The Boy Behind The Glass • Stydia

14. suddenly i see

C H A P T E R • F O U R T E E N

The waitress places the tea and cakes down on the round table with a kind smile, and Lydia feels herself smiling back, despite feeling entirely numb inside.

Her mother seems pleased across the table from her, after insisting she wanted the pair of them to spend sometime together today.

"I feel like I never see you anymore, Lydia," she had said that morning, standing in her bedroom doorway. "You're turning sixteen in a few weeks, and I feel like a stranger to my own daughter."

Lydia had rolled out of bed and given her mother a hug, sorely relating to how her mother was feeling. She'd become obsessed with becoming beautiful and perfect for Jackson, and her mother had spent the last four years since her father walked out at work, focusing on distracting herself with low-self-esteem teenagers and pretending their problems will solve her own. 

"This is nice, isn't it," Natalie says, breaking the settled silence. She picks up the cute tea cup, sipping the still steaming tea and humming. "It's been too long since we've done anything like this."

"We've never done anything like this," Lydia replies, not intending for her words and tone to sound so hostile. 

Her mother's expression drops a fraction, and the smile she shows next is so clearing forced, "Well, then, maybe we should start doing it. I've missed you, Lydia, and I don't like this distance between us."

Lydia feels her shoulders deflate and she looks down at the pristinely cut red velvet cake on a small plate. "I don't like it either, but you're the one who created it."

"Now, it's not all my fault," Natalie defends, quickly holding a hand up, "But I know you must feel abandoned after what happened with your father and my increased work hours."

"Voluntary increased work hours," Lydia corrects. "You're the one who's never home."

"Lydia, you spent all of last week at Jackson's house. I am not the only one who's never home."

Lydia opens her mouth, but the words don't come out. It's true: she's bee spending almost all of her free time at either Allison's house or Jackson's. The house is simply too big and too quiet to be home, and it's even worse without Stiles.

Natalie smiles, warm and soft, "You really like him, don't you?"

Lydia looks up, about to spill, 'how do you know about Stiles?' when she realises her mother is talking about Jackson.

She quickly covers, "Yeah, mum. I do."

"Why don't you invite him over on your birthday," her mother says. "We could all have dinner together."

Lydia's eyes widen and she lets out a startled laugh, "I think he's taking me out, but we could do that another time."

They talk a little bit about school, about how much Lydia is enjoying it and that Natalie is proud of her grades - though they're lower than she expected. "You're a smart girl, Lydia," her mother tells her. "You don't need to dumb yourself down for boys."

Lydia's mind reels back to every time Stiles told her not to change herself, that she was growing up too quick. It's been two years, and Lydia doesn't know how she's meant to get him back. And she really wants him back, she wants someone who has known her all this time, before Allison and Jackson, before her father leaving and her dramatic changes during high school. She's been in Beacon Hills for eight years, and Stiles was the only one who had ever brought her any kind of comfort or warmth in that big, lonely house.