For two days Lydia had been missing and for two days, everything just didn't seem right. My attention and focus were even worse than usual, I didn't feel like eating, and with Allison still mopey and withdrawn from her aunt dying or whatever, school life had actually gone further downhill than I ever thought it could. Bored out of my mind, I took to just staring off into space. I think I even fell asleep in one of my classes, French. My head was resting against my hand and I had my eyes closed, next thing I knew the teacher dropped a paper in front of me with a hard slapping sound to wake me up.
I jolted, snapping upright and blinking in confusion before looking down at the test paper, seeing a big fat 'F' on the front. Damn it. "Quel dommage, Cordelia." Whatever it is my teacher just said, it sounded condescending and I disapprove entirely. I slumped in my seat whilst fighting off a blush of humiliation. It's not my fault. If words don't make sense to me in English, how the hell am I supposed to understand them in French?
"Hey." When my ears registered that someone was trying to get my attention, I slowly turned in my chair to look behind me to find none other than Isaac Lahey leaning across his desk towards me. Holy crap, has he been in my class this entire time? "How'd you do?"
"Uh…why are you talking to me?" I responded without even thinking about it, resorting to my usual mean and slightly superior haughtiness out of habit.
"Oh, I just…I thought maybe…you know, if you needed some extra help…I could give you some pointers or something?" He offered weakly, seemingly made nervous by my sharp rebuttal of his friendly conversation starter. This guy was somebody I didn't even know shared classes with me, all of a sudden he wants to be study buddies? I don't think so.
"If I needed help, I'd find it myself. I don't need anybody's charity." Offended by the indication that some nobody thought that I needed his help, I quickly stuffed my paper out of sight so that no one would notice the fail grade marked with an obnoxiously bright red pen. It was only a little later after I'd calmed down that I began to think that maybe I'd been a tad extreme with that Lahey guy. I mean, he seemed harmless? I think all he wanted was to genuinely help but I went and stomped all over him. Oh well, if he can't handle one cute girl like me rejecting him then that's his problem.
After school I went straight home to try and study, focusing more on audio tapes and videos to learn rather than by reading, listening and repeating French phrases in order to try and learn them a little better. If I can at least understand what they're saying, I might be able to figure out the rest. Maybe I really should get tested to see if I had dyslexia, I'm not sure how long I can keep on hiding it this way and Lydia was right, it really was starting to be a problem.
Due to the past few sleepless nights and overworking my brain, I fell asleep sprawled across my bed, waking up only when my phone began to ring at me, jarring me from my sleep. Groaning I grabbed hold of it, looking to the caller ID before answering. "Stilinski, this better be good."
"We found her! We found Lydia!" In the next heartbeat I was up on my feet and tripping over every book scattered over my floor in my haste to get up and to my car. "We found her on Route Five, see I was with my dad answering a four-one-five Adam, which means…"
"Irrelevant details, Stiles, get to the point! Where is Lydia now? Is she okay?"
"Well, we were right about the whole naked part, which is um…you know…" Coughing awkwardly, I rolled my eyes in frustration at Stiles' inability to focus on the important facts instead of rambling off on one. "We're at the hospital now and she seems okay, but she says she can't remember anything for the past two days or what made her take off like that." Great, now my best friend is turning crazy too. Just what this town needs.
"I'm on my way. Just don't do or say anything weird to her until I get there." Stiles was astounded that I thought he would do such a thing but I cut the call before he could protest, quickly dialling Jackson's number to call him. It rang three times before he answered.
"Cordelia."
"Jackson." I responded with equal coolness, already second guessing myself in calling him but I knew it would be what Lydia wanted and as much as he might deny it, he's been worried about her all this time. "They found Lydia. It looks like she's going to be okay." A pause followed where I heard a very quiet but distinguishable sigh of relief.
"And this should interest me why?"
"Because you dumbass, your girlfriend's been running around the woods for the past two days totally naked and I know that you've been looking for her just as much as I have. I just wanted to let you know that she's alright and if you could get off your self-centred ass, she would really love it if you came down the hospital to see her." Again Jackson went quiet as I got into my car, phone tucked into the crook of my neck so that both my hands were free. "Jackson? Jackson are you there?"
"I'm hanging up." And just like that, the little bitch hung up on me.
"Ugh, you're such a bastard!" I yelled at the blank screen before tossing it into the passenger seat, twisting around so that I could reverse out the drive. Before long I was at the hospital, striding forwards and directed myself for Lydia who was back in her hospital bed talking to the cops with her parents standing over her, her dad anchoring one hand to her shoulder as if afraid she would suddenly take off again. "Lydia!" Ignoring everyone who tried to stop me or tell me I couldn't go in, I flung open the door and rushed inside.
"Thank god, Cordy! Please tell them that I'm fine and don't need to stay in this place another night." She pleaded with me as I hugged her quickly then began to search for any obvious signs of injury.
"Are you kidding me?!" Now that I was past the worry and concern, my anger began to bubble up to the surface as a result of little sleep, stress and pretty much everything else I had been bottling up these past couple of days. "You just vanished Lydia Martin without so much as an explanation and totally disappeared for two whole freaking days! In your birthday suit! You park your ass right there and you stay put until every doctor in this hospital has checked you over and I don't want to hear a single complaint out of you or so help me god, I will lose it!" Everyone stared at me in blank surprise, including the sheriff.
"This is you keeping your cool?" Stiles popped up rather unhelpfully, irritating me further as he stuck his head around the door.
"Not now Stilinski! Don't make me put you in a corner!" Knowing best not to argue or test me on my word, Stiles obediently slunk back as Lydia begrudgingly allowed the doctor to resume his tests, taking her blood pressure and drawing a few bloods to see what the hell was going on with her. Ms Martin gave me a warm and grateful smile, quietly thanking me for helping make Lydia see sense. We sat together at Lydia's bedside after she fell asleep, my head on her shoulder to rest a little as well whilst her arm lay wrapped around my shoulders, stroking my hair distantly.
They kept her overnight and the next day as well just to be on the safe side, but when they could find nothing physically or mentally wrong with her, they released her from the ward. I could tell she was more than glad to be out of there, so I stayed at her house that night, called Allison to talk to her for a while with Lydia before going to school together the next day. "So you really can't remember anything? Anything at all?"
"Nope. Nothing, and I swear if anyone else asks me that question to day I may get a little violent." Violent Lydia was something nobody wanted to see. She was five foot three of sheer fury when properly riled. I remember back in fourth grade some girl tried to cut her hair from behind with kiddy scissors and Lydia nearly blinded the girl with her mauling. It was scary. "Hey Allison."
"How are you feeling? Are you sure you're okay to be back at school so soon?" Joining up with Allison the three of us walked in together as if nothing strange had ever happened and it was a normal school morning. After assuring Allison that she was more than ready to return to an ordinary high school life, Allison then asked Lydia if she really didn't remember anything whilst she was in the woods. Halting slightly, Lydia pressed her lips in a bid to contain her irritation, shooting me a look so I gave her a sympathetic smile, urging her to just let it go.
"They called it a fugue state, which is basically a way of saying 'we have no idea why you can't remember running through the woods naked for two days', but personally, I don't care." She explained as we reached the doors, turning to smirk at Allison a little smugly. "I lost nine pounds." And it definitely showed, Lydia looked even hotter than before if that were even possible.
"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Lydia scoffed.
"Please. It's not like my aunt's a serial killer." That is true. Now that I think about it, I seemed to be the most normal girl of the three of us, and I hadn't even told them about all the freaky stuff I'd been discovering lately about my family history and how I might be genetically related to absolute nut cases who think that they're sirens, yet also questioning whether or not there might be some truth to the entire thing. Seriously, I need to get a reality check, or maybe just some therapy.
Heading inside, Lydia went first but stopped almost instantly as everyone turned to stare at her openly, as if they had nothing better to do than check out the latest crazy girl in Beacon High. It's not like this school isn't full of whackos, what's one more? They really need to just mind their own god damn business. "Maybe it's the nine pounds." Allison suggested humorously, though I don't think Lydia saw the funny side. She strutted off, keeping her head held high so I shared a look with Allison. "Think she's going to be okay?"
"It's Lydia. Of course she'll be okay. Give it a week and there'll be something else going on that's both freaky and inexplicable then the school will completely forget about Lydia's little breakdown." I waved off, fixing my hair and brushing at the corners of my mouth to make sure my lipstick hadn't smudged. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment with the student councillor to explain why I sound so dumb on paper but so smart not on paper." Blowing her a kiss I took off leisurely, in no rush at all to get to said appointment as I was still unsure of how to explain myself. Maybe I should just boycott it entirely? Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. I'll go swim instead.