Ch. 25
"I think I'm going to go to L.A." Lennon murmured. They were in Stiles' jeep, on their way to school. They had went to the hospital the other morning and Melissa had gotten there just as they had, and looked reasonably shaken, but agreed to look over Lennon's injury, sighting there wasn't any cause for concern, Matt only broke the skin. After an x-ray and cleanup, Melissa let them go. Stiles made an excuse to stay with her all day that day, claiming he had to keep an eye on her in case something went wrong. He even went as far to demand he drive her to school on all week and so there they were on Thursday morning.
"What, like for the weekend?" Stiles asked. Lennon shook her head.
"A while." she said. "Maybe a month or so for the summer. I just think I need to get away from werewolves and lizards for a while."
"I hear ya." Stiles nodded. Lennon over a him and gave him a weak smile.
"You should come with me." she suggested. "You could use the vacation."
"Eh, maybe." Stiles shrugged. "I wouldn't want to put your dad out, you know?"
"Please, my dad would only be home the first day I'm there, if that. He's got two television shows and a film being produced right now. Plus, his place has like, six guest rooms. He probably wouldn't even realize you're there."
"I'll think about it." Stiles smiled over at her. They pulled into the parking lot of the school and found a space close to the entrance. Stiles got out and reached back in, grabbing his lacrosse stick and walking with the girl to the doors. They were headed to their lockers when the speakers crackled a bit.
"Stiles Stilinski to the counselor's office. Stiles Stilinski to the counselor's office, please." and hung up. Lennon shared a look with Stiles and he left her side. Lennon twisted the dial on her locker and opened the door, placing her bag inside and grabbing the books and notes she needed.
"Lennon," she looked up to see Isaac standing next to her, his face solemn. Her eyes raked over him quickly, his body language slumped and sad. "Can-Can we talk?"
"Isaac, you're not supposed to be here." Lennon looked around at the other students milling about, and grabbed his shoulder, turning him in towards the lockers. Isaac just stared at her. She grabbed her bag and shut her locker door, and followed Isaac down the hall, to a secluded corner, hidden away from the crowd of sleepy and tired students. "So, what's up?"
"I uh, I heard what you did for Derek the other night." Isaac began softly, his eyes down on the floor. "And I wanted to let you know he appreciates it, even if he doesn't show it." Lennon just shrugged.
"It's what anyone would've done." she replied. Isaac nodded and there was a heavy, awkward silence between them, something lingering in the air around the two. "Is there anything else?"
"Something is shifting." Isaac told her. "We don't know what it is, but we can feel it. Something isn't right."
"You mean people turning into wolves and lizards is right?" Lennon scoffed. Isaac chuckled a bit, then shook it off and regained his composure.
"Erica, Boyd and I are thinking about leaving." he continued softly. "So far, Derek hasn't been the best Alpha. There's got to be more of us somewhere. We could join another pack."
"If you desert Derek, wouldn't that make you Omegas?" Lennon furrowed her eyebrows. "Isaac, that's pretty much asking to be killed and made into a rug."
"I don't know for sure if I'm leaving." Isaac informed her, looking up at her through his lashes. Lennon instantly knew what he meant and bit her lip.
"Isaac, I don't know." she told him. "You claim to still love me, but you're never around. And when you came back you were so awful. A-And I'm not sure what my feelings are anymore. . ." Isaac nodded.
"Stiles." he murmured. Lennon clutched her books to her chest tightly and looked down at her shoes, suddenly enamored at how the brown leather of her boots shone in the fluorescent lighting. "Are you-are you two. . .?"
"No." Lennon shook her head. "I loved you, Isaac. Really, I did. And I don't know if I still do after everything. Just because Erica cleared everything up doesn't erase the pain I felt when I saw you two together all the time. I really missed you, I still do. But I don't know if I can play second fiddle to your pack."
"I understand." he nodded. Isaac stepped forward and leaned in, speaking in a hushed voice. "If I don't see you before we decide, I'll miss you, Lennon. And I still love you." Lennon's hazel-green eyes met Isaac's icy blues and she wanted to rush to close the space between them, to kiss him and have that kiss be the one that made him stay. To feel his arms wrap around her tightly and bask in the reassuring warmth that he always emitted. But that wasn't her place, not anymore. Even though he was fishing for her to be the reason that he stayed, it wasn't her decision to make.
"Stay safe, Isaac." she murmured back after sneaking a deep breath. She hopped up onto her tiptoes and pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek, and quickly walked away, towards homeroom.
"You know when you're drowning, you don't actually inhale until right before you black out. It's called voluntary apnea." Stiles said, focusing on re-netting his lacrosse stick. Ms. Morell had called him into her office to talk to him about Matt, who drowned in the river the previous night. She was trying to pull her usual psychotherapy bullshit, trying to get him to open up any feelings he had about the loss of his teammate. "It's like no matter how much you're freaking out, the instinct to not let any water in is so strong, that you won't open your mouth until you feel like your head's exploding. But when you finally do let it in, that's when it stops hurting. It's not scary anymore. . .It's actually kind of peaceful."
"Are you saying that you hope Matt felt some peace in his last moments?" Ms. Morell asked.
"I don't feel sorry for him." Stiles looked up.
"Can you feel sorry for the nine-year old Matt who drowned?"
"Just because a bunch of dumbasses dragged him into a pool when he couldn't swim doesn't really give him the right to go off killing them one by one." Stiles snapped. "And by the way, my dad told me they found a bunch of pictures of Allison on Matt's computer. And not just of her though. I mean, he photoshopped himself into them. Stuff like them holding hands and kissing. You know, like he had built this whole fake relationship. So yeah, maybe drowning when he was nine years old is what sent him off the rails, but the dude was definitely riding the crazy train." Ms. Morell took the comments Stiles was making in stride, taking a deep breath and clearing her throat.
"One positive thing came out of this, though. Right?"
"Yeah." Stiles nodded, knowing she was referring to his dad getting his job back. "Yeah, but I still feel like there's something wrong between us. I don't know. It's just like tension when we talk. Same with Scott."
"Have you talked to him since that night?"
"No, not really." Stiles shook his head, going back to re-netting his lacrosse stick. "I mean, he's got his own problems to deal with, though. I don't think he's talked to Allison either. But that might be more her choice, you know? Her mom dying hit her pretty hard. But I guess it brought her and her dad closer." Stiles paused and looked up, and Ms. Morell nodded to him to go on.
"Lennon is up and down a lot. She's trying to balance her feelings about Isaac while helping take care of her brother while her mom is pregnant. She's been really brave, lately." Stiles nodded. "She's definitely one of the best people I know. She deserves more."
"Why do you think that?"
"I just do." Stiles shrugged. "She deserves to be loved and not have Isaac playing with her mind and her heart all the time. She should have stability."
"And do you think you could provide her with that?" Ms. Morell asked, giving Stiles a look. Stiles' face flushed.
"I don't know. Maybe." he answered. "Anyway, Jackson. Jackson hasn't really been himself lately. Actually, the funny thing is, as of right now, Lydia is the one who seems the most normal." Stiles leaned down, using his teeth to pull harder at the rope on his net, trying to tighten the knot.
"And what about you, Stiles? Feeling some anxiety about that championship game tomorrow night?" Stiles looked up with wide eyes.
"Why would you ask me that?" he asked with the rope still between his teeth. Ms. Morell looked down towards the net in Stiles' hands and he looked down, spitting out the rope from his mouth. "Ah, uh no. I-I never actually play. But hey, since one of my teammates is dead and another one's missing, you never know, right?"
"You mean Isaac," Ms. Morell said. "One of the three runaways. You haven't heard from any of them, have you?" Stiles' eyes left hers and went down to the desk, were the counselor's slender, manicured hands were folded.
"How come you're not taking any notes on this?"
"I do my notes after the session." she answered, giving him a soft smile.
"Wow. Your memory's that good?"
"How about we get back to you?" Ms. Morell suggested coolly. "Stiles?"
"I'm fine." Stiles shrugged. "Aside from the not sleeping, the jumpiness, the constant, overwhelming, crushing fear that something terrible's about to happen." Stiles recalled the past few nights, staying up on the phone with Lennon, or just with her in general. One of them would have the other over for the night, and Stiles would end up watching over Lennon as she slept, having been lulled into it by him talking constantly.
"It's called hyper-vigilance, the persistent feeling of being under threat."
"But it's not just a feeling, though." Stiles sat up abruptly. "It's-It's like a panic attack. You know, like I can't even breathe."
"Like you're drowning?" Ms. Morell asked.
"Yeah."
"So if you're drowning, and you're trying to keep your mouth closed until that very last moment, what if you choose not to open your mouth? To not let the water in?"
"Well you do anyway." Stiles shrugged. "It's a reflex."
"But if you hold off until that reflex kicks in, you have more time, right?" the counselor reasoned.
"Not much time."
"But more time to fight your way to the surface."
"I guess." Stiles sighed.
"More time to be rescued."
"More time to be in agonizing pain. And did you forget about the part where you feel like your head's exploding?"
"If it's about survival, isn't a little agony worth it?" Ms. Morell asked. Stiles studied her carefully, biting the inside of his cheek.
"And what if it just gets worse? What if it's agony now, and then-" Stiles shook his head. "And then it's just hell later on?"
"Then think about something Winston Churchill once said: 'If you're going through hell, keep going.'" Stiles locked eyes with Ms. Morell and took in the meaning of her words, applying them to his life. Nodding, he tapped the lacrosse stick on his knee, accepting the advice.
"Mom, can we talk?" Lennon stood in the doorway of her moms' home office, tugging at the crystals on her necklace. She hated how confused Isaac made her, and there was only one person she could think of to clear her head. Eleanor looked up from her laptop screen and over her non-prescription glasses.
"Sure honey, just let me save this." Lennon nodded and watched as her mom clicked the wireless mouse a few times, then shut her laptop closed. "What's up?"
"Just your a-typical teenage girl boy problems." Lennon chuckled, but the laughter felt odd and heavy instead of lighthearted. Lennon's mom stood up from the desk and walked over to her, taking a deep breath.
"Go change into your pajamas. I'll get the ice cream." Lennon nodded and gave her a smile, turning to go upstairs to her bedroom. She changed into her shorts and tank top and pulled her hair up into a messy ponytail and went back down stairs, walking into the living room and sitting down next to her mom on the couch, grabbing a spoon and taking a scoop of the minty ice cream and sighing, letting the sugar calm her frazzled nerves.
"Okay, spill." Eleanor told her. Lennon took a deep breath and sighed.
"H-How did you know you weren't in love with Dad anymore?" she asked, toying with the frayed end of the quilt her mom had hung over the back of the couch. Her mom slowly thought over the answer as she ate a spoonful of ice cream, staring at the magazines on the coffee table.
"Your father and I loved each other for a really long time," Eleanor began, looking over at her daughter. "It took me a long time to fall in love with him. And when we had you, it was the best thing to happen to either of us. It still is. But as you grew older, I wanted to raise you in a more suburban setting, so we moved a little ways away from Los Angeles. The first novel I wrote, I went back down to L.A. to meet with some publishers, and they had their lawyer present. As you can guess, it was your step-father. And after the meeting, the publishers left, and Kevin and I stayed. We talked for hours, and I fell in love with him, deeper than I had ever fallen for your father."
"So you divorced dad and married him." Lennon nodding, knowing the story.
"No." Eleanor shook her head. "I had a magnificent nine-year old daughter I had to think about. And a life and reputation. So we said good night, and parted ways, only seeing each other at meetings and reviews over the book. I was honest with your father and told him my feelings for Kevin, to which your father told me to see if they were real, and that we would deal with it accordingly. Your father has always been very passive, ever since college.
"So, we invited Kevin to dinner, and your dad saw how happy he made me, and the next month, we signed the divorce papers. I still think your father is trying to move on, with how hard he works."
"You loved someone more than and that's how you knew you didn't love Dad?"
"Lennon, love. . .it isn't black and white." Eleanor sighed, giving her daughter a soft smile. "I still love your father. We have a history that I could never forget, or would want to forget. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have you. But Kevin, it was an instance. We just looked at each other, and I saw warmth, and love and happiness. You don't find that often."
"Mom, I think I still might love Isaac. . ." Lennon announced, tears springing to her eyes as she finally admitted the truth. "But there's so much going on lately I don't think I can be with him."
"Oh sweetheart." Eleanor set the tub of ice cream down and grabbed Lennon pulling her into a comforting embrace only a mother could give. "Listen, sometimes you have to fight through some hard times to make sure a relationship is worth it. Remember what your grandpa used to say? Nothing worthwhile ever comes easy."
Lennon nodded and stayed in her mothers' arms for a while, allowing herself to be rocked back and forth as Eleanor hummed an old lullaby, resting her chin atop of Lennon's head. After a while, she pulled back and looked down at her daughter's face, smiling as she wiped a few stray tears away.
"Go get the Emergency Girl's-Night-In Box. We need Molly Ringwald and Julia Roberts to soothe this pain."
Uh oh, Lennon's getting confused about her feelings for Isaac and Stiles. What's going to happen as season 2 comes to a close between the three of them? Whoooo knoooows? I wait, I know! :D
Now that my classes have started up again, updates are going to be a bit more spaced out than normal. Schoolwork comes first, unfortunately, and I really need to focus on that before fanfiction. I hope you guys understand. This story isn't stopping, I promise. I'm too invested in it to just give up on it.
So, you guys are all amazing, I love you, keep the reviews coming! They help me know what you guys like and don't like and sometimes they help influence the story itself ;)
reviews are love!
xoxo
kate