The Rise of Lydia Rowe ↠ Jasper Hale (ON HOLD)

[2.22] a vote

"SO YOU'RE BACK TOGETHER?" Gwen asked, pulling into a parking spot next to their favorite fro-yo shop. "Just like that?" 

Lydia bit her lip. "Not 'just like that,'" she defended. "It's not going to be like it was before, not right away, but I want to give him another chance." She looked at her best friend as the two got out of Gwen's car. "Are you disappointed in me?" 

Gwen scoffed in amusement. "I'm not disappointed, Lydia," she said as the two walked to the shop. "I'm just a little worried. He broke your heart," she murmured, looking at Lydia with eyes full of concern. "I just don't want you to give him a second chance and he ends up hurting you again." 

"He won't," Lydia said quietly. 

Gwen didn't look convinced, but she gave Lydia a soft smile. "If you're sure, then I'm happy for you," she said. "I was really worried about you after he left, and then you started feeling okay without him. I just... I never want to see you get hurt like that again." 

Lydia gave her friend a smile, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as they got in line behind a middle-aged couple. "You don't have to worry about me, Gwen," she said softly. 

"Of course I do," Gwen said. "You're my best friend." 

As Lydia and Gwen sat down with their five cups of fro-yo, Gwen checked her phone. That familiar lovesick smile on her face told Lydia exactly whose text she was reading. 

"They just parked," Gwen told Lydia with an involuntary smile, setting her phone down. A few moments later, three teenage shape-shifters waltzed into the fro-yo shop and Gwen waved them over. 

"Hey, River Phoenix," Embry greeted, taking the strawberry-flavored fro-yo she slid his way with a grin. "Oh yell yeah, you got those little chocolate chips!" 

Lydia chuckled in amusement. "Because if I knew if I forgot you'd start whining about it," she teased. She looked over at her best friend, who was smiling sweetly at Leah from across the table. Stifling a laugh, Lydia greeted, "Hey, Leah." 

Blinking in surprise, Leah's gaze when to Lydia. "Oh, hey Lydia." 

Lydia fought not to laugh, leaving her best friend and her shape-shifter imprint to talk quietly as she returned her attention to Seth and Embry. "So, anything interesting happen at school today?" 

Embry scoffed. "There's barely a hundred people at our high school, of course nothing interesting happened." 

"I had a pop quiz in geography," Seth mumbled dejectedly. "I think I failed." 

"Should have studied," Leah said, breaking the dopey staring contest she had going on with Gwen to scold her little brother. 

"What was it on?" Gwen asked curiously. "I'm good at geography." 

"We had to label all the countries in Western Europe on a map," Seth said. "I only knew ten before my mind went blank. And I don't even know if I spelled those right." 

"I can tutor you, if you'd like," Gwen offered. 

Lydia almost laughed at how in-awe Leah looked at the sight of her imprint offering to help her little brother out. She caught Leah's eye and mouthed, Whipped, which made the shifter girl shake her head with the smallest of amused smiles. 

The group of five spent about an hour at the shop, swapping stories from their days at school or whatever came to mind. Lydia enjoyed their company—as much as she still liked the Cullens and hanging out with them, she also loved hanging out with Embry, Seth, and Leah just as much, as well as the rest of the pack. She wondered if it had something to do with the fact that they were teenagers like her, rather than teenagers who'd been teenagers for an outrageously long time. There was a lightness to Embry and Seth's attitudes, and Leah's when she wasn't unconsciously brooding about one thing or another. They weren't so old that they'd seen so much cruelty or injustice in the world, like the Cullens. Things didn't feel so life and death around the pack, even if they were just as capable of violence as the Cullens in theory.