Chapter Text
The Fields Medal.
Lydia sees it in her dreams, sparkling behind her closed eyelids as she lays in bed, wrapped in blankets that protect her from her empty home.
She recites it in her mind every time she’s picked last for gym in elementary, whispers it under her breath as she eats alone in the bathroom every day during middle school, and arms herself with it when she scrubs the words “LOSER” and “FREAK” off her locker in high school.
One day, she knows she’ll get out of this town and away from the taunting voices of kids who never were her friends and the loneliness that pounds away in her heart. They’ll place the Fields Medal around her neck one day, and if she can just make it until then, everything will be okay.
There are days, however, where the promise of her name in the history books just isn’t enough to help her hold it together.
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Allison Argent starts at Beacon Hills High in the second month of junior year, and hasn’t been around long enough to know that befriending someone like Lydia is social suicide. Especially when you’re as pretty as Allison is, shining eyes and secret smiles, with a sweetness Lydia has never seen the likes of to match. They’re paired together as lab partners in AP Chem, since Lydia is the only one in the class with no one sharing her station. Allison is startlingly kind, and Lydia, accustomed people ignoring her, if not explicitly bullying her, is so thrown off that she forgets to hold up the armor that she’s developed, and actually makes a friend. They go to the movies, have sleepovers and study sessions that mostly involve Lydia, miles ahead of her other classmates, explaining equations to Allison. Without realizing it, she lets her in.
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They’re eating lunch together weeks later and Lydia’s snorting at Allison’s impression of their history teacher when Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski sit down at their table, along with the rest of their crew. Lydia chokes on her salad and Allison has to clap her on the back several times before she can breathe again. Flushing red in a shade that rivals her hair, Lydia raises an eyebrow at Allison, silently inquiring why the most popular kids in the entire school are sitting at their table. Allison grins, gesturing to Scott sitting next to her.
“We’re partners for the English project,” she says, “and we found out we have a lot in common- if you can count a mutual love of Keeping up with the Hales as common.” Allison finishes with a small smile at Scott, reserved just for him, and Lydia can see that her friend is smitten. To be honest, she sincerely doubts that Scott has ever even watched an episode of popular reality show, but she sees the bashful grin he returns Allison and softens. Scott isn’t actually that bad, as far as the popular kids go. He’s captain of the lacrosse team, and she’s tutored him for math a couple of times. Once in middle school, when Lydia tripped on the outstretched foot of Jackson Whitmore, he’d helped her up and offered her some napkins to clean herself up. She decides she approves of whatever’s blossoming between Scott and Allison, but that still doesn’t explain the rest of the kids at the table. Out of the corner of her eye, she counts them: Jackson, Erica, Isaac, Malia, and Stiles. She vaguely wonders why Jackson and Malia, who have made her life a living hell since the second grade, are anywhere near her at a time that doesn’t include a practical joke.
Stiles leans over the table and extends a hand. “I’m Stiles,” he says, and Lydia takes his hand gingerly but shakes with a firm grip. “I know that,” she says quietly. How could she not? He’s their student body president and in the second grade she- Lydia cuts the memory off quick. “Are you new too?” Stiles asks, and she can’t keep her cheeks from flushing with indignation. “I’m in your math and english class, and we’ve been going to the same school since kindergarten,” she answers, her voice clipped and her eyes narrowed.
Stiles blinks and looks surprised. Next to him, Malia laughs. “Don’t you remember? She’s the one who wrote you that stupid poem and gave you a dozen roses in the second grade!” Malia ends her sentence with a snort. Across the table Allison shoots her a questioning look and Scott frowns. She doesn’t bother seeing anyone else’s reaction. Jumping up, she pushes her chair back from the table with a screech. “I’ll see you in chem,” she says to Allison, then grabs her bag and flees the scene.
She escapes to the hall before sliding down against the lockers. Groaning in embarrassment, she’s still massaging her temples when a pair of ratty sneakers stop in front of her. It’s Stiles, and he’s holding out her chemistry textbook. “You left this,” he says, and she stands up and accepts it with a nod, turning her face away from him to stick it in her bag. Stiles shifts from foot to foot, obviously uncomfortable. “Look, Malia wasn’t trying to be mean back there-” he starts, but Lydia’s stomach bubbles up with anger and she interrupts him. “Just like she wasn’t trying to be mean when she made everyone pretend I didn’t exist for two weeks in middle school? Or when she wrote on my locker in permanent marker? Your girlfriend meant it, and so do most of your friends. Jackson has asked me out as a joke twice, you know. I’m not really interested in your apology or justification.” She turns on her heel, heart thrumming in her ears as she walks angrily to class, leaving a dumbfounded Stiles in her wake.
Fields Medal, Fields Medal, Fields Medal, you don’t care and they don’t matter, she thinks as she all but runs away, but even to her own ears, it sounds hollow.