DISCLAIMER: I do not own Teen Wolf, its characters, or any affiliated entities. I maintain artistic license of my original character(s).

Stiles huffed, slamming his lacrosse locker shut. He'd spent his lunch period and every break between classes roaming the halls, hoping to catch another glimpse of her. Suffice to say, he hadn't been so lucky. He was starting to believe she really had been avoiding him, had his letters been that bad? Growing up they'd told each other everything. Scott and Emmalyn had both been there for him when his mom died, but she had been the only one to really get through to him. She'd supported him on an emotional level that no one else had been able to reach, always reminding him of the years worth of memories he had with her.

Suddenly he was overcome with the same familiar sense of guilt that washed over him every time he thought back to that. His mother had always treated Emmalyn like her own, and in return was treated like her mom since she never knew her own. She'd stroked out in child birth, something about a bleed in her brain. He groaned as he rubbed his temples, his problems seeming petty and selfish in comparison.

"Any luck getting a hold of her?" Scott asked, opening the locker next to his.

Stiles' mouth turned down in a recognizable sign of defeat, "Nah, man. I just don't get it. I mean, I looked everywhere for her. Do you really think she's avoiding us?"

Inhaling deeply, Scott turned to his friend, "What do you want me to tell you, Stiles? That things are going to go right back to where they were two years ago?"

"Scott...what are you talking about, back? When did it stop?"

"Exactly. I mean that you aren't exactly the best at taking hints. Like do you really think that at the end of your '15 Year Plan' you and Lydia are just going to run off into the sunset? She hasn't written back the entire time she's been gone."

Stiles' brow furrowed into a light scowl. "Low blow, Scott. The Lydia situation is different and entirely beside the point. This isn't some girl I'm asking to prom, this is Emma. You know, thick as thieves, the Three Musketeers, all of those spit handshakes, and that one, really gross blood one that got my hand all infected?"

"Yeah, don't remind me about that one." Melissa had chewed the three of them out for that one.

"Good, then I won't have to remind you for a third time today that this. is. Emma we're talking about!"

"I just...remember how weird she got right before she left? You don't think maybe she was trying to cut us out?"

"No way in hell, Scott. We'll see her again in the morning, maybe she just woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

Scott placed a wary hand on his insistent friend's shoulder, passing him a look of mild concern. "Maybe you should give her some space. It's probably hard on her to be changing schools in the middle of high school. She'll probably warm up once she readjusts."

He knew he was lying to Stiles, just like he knew his friend was clutching at straws, struggling to find a sense of normalcy in their backward, supernatural world. Scott was worried for him, because no matter how much he tried to deny it, there was no arguing with his keen, werewolf senses.

"Yeah, I guess I never thought of it that way. It was probably just as hard for her to move the first time, and her course load was probably pretty intense. Maybe things just got away from her."

"Where did she even go?"

"I don't know, her dad never really said. Some genius technical school to help 'shape her future'," he air quoted, shrugging it off.

Scott decided it would be best to keep his mouth shut for now, there was no way Stiles would listen to him right then. He wouldn't listen to how her heart rate nearly doubled when she saw him and every time she'd caught him staring, how her brow and the back of her neck broke out into a nervous sweat. He wouldn't want to hear about the tremors in her shallow breaths or the scratch of her dry throat whenever she tried to swallow and stomach the anxiety bubbling in her chest. It rolled off of her in waves the entire class, spreading in a thick cloud that left Scott repeatedly clicking his pen under its influence. He wouldn't tell him about how she would plead under her breath for him to stop staring at her. No, he'd keep it to himself for now. They had practice to focus on.

"Scott," Stiles whispered trying to grab his friend's attention, "I know you're just trying to get me to shut up."

Scott looked back to Stiles, abandoning the new lacing he'd started on his lacrosse stick. When he saw the somber look in his friend's eyes, the weight of his recent lie crippled his chest.

"Stiles, I – "

"Don't lie to me, Scott. With all the crap we're in, all the crap we've been in, we can't keep secrets anymore."

"Just...give it time. Time and some space never hurt anything, except maybe my relationship with Alli – you know what? No. Don't listen to me. Just let her come to you."

"So, if I'm not listening to you, I should keep trying to talk to her?" Stiles scoffed with a toothy grin.

Blinking a couple of times, Scott realized he'd just talked a circle around himself. He punched Stiles lightly in the arm and laughed it off.

"You know what I mean."

"Oh, my arm," Stiles feigned, "Abuse! I'm being abused!"

Another punch in the arm.

"Ow, alright I get it. Ah!" Stiles shielded himself against fake outs from Scott's lacrosse stick.

"Stilinski! McCall! Once you two decide who wears the skirt, think you might join the rest of us on the field?"

The two spun around to face Coach Finstock, sputtering out a few half-baked explanations each.

"TODAY!"

"Yes, Coach!"

"You betcha, Coach."

The boys scrambled out toward the field, tossing yellow pinnies over their lacrosse pads as they joined the team for a practice scrimmage.

oOo

The rest of the day proved to be far less stressful than the first half for Emmalyn, not recognizing many faces in the rest of her classes. The ones she did know didn't know her, so shrinking into the back of each class was a much less distressing task. Finding her best chance of avoiding certain people to be spending as little time as possible in the hallways, she resolved to compress down to one multi-subject notebook. The weight of multiple textbooks wouldn't seem like much after time, she hoped. She could lie to her teacher, say her appointments with Ms. Morrell were during lunch so she could get to the cafeteria early and disappear before the crowds arrived. Every move would be calculated and executed with precision. She would remember to park as close to the entrance of the parking lot as possible to avoid being visible in exiting traffic. It wasn't something she'd thought of this morning, so she opted the wait out the rush tucked away in a stairwell. Were she to repeat that mistake, she'd choose a different one, having almost been trampled by the lacrosse team on their way out to the field.

The facade fell when she found the safety of her own home. The trendy clothes were replaced with a baggy pair of sweats and an over sized t-shirt, contacts out for glasses, her painted face for her natural one. She looked up at herself in the bathroom mirror, face still wet from washing it clean. Her father wasn't home and wouldn't be until she was long asleep, so no sense in hiding. She was, in all reality, unchanged from the person she had been at her worst. That person was foolish, she was careless and got caught. This version of herself knew what to hide and how to hide it. She knew how to disguise the broken, swollen eyes that sunk back into her head rimmed with large dark circles, how to highlight her razor sharp features and hollowed cheeks, how to liven up her pale and blemished complexion. Chapped lips and a damaged smile hid behind gloss, pronounced collar bones and protruding shoulders cloaked with thick knit sweaters. Her thin neck was laced with red trails from where she had raked her nails across, trying to scratch away her imperfections, but it was dusted away with a layer of powder. Lack luster, unkempt hair was treated with expensive product and tucked back in fashionable up-do's. She had bruises trailing up her arms and legs from trashing during episodes, her body showing its wear more and more every day as it struggled to hold itself together, but she just minded her hemlines. This was who she was, who she hid from the prying eyes of the same people that did this to her. This was their fault, but it was her problem now. Her life. She was in control.

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