what I'm saying, I scream at her and I restrain from hitting her. Stiles' leg gets stiff. The nurse didn't expect me to turn on Jen, and rushes over. Jen runs away and it makes me happy to see her crying. I ignore the nurse and turn back to Stiles. The brown eyes are scared again, and nervous, Stiles is very nervous.
"Hi." I say it first. I wipe the tears from my face and smile at him. I don't care I look like shit, I'm too happy to care how I look. I don't know why he makes me happy. He cares about me and I don't care about getting hurt in the end. I want him to hold me and care about me like I know he does. He's always cared, but I was too uninterested in him to pay any attention. He doesn't care about me just because I'm depressed; he cares because he likes me, not because it's his job.
I lay my head on his shoulder and he doesn't say anything. Nothing and I like it. There's no point in asking if I'm okay, he knows I'm not, he knows I don't want to talk. Somehow, someway he sees and knows me, the real me, not what I showed the world, he say past my mask and knows me better than the back of his hand. It comforts me, he won't leave me. He's safe.
He brushes back some of my hair with a shaky hand. I close my eyes and breathe in his familiar scent. Cigarettes from trying to be cool, musk from running around in the woods because it's the only thing to do here, and under all of that, his scent, the one he was born with, the one that will never go away. He's safe; he's never going to leave me.
"Thank you." He says it in his typical nervous fashion, the voice he always uses with me because he's always nervous around me. My affection is new to him, he's used to me ignoring him completely, used to me being a bitch to him, and this is new territory and its one thing he doesn't know how to handle.
He doesn't tell me how I'm going to get better, how I'm going to return to school and how life will go on. He's just thanking me for the honour of being the only one I didn't scream at for caring. It's enough for him, and I want to stay like this forever. His arm is now around me, I'm snuggled into his side, and I'm crying because I don't want this to end. For once he's not rambling on about nothing because he's nervous, because he knows better, he's holding back, for my sake. I wonder if the nurses told him. I wonder if I would've screamed at him if they didn't make me take medicine, the medicine that gave me the ability to feel this happiness. He's the therapy to go along with the medicine.
"Lydia, it's time to see Dr. Glenn." I want to scream, no! I cling to him and stare into those brown eyes like they'll save me. He doesn't want me to go either. The tears are already clouding me vision, blocking out the brown eyes.
"I don't wanna…" I cry. Stiles is shocked at the sound of my voice. It's nothing he's ever heard, the desperation, the sadness, the udder despair. He starts to tremble, he's terrified of it.
"Lydia, you're two hours are up, I'm sorry you spent your time sitting on this couch staring at the floor, but it's time to leave, now." The end is commanding but I don't care. Why do I have to see the doctor? She already knows what's going on. Why can't I stay here with him?
"No…"I knew it wasn't going to last. They were going to take him away from me right at the beginning, I should've known. The nurse is practically ripping me from him. He says nothing, he's shaking and the brown eyes are looking at me with a scared worried look. He doesn't know what to say. I cry harder as the brown eyes get farther and farther away, and then they're gone. He's gone, along with everyone else, everyone that's ever cared about, now gone.
After the doctor I eat my dinner in the mess hall, I see him on the other side of the room, watching me. I eat with a bit of happiness. The nurse takes me to my room after for bed. I want to know what room he's staying in, why he's here. I lay in bed for hours without sleeping, softly crying, wanting him to be with me. I can't sleep another side-effect of the medicine, I can't sleep, and the nurse comes to check on me a few times throughout the night. She knows I'm still awake because she hears me crying.
He doesn't leave my mind once, even as I drift off to sleep, finally. He's in my dreams, a happy dream, a sad dream, a dream about death, a nightmare that makes me wake up screaming, a dream about Mom, a dream about Allison, a dream about being left behind.
This is the only one I remember, the last dream before I wake up in the morning. I'm only three and I'm at the park with Mom, Dad, Allison, Stiles is there too. We're all playing in the playground, Mom is chasing me, Stiles is running around playing on the monkey bars, Dad is watching with a smile, Allison is on a swing. The Scott comes; he sits on the swing next to Allison. I want to talk to her but she ignores me because she wants to play with Scott now.
Mom and Dad start to argue, Mom doesn't hear me asking her to pick me up, she doesn't feel me tugging on her pant leg, and then she leaves. Dad starts yelling at me, and Allison disappears, Stiles is standing in a tower staring down at me, the brown eyes. Then the park closes and they take Stiles away, Dad leaves me, Scott is gone too. I'm left in the park, it's night-time and I'm all alone, hiding under the play structure, scared someone might find me, a scared little three-year old. Dad is always telling me about the bad men who come to the park at night. I'm scared they might find me, scared they might take me away.
It's almost morning, I come out thinking its safe, I see the sun, it's about to come up. Then I see black, a big black figure, it blocks out the sun. It picks me up and I scream, it knocks me out and I don't wake up. It's all because they left me, the bad men came, they found me and now I can't wake up, all I know is black, all I know is not feeling my body, I just know being scared because I don't know what's going on. I can't see, I can't hear, I can't feel. What is it doing with me? Where am I going now?
I thought this was the worst of it, the not knowing, except it does get worse. It's killing me, slowly, so slow I feel every little touch, and every touch brings me more pain than I've ever felt. It's physical, it's emotional, and it's mental. I'm in so much pain, and I'm terrified, I'm mad, I'm sad, I feel desperate, I want someone to save me before it's too late.
Nothing comes for me, I know, because I'm in hell. I don't know what I did wrong to be here. They left me, and now I'm dead and in hell. Am I being punished for not being a good enough girl, because nobody loved me enough? I'm only three; I don't know what's right, and what's wrong. I knew nothing.