For a night in mid-January, the temperature wasn't awful.
Josie decided to take full advantage. With a heavy blanket wrapped around her shoulders, a mug of warm tea sitting on the windowsill, and a smoldering cigarette in her ashtray trailing smoke out the open window, Josie felt perfectly content curled up in her window seat.
At least, as content as she could be on the last night of the weekend.
Josie took a long drag of her cigarette and blew the smoke out of the window. As the comforting burn traveled down her throat, she directed her attention back to the phone squished between her shoulder and ear. "Aren't you supposed to be on a date with Jackson?"
"Technically, I am." Lydia's annoyed voice was slightly tinny. "Since everywhere in this godforsaken town is closed because of the curfew, we're just renting a movie."
"Where's Jackson?" Josie resisted the urge to cough as she timed an inhale wrong. "Doesn't a date usually involve the boyfriend?"
"He's inside getting the movie."
"Which movie?"
"The Notebook ."
The mental image of Jackson wiping away tears as Noah crawled into bed with a dying Allie sent Josie her into a fit of raspy giggles. As her laugh threatened to turn into a cough, Josie did her best to tamp it down.
Of course, Lydia managed to hear it anyway.
"You really should stop smoking." Lydia said, disapproval heavy in her voice.
"Okay, mom."
Lydia huffed into her phone and Josie could almost see the strawberry-blonde rolling her eyes. "Whatever. When you need a lung transplant, don't come crying to me."
"I won't." Josie said. "By then, my lungs will be so shit that I won't be able to cry loud enough to bother you."
"You're annoying." Lydia made a brief sound of satisfaction and her voice became fainter as she leaned away from her phone.
It was Josie's turn to roll her eyes. "You were literally smoking at your party last weekend-I bummed one off you, remember?"
"Having a drunk cigarette is different from the chain smoking you do." Lydia argued. "Have you ever seen the pictures of a smoker's lungs?"
"Yeah, I know. I have small, wrinkly lungs." Josie took another deep inhale. "I'm going to quit at some point."
Lydia just hummed.
"Okay, what are you doing?" Josie exhaled the smoke out the open window. "I'm trying to have an argument here."
"Sorry to disappoint you, but my face is very symmetrical currently." There was a brief pause and Josie heard a faint shutter noise.
"Do you have me on speaker so you can take selfies?" The amusement Josie felt bled through into her voice.
"Maybe." Lydia responded. The amusement in her voice matched Josie's.
Josie just made an approximation of an amused noise into the phone and settled further into her blankets.
Honestly, it didn't matter to her that Lydia was only vaguely paying attention to their conversation. It was enough to know that Lydia was on the other side of the line-even if it was in some parking lot across town.
The weekend had passed with Josie feeling like she was in a fugue state. Therapy sessions always drained her. After she finished talking with Bea that Friday, Josie barely felt like a person.
Instead of trying to play at feeling okay, Josie declined Allison and Lydia's offers of hanging out to mope around the house. The moping had only lasted for a few hours; Baba had quickly put Josie to work for the monthly deep clean. Because Baba was used to Josie's occasional mood, she allowed Josie to clean in silence before retreating to her room. The most activity she'd done was changing into a fresh set of pajamas Sunday morning.
After spending the weekend hiding from social interactions, Josie was happy to ease back into it with a phone call.
The companionable silence continued with Lydia's occasional interjections. She would describe her pose and movements while Josie would offer suggestions or affirmations.
After a few minutes of narration, Lydia huffed. "Is he filming the movie or something? What the hell is taking him so long?"
Before Josie could respond that Jackson was probably trying to swap out the discs, probably putting some ridiculous sports movie in The Notebook 's case, Lydia let out an ear-piercing scream.
From her spot on the bed, the hair along Kitty's back stood on end as she hissed.
Josie hurriedly stubbed her cigarette out. A deep sense of panic that she'd only felt once before hit her. "Lydia?"
There was a long silence before Josie's phone beeped twice-indicating the call had dropped.
For a brief second, Josie froze.
It wasn't happening again. As Lydia would say, statistically, it was extremely unlikely that Josie would lose any more of her friends before she hit twenty. She was supposed to be safe. At least, she was supposed to have a few more years.
Josie held onto that thought as she scrambled into Baba's room, demanding the car keys, before she shoved on a pair of slippers at the door.
As she haphazardly pulled out of the driveway, Josie decided she'd rather be paranoid than right. She'd rather have Lydia call her back and explain her phone died. She'd rather interrupt Lydia and Jackson's date for no reason. She'd rather find the video store's parking lot empty and have Lydia text her later.
Josie would rather it be anything else than the persistent thought that she was about to find Lydia's body.
Instead of finding Lydia's body, Josie found her sitting catatonic in the driver's seat.
Practically throwing herself out of Baba's car, Josie rushed to her friend's side. For a moment, she went sliding along the pavement, one slippered foot falling behind her while her hands scrambled for purchase in the gravel, before she righted herself.
Wrenching open the car door, Josie resisted the urge to throw up.
Lydia looked physically fine. Her hair still rested gently on her shoulders in the same arrangement that she described to Josie over the phone, the chains of her necklaces draped down elegantly over her neck, and Josie's frantic eyes couldn't find any injuries.
It was the look in Lydia's eyes that worried her the most.
While her face was deceptively calm, except for the minute furrow in between her eyebrows, Lydia's eyes were panicked.
"Lydia?" Josie bent down to the other girl's eyeline. When Lydia didn't react, gazing through her, Josie tentatively reached a hand towards her knee.
Just as Josie's fingertips skimmed the fabric of Lydia's skirt, a shaky hand latched around Josie's wrist. Every other part of Lydia was still. While her trembling hand clutched at Josie's wrist, her wild eyes began to flit around the parking lot.
Josie swallowed down her revulsion, digging the nails of her free hand into her thigh, and forced herself to not pull away. Instead, she dropped her voice to a whisper. "Lydia? Are you okay?"
At the silence, she followed where Lydia's gaze had finally caught on something-the shattered window of the video store.
"Oh, shit." Josie breathed out softly. In the panic-induced dread Lydia's scream had evoked, and the slow rush of relief that followed, Josie had forgotten about Jackson.
A small whimper brought her attention back down to Lydia. The strawberry-blonde didn't look away from the store, but her fingers curled tighter around Josie's wrist.
Taking that as confirmation, Josie glanced back at the shattered window. "Is he still in there? What happened?"
"Something…" Lydia's voice faded to a stop. "Something came out through the window."
"Like a mountain lion?" The idea of a wild animal sent a more manageable twist of fear through Josie's stomach. She remembered the blood-covered bus and the gossip at school.
Lydia's grip became bruising as her eyes suddenly met Josie's. Her voice was raspy and Josie wondered how long she had sat there screaming after their call disconnected. "Please don't leave."
Any concern Josie held for Jackson fled at Lydia's request. It wasn't even a decision. "I promise I'm not gonna leave."
Seemingly placated by her words, Lydia's grip loosened and slid to Josie's forearm.
The slack was enough for Josie to straighten and peer further into the video store. It was frighteningly still inside, a few lights flickering and throwing brief shadows, but Josie couldn't see anything that could be Jackson.
The longer she stared into the dark, the more Josie felt the familiar feeling of dread pooling at the base of her spine. As she stared into the darkness, Josie could imagine all the terrible things lurking inside. The image of Jackson's body-neck torn open, eyes blank-flashed in her head.
A shadow moved inside. Instead of the bloodthirsty killer that Josie had imagined, or a feral mountain lion, Jackson stumbled out of the storefront.
"Holy shit," Josie couldn't stop the words from tumbling out of her mouth as he came into focus. Like Lydia, he seemed to be physically okay. Other than a slight limp, Jackson didn't have any injuries that Josie could see.
It was his face that gave her pause. The customary mix of arrogance and annoyance that was usually on Jackson's face was gone. In its place was a blank expression. Josie recognized the look-wherever Jackson's mind was, it was a million miles from the video store.
"Jackson," Lydia breathed out, her words heavy with relief.
"What happened?" Josie reached out to steady Jackson as he moved closer, and, to her surprise, he let her. "Are you okay?"
Despite Josie's hand on his arm, he only had eyes for Lydia. The fog covering his face began to clear. He let out a shaky breath. "The police are wrong. Whatever the fuck that was, it wasn't a mountain lion."
By the time the police actually showed up, Jackson's story had changed.
As he seemed to become more aware of his surroundings, Jackson's usual temperament came back. He demanded to know why Josie was there, why she didn't call the police, and why she was so useless.
Josie was thankful for the EMTs showing up and drawing his attention away from him. After explaining that she wasn't involved directly in the incident, Josie was able to escape their scrutiny. Instead, she sat in the back of the ambulance with her knees pressed against Lydia's, clutching the other girl's hand as Jackson berated everyone around him.
Thankfully, Josie didn't remember any of her own time in the ambulance last summer. There was already enough deja vu swirling around in her mind without adding any more to the mix. If it wasn't for Jackson's angry complaints, it would've been almost calming to watch the red and white lights reflect off Lydia's hair.
"Why the hell can't I just go home? I'm fine." Jackson snapped. Even as he began to angrily stomp away from the ambulance, Jackson carefully detangled his hand from Lydia's.
Even though the motion was gentle, Lydia made a noise in the back of her throat like a wounded animal. Her free hand went to join the one already clasped around Josie's.
"I hear ya," A new voice cut in. "But the EMT says you hit your head pretty hard."
Josie was only slightly surprised to see the sheriff standing in front of Jackson. He was in his uniform, face schooled into seriousness, and all of the playful energy Josie had previously seen was gone. He looked less like Stiles's dad and more like Sheriff Stilinski.
"They just wanna make sure you don't have a concussion." He finished. His gaze flicked over the back of the ambulance, briefly stopping on Josie, before returning to Jackson.
Josie could only imagine what he was thinking; the sole survivor of a massacre found at a crime scene. Though she didn't know much about the inner workings of police politics, she didn't think it'd be good for her to show up dead on Sheriff Stilinski's watch.
"What part of 'I'm fine' are you having a problem grasping?" Jackson demanded. He took a step closer to Sheriff Stilinski. "Okay, I want to go home."
"And I understand that." The sheriff leveled Jackson with an unimpressed look.
"No, you don't understand," Jackson began gesturing widely. His voice steadily grew in volume until he was yelling directly at the sheriff. "Which kind of blows my mind, since it should be a pretty basic concept to grasp for a minimum-wage-rent-a-cap like you! Okay, now, I wanna go home!"
Josie shrunk back slightly as Jackson finished his tirade. While she understood more than most his intense desire to be somewhere familiar and safe after the trauma of the night, Josie didn't understand the volatile way he acted with the police.
Growing up, Josie was always taught to keep her distance from the police. If she couldn't, she was taught to only do the bare minimum they asked of her and demand a lawyer. The most important part was to not get upset or seem threatening.
Though she was half-Indonesian, Josie knew she definitely couldn't be mistaken for white. She was a carbon copy of her mom-only inheriting her dad's prominent nose. Josie had loved looking like her mom, with her warm brown skin and inky hair, until her parents had explained how the world was going to work differently for her.
Ward also had the same talk with his parents, and Emilia had one with her grandma. Josie wasn't alone in navigating this previously invisible part of her life. It wasn't new, her mom had explained, just something that Josie would need to be more aware of as she got older.
The warnings about how to act with the police bounced around Josie's head as she watched Sheriff Stilinski heave a sigh at Jackson. As much as she wanted to think of him as Stiles's dad first, and a cop second, she couldn't push off the alarm that seeing him at an active crime scene gave her.
Before she could get pulled too deeply into her head, a voice suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, whoa, is that a dead body?"
Josie's head followed the voice. While the crowd behind the police tape stared at the gurney being rolled out of the video store, she found herself looking at Stiles. He had a vaguely apologetic look on his face as he shrunk down behind the open door of the police car. Judging by the way he hovered near the passenger seat, Josie assumed he was with his dad.
"Everybody back up. Back up." Sheriff Stilinski ushered everyone back as the gurney was wheeled past. A shiver rolled down Josie's spine as it got closer to the coroner's van. "Josie, you mind if I ask you a few questions?"
"Um, sure." Even though she knew that she didn't do anything wrong, anxiety began to twist in Josie's stomach. Carefully detangling her hand from Lydia's, Josie followed the sheriff a few yards away from the ambulance. "I don't think I'll be much help."
"Why's that?" The sheriff asked.
Josie glanced over her shoulder to where Jackson had taken her spot in the ambulance. Lydia was curled into his side. "I wasn't here when anything happened. I was on the phone with Lydia, and she freaked out, so I came to check on her."
"You came all the way out here just to check on her?" The sheriff raised his eyebrows at her.
Warmth crept down Josie's neck as a small shot of indignation ran through her. "Yeah, I did. I'd rather be paranoid and come out here for no reason than listen to something happen to her."
The sheriff nodded and winced slightly, as though he just remembered who he was talking to. "Okay, I understand. Was there anything out of the ordinary when you got here?"
"Everything," Josie crossed her arms over her stomach as a gust of wind blew through the parking lot. "The glass from the store was smashed, and Lydia and Jackson were pretty freaked out. The ambulance got here pretty soon after that."
"Did they say anything to you-about what happened here?"
"No, Lydia was too scared to say much of anything."
"What about Jackson?"
The police are wrong. Whatever the fuck that was, it wasn't a mountain lion.
Josie shook her head. "Nothing."
Though he seemed doubtful, the sheriff let it go. Instead, he gestured to small bandaids scattered over Josie's palms. "What happened there?"
Josie had nearly forgotten about her hands. An EMT had carefully picked the glass shards out, cleaned the cuts, and bandaged them for her. "I tripped when I got out of the car, and my hands landed in some of the glass."
"Alright, that's about all the questions I have."
"Sorry," Josie rolled the inside of her cheek into her mouth and directed her gaze to the ground. "That I wasn't able to help more."
"No, no, it's okay." The sheriff ducked his head to make eye contact with her. "You're a good kid, Josie, and a good friend. I have no clue how you ended up hanging around my son."
Josie looked towards the police car parked a few yards away. Her anger at Stiles still lingered, but all that came out was a soft sentence. "He's not so bad."
Stiles was doing his best to act casual-despite how he was hanging out the window. His attempt at eavesdropping was embarrassingly obvious, and Josie cringed on his behalf. She gave a tentative wave, and Stiles nearly fell out of his seat in an effort to return it.
The sheriff sighed. "Yeah, I'm not so sure about that."
Josie did her best to hide her smile. She shifted awkwardly, suddenly aware she was in her pajamas and a pair of slippers, and tightened her arms around her stomach. Her flannel pants and thermal shirt were fine for lounging by her window but did nothing to stop the wind from cutting through her.
"Hold on for just a second," The sheriff walked over to where his son was pretending to not listen, and briefly argued with him, before coming back with Stiles's jacket in his hands. He held it out to Josie insistently. "Here. The little delinquent can freeze for a bit. It'll be good for him."
Ignoring the deja vu, Josie shrugged the jacket on. "Thank you."
"Don't mention it." The sheriff looked around before leaning in closer. "If you hang around for a bit, Stiles can drive you back to your grandma's house. I'll pick him up once I finish here."
"I feel fine," Josie protested. "I can drive back."
"Can you?" The look the sheriff gave her was stern, but there was faint amusement lingering on his face. "Legally?"
Josie froze. After a few beats of silence, she gave the sheriff her best approximation of a smile. "Stiles can drive me."
Sheriff Stilinski huffed a laugh. "Yeah, that seems like the best idea."
"Can I go back to Lydia?" Josie asked, doing her best not to seem too eager. "Since we're finished?"
"Of course. I'll let Stiles know he's taking you home." The sheriff reached a hand out towards Josie's shoulders, obviously aiming for a reassuring act. If he was taken aback by Josie's quick sidestep, he didn't show it. Instead, he just gave her a tired smile and went to deal with Jackson and Lydia's newly arrived parents.
After convincing Lydia that nothing was going to happen to her when she left, as well as promising to see her tomorrow, Josie reluctantly walked over to where Stiles was fidgeting by Baba's car.
"The keys are in the ignition."
Stiles jumped, clearly not expecting her voice, and hit his arm off the side mirror.
As he shrieked in pain, Josie didn't bother to hide the way she rolled her eyes. While some of her annoyance was because the night had been exhausting, a large part was because she was still angry at Stiles. The time away didn't lessen her anger at all; the weekend had only given her time to sit with it.
Slipping into the passenger seat, Josie let her slippers fall off as she tucked her legs under her. Stiles's jacket pooled around her thighs, and Josie resisted the urge to burrow into it. She rested her head against the window and watched Stiles give himself a pep talk as he walked to the driver's side.
Ignoring the wary glance he gave her, Josie pretended to be enraptured by the nearby police tape.
The tense silence persisted as Stiles adjusted his seat and carefully pulled out of the parking lot. Other than Stiles's pointed sighs, the soft sound of the classical radio station Baba favored was the only noise in the car. The suburbs passed in a blur and Baba's house quickly appeared in the distance.
Just as Josie thought she would make it through the whole drive without having to talk to Stiles, he sighed particularly loudly.
"For the love of God," Josie snapped. She sent an annoyed look towards Stiles. "Do you have something to say?"
To his credit, Stiles looked appropriately chagrined. He cleared his throat and fixed his gaze on the road. "No-I mean, it's not important. It can totally wait for a better time."
"Just say it." Josie crossed her arms over her stomach. "It's not like this night can get any worse."
Stiles rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand and guided the car into Baba's driveway with the other. "That's encouraging."
"Stiles!"
"Okay, okay," Stiles put the car into park as they reached the end of the long driveway. He reluctantly turned to face Josie, one hand still clutching the steering wheel, with an earnestly upset look. "I wanted to apologize about the other day."
"When you kicked me out of your car?"
Stiles winced. "Yep, that's the one."
"When you kicked me out of your car in front of everyone after you insisted I get a ride with you?"
"Okay, it wasn't one of my greatest moments."
"When you kicked me out of your car in front of everyone after you insisted I get a ride with you so the shady guy you swear you don't have anything to do with could get in your car?"
"Yeah, I see where you're going with this."
"When you kicked me out of your c-"
"We get it!" Stiles interrupted. He gave Josie an unimpressed look. "I kicked you out and it was a dickhead move."
Staring back at him, Josie refused to give an inch. Despite the conflicted feelings in her chest, along with a resurgence of petty anger, she kept her face as blank as possible. Her usual anxiety about eye contact was surpassed by the need to be annoying.
"Look," Stiles's shoulders slumped. "It was a seriously shitty thing to do, and I'm sorry. Friends don't do that, and it won't happen again."
"Are we friends?" Josie looked over to Stiles with wide, serious eyes. The previous annoyance had faded out of her voice, leaving something soft and vulnerable behind.
"What? Of course, we're friends. Wait, do you not think we're friends?" Stiles furrowed his eyebrows and let his hands drop from the steering wheel. One hand fidgeted with his sleeve as he looked at Josie in confusion.
"Sort of." Josie dropped her gaze to focus on the clear band-aids covering her palms. "I mean, you embarrassed me. You treat me like I'm dumb, and lie to me all the time, especially about whatever is going on about Derek."
Stiles scoffed. "Okay, look, to be fair, I think we're both shitty…half-friends or whatever. You haven't been exactly honest, like, you're the most secretive person I've ever met."
"Because they're mine!" Josie snapped. Her left shoulder throbbed once in sharp sympathy.
"Then how is that any different from the Derek thing?" Stiles raised his voice to match Josie's.
Doing her best to keep from yelling, Josie curled her fingers into her damaged palms. The pain grounded her. "Because mine don't hurt anyone. Whatever the 'Derek thing' is, it doesn't take a genius to see that it's going to end badly. For Scott, Allison, me, or you."
Stiles rolled his eyes. The confusion on his face was quickly evolving into a mixture of disbelief and annoyance. "All I'm saying is that you also haven't been a very good 'half-friend.'"
"I never said I wanted to be your friend." Josie muttered in a petulant whisper. She had gone back to staring intently out the window, ignoring the flash of hurt on Stiles's face.
"Well, do you?" Stiles demanded. When Josie didn't respond, he gaped at her. "Okay, ouch. If you don't want to be my friend, nothing is stopping you."
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
Josie shrugged out of Stiles's jacket, threw it onto his lap, and practically threw herself out of the car. Though it was childish, she made sure to slam the door behind her. The cold air felt soothing against her flushed skin, calming her frantic heart as Josie settled on the porch steps. She propped her elbows on her knees, rested her face in her hands, and did her best to not cry.
The night had given her emotional whiplash. Josie hadn't meant to start an argument with Stiles, but her frayed nerves seemed to take his existence personally. Whenever he breathed too loudly, it felt like nails on a chalkboard. His lackluster apology only upset her more.
The soft sound of the car door closing, followed by footsteps in the gravel, alerted Josie to Stiles's approaching presence. She managed to not jump as he carefully perched on the step next to her.
After a few moments of tense silence, Stiles spoke. "You never answered the question."
Sniffling slightly, Josie raised her head enough to glance at Stiles from the corner of her eye. "It's not that I don't want to. It's just hard. I don't think I know how to make friends anymore."
"Oh, c'mon, it's not that hard." The purposefully light tone in Stiles's voice made it clear he was trying to alleviate some of the tension.
Josie raised her head fully to stare at him. She demanded, "When's the last time you had to try and make a friend? Like, actually worked at it."
"I think…one summer in middle school when Scott was visiting his dad." Stiles cringed at the memory. "I see your point."
"I can't remember ever needing to try." Josie confessed. She ran a hand over the side of her face, feeling the smooth plastic of the band-aids. "But everything got so messed up, and, now, I'm here…"
"You seem to be doing okay with Allison and Lydia. At the whole 'friends' thing." The encouraging tone in Stiles's voice put Josie more at ease. If anything, he seemed less annoyed than before.
"It's easier with them."
The annoyance was back. "Again, ouch ."
"I didn't mean it in a bad way!" Josie protested.
"I don't think there's another way to mean it!"
Josie took a deep breath. She was determined to not get into another argument. Instead, she did her best to tell the truth. "It's just…y'know, different, with you. It feels different than trying to be friends with them."
"Well, it's better than the first one, so I'll take it." Stiles shot Josie a hopeful smile that only dimmed slightly when she didn't return it.
"I'm sorry for yelling." Josie focused on a freckle under Stiles's right eyebrow. It was an easier place to look than his eyes. "And for saying you treat me like I'm dumb. You don't."
"But I did lie and embarrass you." By the way he said it, Josie knew it wasn't really a question.
"Yeah."
Stiles heaved a sigh, running both hands over his face, before turning to face Josie. All the levity had left his voice. It was the most serious she'd ever heard him. "Josie, seriously, I'm sorry."
"You said that already."
"Because it's true. It was shitty and I will do my best to make sure it never happens again."
"Okay." Maybe it was the impossibly earnest look on his face or the way his hands were twitching in his lap, but Josie believed him. "I hope so."
"So…are we half-friends again?" A smile was blooming over Stiles's face that Josie couldn't stand to look at.
"I can do half-friends." Rather than hiding the small smile on her face, that began to grow as a response to his, Josie stayed facing Stiles. At the sight of her smile, it seemed as though Stiles's whole face lit up.
"You're still going to bother me about Derek, aren't you?" Even though he adopted a weary tone, his face was too light for Josie to believe it.
"Most likely, yeah." In a final apology, Josie bumped her shoulder into Stiles's. She turned away before he could respond, still feeling too brittle to take in his reaction, and settled her gaze at the end of the driveway.
And, if she felt a little disappointed when the sheriff's car pulled in, then that was no one's business but her own.