Chapter Text
The red envelope had been sitting on her kitchen counter for the past three days. Her name and address were written on the front in neat block capitals, and the author had drawn two stick figures in the bottom righthand corner of it.
One of the stick figures was holding a bouquet of flowers, and the moment Lydia Martin had seen it, she’d been filled with irritation and had picked up the envelope, which had been waiting for her patiently on her doormat, and thrown it onto the kitchen counter.
Where it had been sitting, now, for a little too long.
Of course, she had a feeling that she knew exactly what was within the envelope, and that was exactly why she refused to open it.
She just didn’t believe that it could be true.
But the damn thing was haunting her. It couldn’t just be a regular white envelope that she’d picked up and opened without a second thought, or put down and successfully ignored until it became too late.
It had to be red. Eye-catchingly red, because that meant she couldn't not look at it whenever she walked past it.
And she was sick of it.
Finally, after she couldn’t resist any longer, she snatched up the red envelope and ripped it open as destructively as possible. Normally, she was a neat, slide a letter-opener underneath the flap kind of girl, but this caused for ripping the whole thing open as violently as she could.
Even though part of her had known what was coming, reading the words on the cream and gold embossed card inside the red envelope still caused her stomach to sink. Even after all these years.
Please join us as we celebrate the marriage of
Mieczysław “Stiles” Stilinski & Grace Freeman
on Saturday, January eighteenth
at one in the noon.
“Ugh,” Lydia said aloud, her voice echoing around the living room and kitchen area of her New York apartment. She reached for her phone and scrolled through her contacts until she found what — or who — she was looking for.
“Hey, Lydia,” Scott said once he eventually answered his phone. His voice was warm and comforting, like a soft blanket. Whenever she spoke to him, she always felt more relaxed. “I’m actually kind of busy at the moment, can I—”
“I opened it,” she announced, sinking down onto her cream coloured couch and propping her feet up on the thousand-dollar coffee table she’d ordered in from France. She had naively decided that the ridiculously expensive coffee table was exactly what the apartment needed to become home. “The invitation.”
Scott was quiet for a while. For too long. She was ready to ask him if he was still there, when he said, “Finally. It should have reached you days ago.”
“So, you knew?”
“Of course I knew,” Scott said, “and you knew as well.”
“That they’re together,” she reminded him, narrowing her eyes, “not that they’re freaking getting married.”
Again, he was quiet. Sometimes, she hated how impartial he tried to be. He was always careful with what he said and how he said it. Although, really, it wasn’t his fault — he was so often caught in the middle and he’d found the best way to handle it, like he usually handled arguments within his group of friends, was to be completely neutral.
“Stiles didn’t know whether to invite you or not,” he confessed, and Lydia suspected that Stiles hadn’t wanted that to be mentioned to her. Maybe even Scott had to be partial at times. “But in the end he decided that the two of you have gone through too much together not to invite you, and he wants you to be there.”
“I wish he hadn’t,” Lydia lied. The truth was that she had no idea, one way or the other, what she wanted.
If Stiles hadn’t invited her, she’d be offended and pissed that he thought he could invite all of her friends but not her; but then again, with the invitation in her hand, she didn’t feel like she had received the better end of the deal.
She understood his dilemma when it came to sending her the invite. She wouldn’t know what to do either, and that was a rarity for her.
“We’ll all be there,” Scott reassured her gently, “so if you decide to go, you won’t be there alone. But if you don't think it’s a good idea, Stiles will understand.”
Lydia was a logical person and everybody knew that. She thrived on things making sense — complex equations, molecular formulas — and anything that had a logical sequence and a clear, definitive answer she loved. It was simple. Maybe the work was difficult, but once she found the answer, she knew that it couldn’t be changed. Nobody could just suddenly decide that it was wrong. It was right. Clear-cut, correct.
Not like this.
She knew she should go. Stiles had been her friend for a long time, long before they’d ever dated, and it would be rude not to attend his wedding. Just because they hadn’t seen each other in years and she’d tried her best over the years since their break-up to ignore his new relationship. She’d known that he was serious about his girlfriend, but it never crossed her mind that he was serious enough to get engaged to her.
But still, that didn’t give her a reason not to go to Stiles’s wedding — because she knew that he’d go to hers, no matter his personal feelings about it.
But then … Could she really stand to see Stiles get married? Maybe it would be bearable if she was just invited to the reception, she could show up in an expensive designer dress, perfect blowout and professionally done makeup. They’d already be married and she would look fabulous whilst simultaneously not having to witness that for herself. But she was invited to the entire thing, and the thought of sitting there, as a guest, while Stiles got married …
Her heart ached just thinking about it.
But that wasn’t because she was still hung up on Stiles — God no. She was just … nostalgic. Her life in New York was fast-paced and crazy, but she missed the days of Beacon Hills and the days that the gang fought the supernatural terrors together.
Well, maybe she didn’t miss the supernatural terrors, exactly, but she missed the late nights, figuring out the answer to the latest mystery and working with her friends to save lives. Again and again and again.
If she was being really honest with herself, she missed all of it. She had long since moved on from Stiles, accepting that their relationship was clearly not supposed to work, but she still ached for Beacon Hills and the life she’d lived there.
New York didn’t feel like home to her, despite living there for the past five years. When someone asked her when she lived, Beacon Hills was always on the tip of her tongue before she forced herself to say New York.
“I’ll think about it,” she answered eventually, aware that she’d kept Scott waiting for a long time while she’d been lost in thought.
“Okay,” Scott said, sighing. “I hope you do come.”
She promised him that she’d seriously consider it, before she lied and said she had work to do and she couldn’t chat for longer. After her phone call with Scott, the room felt empty. She’d tried her hardest to make the apartment homely, and had more than enough money to decorate it just how she wanted, but it was still so impersonal.
The walls were stark, white and empty.
Maybe if she framed a photo, that would fix the problem.
She was constantly looking for ways to make the apartment feel like home, but nothing ever seemed to work. New York was still just a city, the apartment felt like somebody else’s. Her heart belonged in Beacon Hills, and it always would.
______________________________________________________
Lydia wondered when she’d become so transparent. The second she stepped into her office at the scientific research centre she worked at, her assistant knew something was wrong.
Maybe it was the slightly dishevelled look she was sporting due to the lack of sleep she’d had in the last few days, or perhaps even the fact that she wasn’t wearing lipstick. That was usually a big give away. Or maybe it was because Lydia was three minutes late to work, which never happened.
It could have been none of these reasons, or all of them. She didn’t know. It was Ella’s own choice, and Lydia didn’t have the energy to wonder what gave the game away.
“Have you slept at all this weekend?” Ella asked, taking a seat in one of the chairs across from Lydia’s desk.
“Nope,” Lydia answered, logging into her computer and watching as the screen began to load. Her eyes were bleary from stalking Stiles’s Facebook profile for hours last night and she hated herself for what she’d become.
“Why?” Ella asked.
Lydia shot her a look. Ella never knew when to stop asking questions. “My ex-boyfriend sent me an invitation to his wedding on Friday night,” she explained briskly, then rolled her eyes. “Well, no, he sent me the invite before that. I opened it on Friday night. It ruined my weekend.”
“Wow,” Ella said. “Which ex?”
Lydia forced herself to look at her computer screen, loading up the checklist app she couldn’t live without, and tried to make herself sound cheerful when she answered. Like Stiles’s wedding invitation hadn’t filled her with an all-consuming bitterness and general feeling of dread. Like there was nothing even to think about.
“Stiles.”
“Wow,” Ella said again, causing Lydia to shoot her another look. “That’s not just any ex. That’s the ex. The one who broke your heart, right?”
“He did not—” Lydia answered, her voice a little too shrill to be normal. She regained composure. “He did not break my heart. It was mutual.”
“Oh,” Ella replied. “Right. So, are you going?”
“What?”
“To the wedding,” she said. “Are you going? I mean, wasn’t he your best friend for years?”
Lydia started to feel that twitch in her eye returning. It had started happening when she’d moved to New York, and it had taken her forever to fix the problem. It usually only surfaced when she was extra stressed and she told herself it was because there was a huge deadline coming up at the research centre, and she needed to be on her best game.
“I can’t go back to Beacon Hills,” she told Ella flatly, “there’s too much to be doing here.”
“I’m sure I could figure something out for you if I just speak to Robert—”
“Ella,” Lydia sighed. “Please don’t do that.”
“Wait, so you’re not going?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” she replied, scrolling through the checklist without really paying attention to what she was looking for. Something to do, she supposed. Something to keep her only half-focused on the conversation with Ella.
“If you need the time off work, I can arrange that for you,” Ella said slowly. “You’ve put in enough hours at this place for the last five years, they owe you more than just a weekend off. If you need that. If not — don’t worry. Just let me know.”
Lydia nodded, softening a little. Ella had been a good friend to her for the last few years. She was just stressed and sick of thinking about this damn wedding. She’d almost RSVPed — I accept with pleasure the invitation to the Stilinski-Freeman wedding or, sometimes, I decline with regret as I don’t want to go to your stupid wedding! — before deleting the response every time and staring at the invitation for just a little while longer.
It was ridiculous the amount of strain this damn invitation had caused. She’d gone crazy going back and forth for the past few days, thinking about what would happen if she accepted, if she declined, if she just tossed it out of the window of her eighth-floor apartment and completely ignored it.
And now, Monday morning, she still didn’t know. The dilemma had cost her the entire weekend and she had nothing to show for it.
“Thanks, Ella,” she said, “I’ll let you know.”
“You have a meeting at ten,” Ella reminded her, getting to her feet. “I’ll be at my desk if you need me.”
“Thanks,” Lydia said again, watching as her assistant left the room. As soon as Ella left, she rooted around in her purse for the invitation. For some reason, she hadn’t just left it at the apartment. She’d walked right past it before leaving for work and then she’d gone back for it, picked it up and stuffed it into her purse without another thought.
Now, she wasn’t sure why she’d brought it with her. If inanimate objects could stare, it would be eyeballing her right there and then while she sat at her desk.
She used the phone on her desk to call Malia, which she wasn’t supposed to do, but she classed this as an emergency.
Malia’s voice was a welcome distraction. “Hey, Lydia.”
“Hey,” Lydia said, keeping her voice as quiet as she could and spinning her chair so she faced the wall. She didn’t want any of her superiors to walk past and overhear her personal phone call. “Did you get the invitation to Stiles’s wedding?”
“Uh-huh,” Malia replied, sounding bored already. “Is this why you called?”
“Yeah,” Lydia said. “Are you going? I mean, he’s your ex-boyfriend too.”
“Of course I am. He’s my friend.” Malia answered. She made it sound so simple. “And I like weddings.”
“Right,” Lydia said.
“You like weddings too,” Malia reminded her. “I thought you’d be the first to reply, but Scott said you didn’t know if you’d be going.”
“He’s my ex-boyfriend,” Lydia told her, though she didn’t think anyone needed reminding about that. “I can’t believe I’ve even been invited to this thing. What am I supposed to do?”
“Say yes,” Malia urged her, “you’re his friend and he’s yours. You should go so you can support him. Stiles doesn’t have a big family — we’re the only family he has.”
Malia’s words resonated with her and simultaneously sent a shocking amount of guilt through her. The pack had been an unshakeable unit for so long that it seemed like nothing could come between them, but when Stiles and Lydia had broken up during their second year of college … Lydia hadn’t known how to come back from that. She’d stopped talking to the rest of the pack. She couldn’t face them. After college, she’d moved to New York and only went back to Beacon Hills for holidays.
It was only recently that she’d built up the courage to call Scott and Malia to beg for their forgiveness. And luckily, they were the forgiving type. But Stiles, she still hadn’t fully known how to deal with. She’d told the truth to Ella, their break-up had been mutual … but it also wasn’t as simple as that.
“I don’t think I can go, Malia,” she said quietly, because part of her scoffed at the idea of being too afraid to go. She was Lydia Martin! Since when did she shy away from anything?
But she just couldn’t picture going to that wedding and watching Stiles marry someone else. Even if they’d both moved on and she didn’t love him anymore, she thought she’d have to be some kind of a crazy person to willingly watch her ex-boyfriend marry somebody else.
So, no. She couldn’t go. She didn't want to make things weird and awkward. She didn’t want her friends to spend the entire day worrying about her and how she was doing, when they should be celebrating Stiles.
It was his day, and she had a feeling that she’d ruin things if she went. Nobody liked the one guest who sat in the corner at weddings, checking her watch and figuring out when it was an acceptable time to leave.
She just wouldn’t go. That would spare all the heartache, the confusion, and everything between. It was stupid, really, to think that she had genuinely considered going.
Also, if she was being honest with herself, she didn’t know how she’d feel after seeing Stiles again for the first time since they’d broken up (she’d become very good at orchestrating her trips home to see her mom for just when Stiles happened to be either out of town or too busy working to meet up). It had been seven whole years now but she still wasn’t sure that she could get through that. It hurt enough the last time she’d seen him, and it had taken her long enough to stop thinking about it. Even with that pain residing at the back of her mind, how could she see him again knowing it would be his wedding day? To someone else.
“I … can’t,” she said again, even though Malia hadn’t asked her for an explanation. Both Scott and Malia liked to do that thing where they waited silently, patiently, for her to keep talking and give more excuses than necessary. They thought it made her realise how stupid she was being, but usually it just annoyed her.
“I’m sure Stiles will understand,” Malia said finally, “but he said the other day that he was looking forward to seeing you. We all were — it’s been so long since we were all together. You come home at the worst times, you know.”
Lydia felt more guilt seep through her. “I know, I know. I just … Work is so busy at the moment.”
“Uh-huh,” Malia didn’t believe her, but then again Lydia didn’t believe herself. “That’s why you’re on the phone to me at nine-fifteen a.m. rather than working.”
Lydia’s cheeks burned red. “You’re right, I should probably go. I’ll speak to you soon, Malia.”
“Uh-huh,” Malia said again, “bye, Lydia.”
With the office quiet again, Lydia opened up her personal email account. She felt formal emailing Stiles — like hell she was going to email Stiles’s fiancée instead of him — but she didn’t know if he’d changed numbers in the last seven years. It was likely that he had, but she didn’t want to ask Scott for his new number because Scott would want to know why.
Then she would feel obliged to tell Scott that she was, in fact, declining Stiles’s wedding invitation because she thought it might bring back all those memories she’d worked so hard to forget. She would have to admit that she was declining for completely selfish reasons.
She didn’t think she could handle Scott’s disapproval on top of everything else.
Quickly and professionally, she began constructing the RSVP to Stiles’s wedding invitation — it was an email she never imagined she’d need to send, because she’d always assumed that she’d be the one marrying him — with a multitude of thoughts whizzing around her head.
Maybe it would be awkward and weird to go, but she was Lydia Martin. Would she really not go to some stupid wedding because of her own selfishness?
This was Stiles. He knew her better than anyone, and the thought of him receiving her answer and knowing she’d said no filled her with annoyance. He’d think that it was because of him. Maybe everyone would feel sorry for her. She couldn’t stand pity.
She had no idea what to do. For once, she was completely at a loss.
She deleted the reply and stared at the blinking cursor on the screen. She really needed to get back to work — she couldn’t put this off for much longer. It was now or never.
She typed out a reply, titled the email as Lydia Martin’s RSVP, and hit send.