Summer's Darling

• Chapter Ten •

Stiles has this pit growing and growing and growing at the base of his stomach; the giant seed in the middle of the anxious fruit that is his abdomen. He knows he's going to have to knock on Lydia Martin's door. Maybe not today, but definitely some time this week. And he knows he can't keep putting it off.

Monday:

Stiles still restricts himself to the back porch. No ocean time. None. And after Lydia leaves his presence abruptly, he's stuck watching Scott wade through the water. The back of his brain seems as though it's becoming heavier and he can almost feel his temples beginning to tense with an upcoming headache. He figures the only way he can distract himself is by picking up his textbook. But as he discovers, flipping through pages, memorizing formulas, attempting sample questions... he is severely ill equipped to be taking this course (even if it is just basic college math). He finds himself getting extremely frustrated when checking his answers on the textbooks practice tests and finding a majority of his answers are wrong, wrong, wrong. Luckily, Stiles figures, he's hit the jackpot in smart best friends.

Stiles calls out to Scott and the puppy dog begrudgingly (but somehow also happily) flees from the ocean and joins his comrade on the porch.
"Could you help me?" Stiles attempts to sound as though he's not begging.
Scott rounds the side of Stiles chair and glances over his shoulder at the equations on the pages.
He scoffs.
Stiles immediately begins to panic, "what?"
"I'm not helping you with that shit." Scott grabs a towel from the back of the chair where summer's darling had sat on moments ago.
"You don't understand it?"
"Oh I understand it," Scott throws the towel over his head and shakes it to dry his hair a little, "well... I do but I don't. I don't understand it enough to help you."
"But you're good at this shit. The school shit, you know?" Stiles gestures to the book in his lap.
"Math is different: I learn it, I pass the test, I forget it. In order to teach you, I'd have to re-teach myself first... there's only one solution to this problem." Scott hangs the towel around his neck now and uses his eyes to gesture towards the Martin household.

Uh oh.

Stiles closes his book and stands, "no, no way."
"Break the ice!" Scott moves his hand in a scooting motion, as if nudging his friend gently towards the issue.
"She hates me, and for good reason too. I can't ask her for help, it's crossing a line!" But even as he says it, Stiles knows, there's practically no other option if he intends to pass this summer course.

Tuesday:

Stiles has spent the morning moping aimlessly around his room, switching between flipping through his schoolwork and pacing the room in an attempt to find his courage. Courage to do one of two things: ask Lydia Martin to tutor him or jump into the ocean. By the end of the week, Stiles has vowed he will do one of the two, no matter what. And since his body refuses to walk out into the water without regaining some form of a relationship with its darling, he figures he'll be forced to do the former.
"Fuck it," Stiles mutters throws open the door to his room. He storms through the house, ignoring the question of "where are you going" coming from Scott on the couch, and heading out the back door. The heat from the sun immediately hits his shoulders and he peels off his shirt, abandoning it on the back porch as he ascends the steps of the back porch. The sand nearly burns the bottoms of his feet but he doesn't care, he's determined. He keeps walking until the sand turns cool underneath him, moist from the ocean. His steps falter until finally he stops, just before the pull of the water.

The waves scream.

Crash

Whoosh

The air leaves his lungs.

Crash

Whoosh

Wednesday:

Scott's been knocking on his door every thirty minutes or so all morning and frankly, he's a little concerned. It's nearly two o'clock and Stiles has been locked in his enclosure all day, ignoring the knocking completely.
"You need to eat," Scott says softly through the door.
As if he had forgotten about the existence of food completely, Stiles opens the door at this comment.
"Hey," he mutters and Scott is a little stunned at his appearance. His hair hasn't been fixed since he's woken up this morning but he's managed to get dressed in a tank top and swim trunks. His eyes have bags under them and as Scott looks over his shoulder into the room, he can see papers line the floor in little piles. Stiles slips past him.
"Hey?" Scott trails after his friend. "Stiles, you've been locked in your room all day and all you've got for me is 'hey'?" He follows him to the kitchen.
Stiles makes his way to the front door. "Don't fuck up my momentum." He swings the front door open and cuts across the front yard to the Martin household causing Scott to take a hint and stay in the Stilinski home.

Stiles hesitates.

But then he hears the familiar but stern voice:

Crash

Whoosh

And he knocks.