The Boy Behind The Glass • Stydia

12. i think i'm in love

C H A P T E R • T W E L V E 

Lydia is sitting at the dining table, pink pen in hand as she neatly writes, in cursive, swirly writing, her homework on the lined paper. Books are open and laid out in front of her as she reads through her notes.

Outside, the sky is clear and blue. There's a gentle wind and the sunshines bright and warm. 

"What are you doing?"

"Homework, Stiles," Lydia replies. "Did you not have it as a child?"

"No," Stiles answers, and Lydia looks up at him with widened green eyes. "What?"

"What did you do instead?" She asks.

"I've told you before, Lydia, I didn't go to school. Me and Scott were home schooled."

"So, you have no idea what school is like?"

"Only from what you have told me, and honestly, I'd prefer to be stuck in my mirrors," Stiles confesses, and Lydia chuckles at him for a few moments. 

"So, what did you do instead of school work?" Lydia puts her pen down, resting her chin in the palms of her hands. Her homework goes completely forgotten, as any task does when Stiles starts talking about his past.

"Played, I guess," Stiles shrugs. He's sitting in the mirror above the fire place, cross-legged as always. "Me and Scott had more professions, as such, instead of actual school. Before my mother died she taught me piano all the time, we did painting on Sundays, and when Melissa and Scott moved in, we played more games."

"Games?"

"Yeah, like ball games," Stiles says. His eyes flick to the windows. "Or we'd go exploring in the town and the forest. We'd play with the children that lived in there."

Lydia nods and smiles. She's heard about the 'Hale's' before when Stiles first mentioned them. "What were the children like?"

"They were our best friends," Stiles smiles nostalgically. "Talia, their mother, cooked the most amazing biscuits and bread. She ran her own bakery in town with her husband. Me and my mother used to go there every week to buy their food."

"Another thing that stopped after she died?" Lydia guess, and Stiles nods.

"Yeah," he replies.

"What happened to the family in the woods?"

"There was a fire, when I was 11. The house caught alight and everyone was inside," Stiles says, and the memory of the burnt house in the woods flashes in Lydia's mind. She saw it, charred and crumbling, but she forgot to mention it all those years ago. "Only a few of the children, Derek, Laura, and I think Cora survived. Peter, their uncle, was so burned he was sent to one of those prisons for crazy people. Laura died the summer after from pneumonia and Derek moved away. I have no idea what happened to him, but he must be dead by now."

"When did all of this happen?"

"The fire was the summer of 1904."

Lydia feels her eyebrows shoot to her hairline. "Wow, and how old was Derek?"

"He was sixteen."

"So that would make him. . ."

"125 years old!" Stiles replies with a chuckle. "I always did call him an old man."

Lydia's curiosity keeps her quiet for a while after that. She wonders about the Hale family that Stiles mentions so often, what happened to them really. In a way, it makes her wonder harder what truly happened to Stiles. The boy behind the glass of her mirror never speaks about why he's in there, and when he does talk about his family, it's short and sweet, but un-detailed.