Chapter Text
You had this reverie, this far off dream barely recognized in dawning light, where you were born into another life. Beacon Hills was an inconsequential period on a California map, somewhere you’d never been and never cared to know. You could hit the refresh button. Start again. Live a life dictated by your own vices and virtues, and no one else’s. Want people who actually wanted you back.
You are sixteen and keenly aware of your despondency. Regret is the consequence of aging, and as a teenage girl, you are not afforded any. But nevertheless, you are greedy and selfish and your sticky fingers end up in the jar. A few were snatched, but they boil down to a lovesick cliché and futile words in your journal.
At school, you spot him rattling on to Scott near the entrance, always Scott, and you strut past, freshly curled curls bouncing neatly on your shoulders. He doesn’t even peek in your direction. Boy wonder, with his endless list of faults, is indifferent to the point of no return. You’re not sure what that says about you. Nothing good, probably.
The new girl has a mom who was a buyer for a boutique in San Francisco and a jacket you’d like to borrow sometime. You tell her she’s your new best friend as a throwaway comment, a phrase you use on every girlfriend, but she smiles uncertainly like you’ve given her a gift.
Jackson’s arm snakes around your waist and you praise him for leading the team into battle, tumbling into the role you are meant to play, and you play it so well. Pretty girls date MVPs. Jackson preens.
Stiles jumps up to cheer on Scott, who seems to have grown lightning quick reflexes overnight, and so do you.
You need to keep an eye out for Allison. She’s the new girl in a foreign land and there’s no telling what devious deeds the idiot boys of Beacon Hills have cooped up their sleeves, but Jackson’s hands are all over you. You’re so fucking hot tonight, baby, he moans, backing you up hard into a white column, his mouth already on your throat, his body hunched like some kind of animal. He kisses you with desperation, abandoning reason and conscious thought. You spot her in the middle of dancing bodies. With Scott. As safe as any two people could be while making puppy dog eyes at each other. You smile to yourself while Jackson leaves slobbery mementos down your jugular.
***
You usually keep public displays of intelligence to a minimum, addendums to comments, annexed with a confused, wide-eyed look, to ensure credit never lands on you, but Scott McCall is testing your patience. He aces tryouts, injuring Jackson in the process, and now is backing out of the first game of the season. A conundrum. Much like his lack of mathematical prowess. In the time it takes him to write the standard quadratic equation on the chalkboard, you have solved not only your problem, but his as well.
X = (-(b)±√((b)2-(4ac)))/(2a)
X = (-(4)±√((4)2-(4*2*-7)))/(2*2)
(-(4)±√(72)/(4) = (-4+8.4853)/4 ; (-4-8.4853)/4
X = 1.121 ; X = -3.121
In the constant pulsations of the hospital, a creature with a heartbeat unto itself, you wait for news. Stiles shows up, glancing from you to the receptionist in a casual, fixed arch before taking a seat around the corner, invariably one step out of sight.
Or do you want to go pro? You ask Jackson, shifting closer with every syllable. It’s been a blimp on the sky of your future possibilities since Jackson first landed on the front page of the local newspaper, what a pro career would mean for him. And for you. There is no professional sports team within a 50 mile radius from here. Your dream is not so farfetched when viewed from this angle. The method is divergent, but the outcome consistent. You kiss him while Stiles pretends to be engrossed in a menstruation brochure and only register a slight pang of sadness. This is moving on.
You painted a ‘Jackson is #1’ sign in study hall because you’d already finished, and double-checked, the algebra assignments for the rest of the week. The sign has to be perfect and you laid it out first in careful, soft strokes of pencil markings before filling it in, making sure to not bleed out over any lines. Jackson wouldn’t be able to tell from the field if you had screwed up, but you would.
After the final whistle blows, you are officially dating the captain of the winning lacrosse team and all is right with the world. You love Jackson, you do. Not in the same way or with like hunger, but the sentiment is there. Parts of you think it’s possible; you can fit both into the vessels of your heart. There’s enough room in there for the both of them.
But instead of heading for your boyfriend and the flock of cockamamie girls he’s attracting, you catch sight of Stiles, alone by the abandoned lacrosse sticks, and beeline for him because it’s clear that if the capacity to love had a limit, you’d be fooling yourself to believe there was room for anyone else. You want to congratulate him on, what? Warming the bench? You hesitate for a second and he takes off for the locker room.
***
With Allison safely in the clutches of infatuation over dorky Scott, you plop down with ease at their table, as if you’d done it day in and day out, confident that everyone else will follow you into the depths of the untouchables. They do. Stiles is sitting across from you, and he huffs in disbelief, leans over the table, and whispers to Scott. Why is she sitting with us?
Your heart drops. Metaphorically, of course, because you know the limbic system is the real culprit, the true architect of disappointment. The irony being, the wirings that make you ache with longing for him are the same ones that mockingly remind you of its unreciprocal nature. But none of this, the knowledge you so proudly keep locked up in your ivory tower, explains how hollow you feel, how carved out you are at the exact spot your heart should be.
Jackson hitches up his eyebrows and you quickly backtrack into bimbo mode.
Cougar (also known as mountain lion);
animalia
chordate
mammalia
carnivore
felidae
puma
Species: Puma concolor.
He doesn’t suspect a thing, but Stiles gives you a long, penetrating look. Whole divisions of your brain are abolished with his candor.
For someone who shares half of her genes with a boutique buyer, she has clothes in her closet that your mom would rather drop dead than wear. You choose a flattering black top for her, but her dad sets a curfew, and she front flips off the second floor rooftop. Grins, like eight years gymnastics was enough of an explanation. Allison Argent is unlike anyone you have ever known.
You bowled every day in summer camp when you were 12 and learned about rotational inertia at 13. Jackson’s technique is sloppy and he lacks a free armswing, but you let him guide your elbow in jerky fashion for most of the night. Allison is the first person to have caught on to the sham. It gives you a thrill, having someone know your potential.
The way Allison looks when she describes him, a rosy tinge working its way into her cheeks, nervous laughter on her lips, a complete disbelief that he, Scott McCall, so very different, would even consider copping a feel, just reminds you of how long through your first date it took for Jackson to reach up the front of your shirt. You swallow the sour taste in your mouth and laugh at the desire etched in every pore on Allison’s face.
Phenylethylamine: C8H11N: releases norepinephrine and dopamine into the synapse; low concentrations in those with ADHD, like Stiles
***
You are not crazy. Hallucinations can occur as a symptom of insomnia, neurological disorders, psychosis, or drug use. None of which you have. Yet, you can’t explain the monstrous wolf, black hole fur you get sucked into, that comes crashing out of Video 2C. You think maybe you fell asleep in the car, drifted off into REM and had a vivid night terror, or a resurgent episode of sleep paralysis, but that doesn’t begin to explain the broken glass, why Jackson is shaking. The Sheriff is there to placate the situation, and Stiles, as he always is in your finest moments.
Painting your nails has become such a rampant part of your muscle memory repertoire you could do it while under the influence of heavy medication, which you do now, because mountain lions usually come with coats of lighter coloring. Stiles comes visiting, asking if you are okay, and it’s a dirty trick, believing that he cares. Until it registers. He’s being kind. That the bar is set low enough you mistake decency for something more hurts. The realization hits you like a freight train pileup. You pat the edge of your bed, scoot close enough to see every single mole, collisional products of generations upon generations of Stilinski magic, and collapse unceremoniously on his thighs.
Stay. Please stay. You ask of him, already in the bouts of drugged loftiness, and, surprisingly, he does. There’s a heat in your chest and you stroke down both sides of his chin, wanting him to feel how you feel. Please, Jackson, you beg before sleep claims you for its own.
Looking like you takes effort. First, there is foundation to cover up the flaws. Concealer to eradicate the dark circles under your eyes. Blush and bronzer to contour the bone structure of your cheeks into finer features. A limited edition cherry red lip-gloss to give the illusion of fuller, puckered lips. And a sanguine smile because unsettled is not a good look on you.
***
Allison decides to do a bit of ancestry research, diving into the most tedious and outlandish tale you have ever heard, but she shoves a picture in front of you and your insides feel numbed with cold. You remember the wolf that leapt out of the pages of an ancient French legend.
***
You are taken, against your will, to the school at night because Allison gets a text from Scott. If this is an ill-fated attempt at courtship or groping action in a deserted classroom, you hope, for Scott’s sake, that he’s thought it carefully through because in what world is it deemed romantic to bring a date to a place you are forced to be at for eight hours a day? Then you see Stiles’ abandoned jeep, the piece of crap he loves so much, and your breath catches.
Jackson takes his time chatting with Allison. You can’t hear what they’re saying, but they both gravitate too close, like opposite ends of a magnet.
Edward T. Hall, noted anthropologist, devised enclosed personal reaction circles. The categories are, as follows:
Public space: 12-25 feet
Social distance: 4-12 feet
Personal distance: 1.5-4 feet
Intimate distance: 6-18 inches
You stare down at your lap, ignoring Jackson’s total disregard for you.
He turns sleuth and tries to leave you in the car, but you rush after him because you are not keen to reenact prior events. There are claw marks running down the front hood of the jeep, like something had torn it open with a single sweep. The battery is gone. Can we get Allison and leave now? You demand of him, leaving the rest unspoken, but letting it play out like a repetitive music box safely in your head.
Something crashes from the ceiling and you run for your life.
Scott refuses to look at anyone and Stiles spills it. The janitor is dead. And you, you thought by some perverse happenstance that this ended with the mountain lion, but it’s getting increasingly onerous to lie to yourself when the answer is snapping at your heels.
The operator sounds like she’s been on call since the beginning of time and she cuts you off, lets you know that you are the bane of her existence, that she’s not going to stand for your prank calls. The tone goes dead.
Stiles socks Jackson hard in the nose over his dad. In all likelihood, the four of you are doomed and you wish you could hate him for that.
The group stare at you like you are an extraterrestrial, newly landed on earth, and you roll your eyes. You can go back to being a simpleton after a murderous guy bent on carnage is not stalking somewhere in the near vicinity.
Molotov cocktail, makeshift fire bomb, a poor man’s grenade. Glass flask. White phosphorus in liquid carbon disulfide. Add in white phosphorus. Alternatively, sulfuric acid, sugar, potassium chlorate. Non-rubber stopper because of dissolvable compounds. Ignites on impact.
Allison’s voice breaks and Jackson cups his hands, large and warm, over hers, hiding them entirely. You are too frightened to be jealous, but you observe them together long enough to become aware of your own hands and the slight tremor developing. Folding them quickly across the span of your stomach, afraid you’ll be seen, or worse, pitied, you catch Stiles watching you. He has a way of crawling deep under the three layers of your skin.
The bottle of sulfuric acid sits where you left it and doubt creeps onto your tongue. Did you smell rotten eggs? You can’t recall. None of it matters when he doesn’t come back.
The police finally arrive, late, like in the movies, and everyone lets out a collected sigh of relief, except for Stiles whose pupils dilate. The unspoken question: what if the nightmare is not over? In reply, the hair on your arm bristles.
***
You are hard on Allison when she asks you whether she made a mistake with Scott. Normally, you are a great judge of character, always have been, and you thought you had the lovebirds pegged, but then Scott goes and pulls on a mask. Or takes one off. Either way, this is not to be taken lightly. You are still here, no matter Scott’s intentions, and Allison is blind to the obvious. The instance you respect him for most, locking the chemistry room door, is the reason they’re not together.
So when he leads you into an empty classroom, it is almost too easy. Except he mumbles Allison’s name in a hopeless plea and the feelings you keep confined behind lock boxes with digit passwords only you know howl to be let free. Feelings of fear, of impotence, of bitter envy. Scott and Allison, so unprepared and foolishly naïve enough as to think they could just be themselves, somehow get the best of both worlds, while you, who constantly have to split in two, have to grapple, fight, for a precarious spot where you get the privilege of watching your boyfriend ignore you.
When Scott’s fingers claw at your back and all you can smell is musky boy scent, you tighten your eyes and imagine that the wet lips on yours aren’t his.
Jackson notices the smeared lipstick. Stiles does, too.
***
Iago, character from Shakespeare’s Othello. Antagonist, mastermind villain who preys on Othello and his wife, Desdemona, tearing them apart for unknown reasons; some speculate for no reason at all.
Allison bolts from class, Scott shortly after. They miss the best part. Aristotle stated there were only two basic plots for humankind: comedies and tragedies. Christopher Booker, in the 21st century, alleges seven. Either way, there are finite resolutions. Every story has an antagonist. Some have an Iago, destroyer for the sake of destruction. You are this tale’s. The only thing left to be determined is whether the pages wear thin with your demise or your redemption. Neither seems an appropriate fit.
You have never been good at having friends. Never claimed you were.
Dead weight. You get called dead weight in the middle of a crowded hallway by the captain of the lacrosse team. He makes you feel like it’s true. Your pulse is hammering in your ear when you yell after him, not caring who hears, because what does that matter now?
***
Your heels are not cross-terrain suitable and you can feel the tips sinking into the dirt with each step. Allison is going to the dance with Jackson as just friends. The last time someone used the just friends line on you, you ended up in the backseat of his Porsche with mussed up hair. The real shocker, though, is that she knows. She knows you’re the big bad who seduced sweet, trusting Scott. It scares you. Losing Allison would be a bigger blow than you initially estimated.
***
You tell her you’re buying her a dress for the dance, knowing she deserves better, infinitely more, but maybe that’s the only thing you have to give. A pretty dress she’ll probably only wear once. Most of you wishes she would exact revenge, maybe sleep with Jackson. Even the score. But she remains friendly. You were waiting for a slow burn, forgiveness in small increments that you have to work for; she gives it all at once. You should live in acid for what you did to her.
Him, she says, biting back a smile. It’s an obvious ploy to get her on again/off again’s dateless best friend arm candy, but there’s a mischievous flash in Allison’s eyes. You are her ploy. You don’t lose her.
Stiles helps you carry your dresses to the changing room, sinks dutifully into a comfy looking couch to wait for you. When you come out in the cream strapless number, he smiles and gives you thumbs up. That’s the one, he says. You don’t bother with the four other outfits you have lined up.
He makes you want to write sonnets and compose symphonies and speak in prose, none of which play to strengths of yours. But he spurs you with desire to dwell in your weaknesses. Build a home with a white picket fence there and stay. And you would, too, if he came along.
Well I think you look beautiful. An atom bomb detonates inside of you. The truth of being you in love is that you are privy to the thorns. You love with an unrivaled fierceness you’ve never been witness to, certainly not with your parents. So unsure and afraid are you of its existence, you would rather hide it away. But this boy. He cradles your arm, gives you a big speech about the half you keep hidden, knows you are meant for greatness. He sees you, wholesome and complete you, and he isn’t ashamed.
It makes the next part all the worse. Given a choice between slow dancing with the boy you’ve loved since third grade, his breath moist against the nape of your neck, and Jackson, you choose Jackson. Because you’re worried. Because he’s wrong. You are not dead weight. You stumble onto his territory. Stadium lights flood your vision and everything changes.
You pick the wrong choices over and over again, never learning from your follies. You make one final one. A voice screams at you. Run, Lydia, run! You don’t.
This is how it ends.