August 7th, 2012

I am crazy, ask anyone.

I see red and I am blind. I hear red and I go deaf. I touch red and it gets under my skin and clings to my insides until I rip it out.

My therapist would say, "Lydia, you cannot hear or touch a color, and I don't believe seeing a color would make you blind."

I don't think my therapist has ever had a mental breakdown in her whole life, so I don't see how she's supposed to help me if she can't even begin to understand what I'm going through.

I'm crazy, ask my mother.

My mother used to do my makeup for me. Early Sunday mornings before Mass, I'd sit on the edge of her bed and watch her face as she concentrated on painting mine. My mother is beautiful, she's doesn't need to cover her face but she insists: "Your face is a canvas, Lydia. Make it a masterpiece."

My mother heard me scream in my sleep for three months straight. She'd tried to calm me down, but I'd only yell louder. She sat next to me and rubbed my back, trying to say those soothing words only mom's know. But I was afraid, and my mother with her cool eyes and long nails could not help me breathe.

She doesn't acknowledge me now unless it's to suggest I cover those bags under my eyes.

I'm crazy; Stiles isn't a good recommendation for that statement.

Stiles who held my hand under the dinner table while his father served lasagna and told stories about his late wife.

Stiles who blew bubbles in my face when I refused to clean the lasagna pan.

The Sheriff doesn't think I'm crazy, either. He pulls me aside when Stiles goes to find Hercules for the VCR.

"Lydia, Stiles doesn't tell me much, but the one thing that boy never shuts up about is you. I know you've got a lot going on, and while I'm not going to act like I know what it's about, I just want to let you know you're always welcome here. And you're welcome to spend the night if you don't want to go home."

Stiles cries a little when Megara dies and tries to play it off like he got popcorn butter in his eyes.

The Sheriff's been snoring since Hercules decided to go find himself, so Stiles wraps a blanket around him and turns off the TV as the credits roll.

We sort of stumble up the stairs because we're full from dinner and popcorn, and half-asleep in this summer heat.

I fall asleep as soon as my body hits his bed.

...

I wake up with the need to pee, wrapped in a cocoon of blankets. I look around at a very dark bedroom as my eyes search for a clock and find it on the bedside table.

3:49 a.m.

I try to untangle myself from the blankets holding my captive, but I end up rolling off the bed and as my body makes a loud THUMP! I worry I woke up Stiles, who's current location in his room is unknown. When I hear the groan beneath me, I realize I didn't land on the ground, I landed on a Stiles.

I roll off him and try to assess the damage. He's clutching his shoulder, but he lets out a laugh when I say, "Hi."

"Hey."

"Sorry for waking you... and crushing your body."

"Well, I hope my pain was for something important."

"...I have to pee."

The tile in the bathroom is a warm purple and the window above the toilet lets in the noises of summer: crickets, trees in the breeze, and a few cars driving by. As I wash my hands with raspberry hand soup, I look up to see if my hair is absolutely horrid (it's not), when I catch a flash of red in the reflection.

I'm half a second away from yelling, "Fuck it!" and asking Stiles for some pills to knock me out, when I take a second look and realize it's just a hand towel hanging from the shower head. I say, "phew," because close call, when Stiles appears in the doorway.

"Wanna go find a Taco Bell that's open?"

I kind of do a side glance in the mirror at my impeccable skin (that I don't maintain by stuffing my face at fast food "restaurants") and then I shrug because it's Stiles and it's summer and I'm having serious three-almost-four a.m. tasty food cravings.

...

We're breezing through town on mission when I turn on the radio.

Stiles does a stellar performance of Justin Timberlake and I have to grab the wheel when he throws his hands in the air with enthusiasm.

"Hi, yeah, uh, can I get, uh, shoot, Lyd, what'd you want agai- oh yeah! - all right, can I get four tacos, uh, two of those baja blast slushies... did you want nachos, too? Okay, two nachos, aaaannnd... cinnamon twists!"

"Is that all?"

"No, that's just her order- OW! - ha, just kidding. That's all."

...

"Do you ever think about who invented Nacho cheese?"

I nod, because I can't speak as I'm stuffing my face with fast food.

"I mean, has it always existed? Because it's not like it's difficult. You melt cheese... I could've invented it."

...

I flinch a little bit when we get stopped at a red light and I scream a little loud when I notice a man in front of the car.

He's only crossing the road, and he picks up his pace when he notices my wide-eyed stare.

"Sorry."

I apologize because we were having fun and I ruined it.

I apologize because I'm crazy.

When we pull into his driveway, we just sit there and I unbuckle my seat belt and reach for the door, when Stiles speaks up.

"Can we just sit here for a minute?"

I buckle my seat belt. Stiles laughs and I roll my eyes.

We're sitting their like two awkward teens who just got through with their first date (awkward teens, yes; first date nerves? no). I pretend I'm stretching and then wildly poke at the radio button.

"None of that country shit."

I roll my eyes again, "Shut up, you love Eric Paisley."

We settle on a station we can both stand and I find a stray chip between my boobs and look to make sure Stiles isn't paying attention before I eat it.

"Sometimes I think I'm crazy." My eyes move from my boobs to his hands, which are tapping on the steering wheel and then to his face. He's look out the windshield up at the window I know leads to his dad's room.

I touch his hand that's lying on the shift, "You're not."

"No, but I feel it anyways."

"Why do you feel like you are?" Some lovestruck girl on the radio is singing about stars, and I feel dizzy, because I don't ever want Stiles to feel like crazy like I do.

He shudders like he's cold and then lets out a breathless chuckle, "Because my best friend's a werewolf and sometimes I feel like I'm in a freaking horror movie."

I laugh because I know the feeling, "It's kind of crazy, but it's real."

"My best friend's a werewolf and my dad has no idea that he could die or I could die, and Allison's family hunts werewolves for a living, and my enemy since the third grade turned in a supernatural animal and almost killed everyone, and then there's you-" His voice breaks as the girl blasting through the speakers dies out.

"Me?"

"You."

I hold my breath, then I think I'm dying from lack of oxygen, and slowly blow out. "What about me?"

"Nothing you could do could ever stop my baby, nothing in the world could tear us two apart."

"You're sitting in my car with me at five in the morning and I feel like I'm dreaming."

"We've got all the spark to set this place on fire,"

"You're not. Promise."

"We got making love down to a fine art."

He breathes in like he's coming up for air and I stare at his lips.

He smiles at me and I smile back and he nods his head towards the house, "Back to bed?"

"Back to bed."

...

The Sheriff is making coffee and I can smell it from my spot on Stiles' comforter.

We're lying side by side on the floor, our heads touching the edge of the bottom of his bed. He folds his hands on his stomach and turns to look at me when he hears me take a breath.

"My mom thinks if I take enough pills and go to six months of therapy, I'll be cured."

"What do you think?"

"I think I'll be crazy forever."

"I don't think you're crazy, Lydia. I think you're something special."

"What?"

"I don't know yet, but we'll figure it out."

I shut up after that because I can't argue my sanity with Stiles; he's biased.

We hear his dad's boots outside the door and close our eyes like we've been asleep. When the door creaks open all the way, Stiles yawns and stretches his arms, hitting me in the face. I want to elbow him, but I wrinkle my nose and turn to lie on my stomach.

"Hey, Dad," Stiles says. I feel the covers move as he sits up.

"Morning," Mr. Stilinski responds. I hear him shift his weight from foot to foot, "Sleep okay?" Stiles must nod because the next thing I hear is the Sheriff clearing his throat, "She okay?"

There's a moment of silence and I feel Stiles looking at me, "She will be."

"So this is kind of your big dream, huh?"

Stiles chokes, "What?"

"The girl you've been obsessing about-"

"All right, not obsessing, Dad-"

"-since like, the third grade-"

"Not obsessing!"

"-is lying on the floor next to you-"

"We're friends."

"Oh yeah?"

"It's like a slumber party."

"Hmm."

"Don't you have to get to work now or something?"

The door shuts and Mr. Stilinski laughs all the way downstairs.

I peek at Stiles from behind my elbow, "A slumber party?" He gives me an all-mighty glare and I smirk, "I mean, we can paint our nails now, if you want."

"Shut up, Lydia."

...

I'm drowning mini marshmallows in a mug of coffee and thinking about synonyms for nacho cheese when Stiles starts babbling about school.

"We should go school supply shopping. I know you like those weird erasers-shaped-like-animals."

"Stiles, it's August 8th, not September 1st, so can you please shut up about school?"

He shuts up for a minute and then, "Do you want to hang out with Scott and me the night before? We usually end up doing something cool."

"What'd you do last year?" I ask, focusing on a marshmallow that refuses to be taken under.

"Uh, well, we went looking for Laura's Hale's top part of her body and Scott got bit..."

"Sounds fun."

"But freshman year we got into a water gun war with Scott's neighbor, who's like sixty-four!" He says this like I should be in awe.

I raise an eyebrow at him and he rolls his eyes, "I swear we'll be great company."

"I think I'll be with Allison. She gets back that day and well, it'll be really, uh,..."

"Awkward if her and Scott are around each other?"

"Yeah."

"Then I guess I won't see you until the first day; my dad and I are going up to our cabin for some end-of-the-summer fishing."

I almost knock my coffee over, "For three weeks?"

He nods, "It's tradition."

Well, fuck. Now what am I supposed to spend my time doing for the rest of the summer?