The Art of Getting Better | A Stydia AU (completed)

chapter 3

Lydia couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. She spent the night sitting in bed and staring at the wall or out the window. By time she did fall asleep it was at five thirty in the morning then woke up at seven in the morning. Her day started off bad and she wasn't a happy person.

Her mom left her a note saying that she would be out of town for a week and that there's spending money in a desk in her room in case Lydia runs out of food. Lydia shrugged and tore the note into pieces before throwing it away. She was never close with her mother, sometimes they even acted like that neither of them existed since her mom was always so consumed in her work or because Lydia spent most of the time locked in her room.

At this time of day Lydia would probably be in the forest or the abandoned building right now, but she seemed to have lost all motivation to go anywhere or do anything. She had no energy and had no clue what to do.

A knock on her front door interrupted her thoughts and she hesitated whether or not to go down and answer the door. Maybe if she just stood and made no noise that the person would go away, but Lydia decided to just answer the door and she saw Stiles.

"How do you know where I live?" Lydia's first question was, "And why are you here?" Was her second question.

"Well, you see, I walked you home yesterday. And also, I thought we could hang out." Stiles shrugs.

"Don't you have school?" Lydia says, becoming slightly irritated.

"Yes." Stiles nods, "But I don't want to go."

"I don't know, Stiles. I'd like to spend today by myself and crying for no reason like I usually do." Lydia says, "And I don't think there's anything we could do that I would enjoy."

Stiles smiles and pulls a rectangular box out of his back pocket, "I brought you hot tamales. I know that they're your favorite, so I figured it would be nice to bring you some."

"That's awesome!" Lydia exclaims and smiles as her mood becomes happier. "I ran out of these last night!"

"You know, they're actually not that bad. I sort of like them." Stiles says surprised since he always thought that hot tamales were gross and too hot.

Lydia rolls her eyes, "Everyone think they're bad just because they're hot. It only lasts for a few seconds and after you've had them a lot, you get use to it."

This was new to Lydia. She never had any friends and usually scared people off because she could always go to angry and sad to happy and cheerful. The fact that Stiles hadn't run off shocked Lydia. She never met anyone who actually wanted to talk to her or didn't think she was odd.

"So, I figured we could hang out and ditch school together. Again." Stiles suggests.

She shrugs, "What's in it for me?"

"You may or may not have a fun time." Stiles replies.

"Then tell me this, at the end of the day, will I regret hanging out with you?" She then questions and he laughs.

"Most likely. I mean look at me, I'm a total mess. I don't even know how I managed to get out of bed this morning."

"It's okay to be a mess. I am too and most people try to avoid me because of that, but look at you, you're here right now doing the opposite."

"Then what do you say?"

"Fine. At least let me get dressed first." Lydia sighs then walks into her room and closes the door. "Could you at least tell me why you've taken a liking to me?"

"Well, ever since Scott died, you're the first person that actually makes me happy and you are actually pretty fun to be around." Stiles says and Lydia nods then opens her door and zips up her black leather jacket.

"And you are the only person that has actually made me happy."

~-~-

Stiles and Lydia spent the rest of the day in front of a lake and just talked to each other. Stiles talked about Scott a lot and Lydia listened. He didn't like to talk about Scott around people because most of them just say that "they understand" or that "he should move past Scott's death" but Stiles didn't know how to move past Scott's death when he was the reason that his best friend died. How could anyone move past that?"

Lydia didn't talk much about herself and Stiles realized that she was actually a very private person who didn't feel comfortable discussing her feelings. She was the type of person who listened to what others are going through and never liked to talk about what she has had to go through.

"There's still one thing you haven't told me." Lydia says and Stiles looks at her.

"What is it?"

"How Scott died. You always tell me that it was your fault and that you caused it. But you never told me why."

Stiles facial expression darkens, "That's not exactly something I like to tell to people."

"Am I just any random person?" Lydia questions.

He shakes his head and lets out a heavy breath, "When Scott and I were younger and when my dad was too, we built a treehouse in my backyard out of wood. It was sturdy and we spent a lot of time in it. As we got older, so did the treehouse. It probably wasn't safe anymore but one day Scott and I decided to go back inside and see what it was like. As were climbing, one of the wooden pieces of ladder broke and Scott asked if the wooden piece was important and if it was a good idea to be going up. I shrugged and said it was fine and that it was not a big deal. We got inside and were walking around it when all the sudden we started to feel some wood drop and knew that it way too old and dangerous. But, it was too late. The treehouse fell down and so did we. The heaviest part landed on Scott. Wood hit his head and damaged some organs. I pulled him from the pile of wood and he was dying. Both of us knew that he was dying and there was nothing I could do to stop it. God, Lydia, I was so stupid. I should've said that it was best to just leave the treehouse alone and go do something else. I shouldn't have shrugged off what Scott said. He's dead because of me." Stiles has said multiple times that Scott's death was his fault and his mind always tormented him because of it. But telling the story out loud made him feel like he was reliving the whole thing. He remembered the look on Scott's face when he was slowly dying and remembered what it felt like to fall onto the ground. He remembered the feeling of panic he got as he was rummaging through the wood and tried to find Scott. He remembered everything. Stiles started crying. Everything was replaying in his head and he didn't know if he could handle it. Everything just felt too real for him.

"Hey, Stiles, it's not your fault." Lydia says as she hugs him and bites on her bottom lip nervously, "Scott's death is not your fault. Death happens to everyone, okay? Scott just left the Earth too early."

"He left too early and it was because it was my fault. It should've been me- I- Scott should've survived. He was a much better person than I am."

"Stiles, let me ask you something." Lydia says and pulls out of the hug and looks him straight in the face, "When you're in a field or garden, what kind of flowers do you pick?"

"The prettiest ones." He simply replies and Lydia nods as Stiles realizes the metaphor.

——

Ah, do you see what I did there?

 You know writing this story actually makes me pretty sad but I really do love the Stiles and Lydia interaction. What do you guys think?

I'm excited to write the next chapter and the rest of the book. I think this will be interesting since stuff like this isn't always written.

But anyways, I really hope you guys are enjoying this so far and thank you all for reading!