Hold Me Closer | Stisaac (Serendipity, Book 1)

Chapter 31

It's a long way to happiness
But I'll keep walking all night
It's a long way to happiness
Some day I'll be alright
I think about days back when
Things were much simpler then
Making angels out of the snow
But now it feels biter cold
And I fear growing old
Those days seem so long ago
- Tyler Kyte, 'Happiness'

    Stiles found it easy now to settle into the monotony of his work. It resembled the new stagnancy of his life. He woke up in a vacant, cold bed. Got ready in silence to go to the same job, where he did the same things day after day. At first, it had bugged him. Crawled under his skin and stole his breath, his sleep. He'd craved the fresh unpredictability and constant excitement that Isaac had brought to his life. The space where Isaac was supposed to be, left glaringly empty, still tugged at Stiles's bones.
    But the last three weeks had left him no choice but to accept the fact that he'd gotten what he wanted. The chance to find himself, to be himself, to maintain his independence and settle into a life that was his own. Losing Isaac wasn't what he wanted, but it could be the price he had to pay, however unprepared he was to pay it. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't truly finding anything at all. What growth could he experience if he wasn't doing anything?
    He was increasingly thankful for the empty, boring rhythm of his work. He could do it with his eyes closed and his brain shut down. Grab a box, open it, empty it, break it down, toss it away. It allowed him to be productive, yet not think about a single damn thing, and that was what he needed. Thinking was his enemy. Thinking led to pain. Thinking led to guilt. Thinking led to Isaac.
    His zoned-out, robotic movement was interrupted by the sight of someone approaching his periphery.
    "Can I help you find anything?" Stiles asked instinctively as he sliced his empty box down the middle and flattened it. As he tossed it onto the towering stack of cardboard in the shopping cart beside him, he finally looked up.
    A woman with strawberry-blonde hair, green eyes, and full, pink lips stood before him.
    Lydia.
    If he'd been holding freight, he likely would've dropped it. "Hey..."
    She beamed at him, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. Her eyebrows creased in pity. "Hey, Stiles. It's been a while. Can you talk for a few minutes? I don't mind if you keep working. I'll follow."
    "I guess that's okay."
    Stiles snatched up another case of butter and walked to its home. Lydia slinked behind him.
    "How are you?" he asked. "You doing good?"
    "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?"
    Stiles stilled as he sliced open the case. "I'm doing alright," he lied. "Got a new place. Settling into my job. Can't get used to this hideous uniform, though."
    Lydia laughed. "You said it, not me...We miss having you around, you know."
    Stiles finished stocking the butter and flattened the box. His throat tightened. "I miss you guys, too."
    "Isaac is doing 'alright' too," Lydia said pointedly. Stiles glanced at her. He couldn't stop himself from flinching. "I don't know what's going on, but I want to help. And don't—" she held up her hands as Stiles opened his mouth, "—tell me that I can't do anything to help. I've heard that enough from Isaac, and I will go insane."
Stiles considered her heavily. He'd come to think of Isaac's friends as his friends, too. It had hurt him enough to walk away from Isaac. He wasn't sure he could handle walking away from them, as well. She stared at him expectantly, but patiently. Stiles tossed the cardboard into the shopping cart.
"Come back on my lunch break? I'll explain everything then."
Lydia nodded. "I'll be here. Just text me when you're ready." She turned to leave, but paused and looked back at him. "I'm not here for Isaac. You know that, right? I mean, obviously, he's part of it. But I'm also here for you. Whatever happens, I hope that you'll still be around. Even if it's not with Isaac."
Before he could respond, she swaggered away.
Two hours later, Stiles met Lydia on the bench outside of the store. At the sight of him, she raised a towering bag full of take-out Chinese food. He didn't mind tossing the day-old "fresh" deli sandwich into the trash can by the entrance as he walked to the bench. He also didn't mind hearing the sandwich thunk off the side of the metal can and hit the ground. He'd pick it up on his way back inside.
As Stiles sat, Lydia handed him a large styrofoam to-go plate and propped another one on her lap. Stiles opened his, was immediately assaulted by a cloud of steam, and set it down beside him to cool.
"I'm about to say something stupid," Lydia said, "but I don't care. Is there a way that you can be friends? Until you guys figure out whatever it is that's going on? Because I can tell that it's crushing you both."
    "Isaac said he doesn't want to be just friends anymore."
    "He may have said that, and even meant it, but he didn't mean that he wanted to lose you."
"He didn't lose me. But I need time."
    "But you haven't spoken in weeks. What do you expect him to think?"
    "I know."
    "Do you want to talk to him?"
    "That's all I want."
    "Then you need to say something, anything. Not a false promise, or a lie. But something to let him know that you're not gone. If you're not gone. If you need time, then take it. You need what you need, and that's okay. But if you feel anything for him..."
    "It wasn't a goodbye," Stiles said. He caught her gaze, although he couldn't see her through the tears blurring his vision. "It was...see you later. I think. I hope. Because I don't want to lose him. But I don't want to lose myself again, either."
    Lydia blew on a forkful of orange chicken thoughtfully. "Isaac won't say a word about it. That's why I came here. I don't know how else to help him, or you, so I'm sticking my nose where I probably shouldn't. But that's what I do." She stuck the chicken into her mouth.
    Stiles chuckled. "I know. You're a good friend."
    "Whatever happened between the two of you, Isaac blames himself for it. And it's tearing him apart. He'd kill me if he knew I was telling you this. But maybe you need to know."
    Stiles's stomach sank. "What? He said what?" He shook his head vehemently. "No. He has nothing to blame himself for. He did nothing wrong, he was perfect."
    Lydia cocked her head, confused. "May I ask what happened? I'm shooting blind here."
Stiles poked at his sesame chicken and mushrooms with his fork. "Has Isaac told you anything about me?"
"No. I told you—"
"Not about me as in us. I mean, me as in...me. My life."
"Not really. He told us about your interest in social work, a little bit about how great your father is, and that's pretty much it. Why?"
Stiles breathed. He wasn't sure how much he was going to say, or how much he wanted to say. But he supposed there was no point in hiding anything anymore. She couldn't understand him or the situation if she didn't know what the situation was.
"The night that I met Isaac," Stiles began, "I was running from something. I thought I'd escaped it, but I was wrong. Someone, actually, not something. I went to that bar trying to convince myself that I...that I could do something on my own. And I entertained the idea that I could hook up with someone, just to know that I could, but I knew that I'd never actually do it. But then I met Isaac. I saw him sitting there at the bar, alone and nervous, holding onto his camera like he'd die without it."
Stiles smiled fondly at the memory, but it bit into him like a deceivingly sweet wild rabbit. "As soon as we started talking, I didn't have even the slightest interest in finding some stranger to drown myself in. All I wanted to do was sit there and talk to him, and listen to him stutter, and see him smile. The first thing he did was ask me about my bruises. And he genuinely cared. I saw it in his eyes..." Stiles trailed off, a lump forming in his throat.
"What were you running from?" Lydia prompted softly. "What bruises?"
"The person I was running from was my fiancé, Chris. That was the night that I'd finally decided he was never going to hit me again. I refused to go to another hospital and tell them how I'd fallen down the stairs. I refused to be afraid for my own life for even one more night. So I kicked him out. I was stupid to think he'd stay gone. He never would have left that easily. Normally, he'd storm out and come back a few hours or days later. I guess I thought that since that night was different for me, it was for him too. He's been violating a restraining order. Calling me."
Lydia's hand crept onto Stiles's shoulder as he spoke. He heard her sniffle, but couldn't bear to look up. She squeezed him gently.
"Isaac was...a breath of fresh air," Stiles continued. "And I felt like I hadn't been able to breathe in so fucking long. But when I met him, it was like taking the deepest breath right before you're about to drown. He was everything that Chris wasn't. Everything that I always thought I would never find, even if I did get away from Chris. I lov—"
Stiles bit his lip, and silently cursed himself. Even now, he couldn't bring himself to say what he felt. But he wanted to say it so badly, wanted to let it out of his heart and into the world. Why couldn't he fucking say it? Tears rolled down his cheeks before he could stop them.
"I'm so sorry, Stiles," Lydia whispered. "I really had no idea. You've been through so much. I can't believe Isaac was able to hide that."
Stiles laughed bitterly. "That's because he's so fucking protective. Too good for me."
"He wouldn't be so protective if he agreed with that, would he?" Lydia pointed out. "You're good enough for him, Stiles. He thinks so. We all do. I hope that you can, too. I understand you more than I...Jackson never physically hurt me, but I was never sure if he was capable of it or not. And he broke me down into pieces. Into everything he wanted me to be. I allowed him to do that. To make me so small that I couldn't see myself anymore. It was always his voice in my head, never my own. I feel the freedom now, without him. The freedom that I know you've been searching for. And I've realized that I was not the reason he treated me the way that he did, and that's how I know that you are not the reason Chris did what he did to you. I fully believe that you can find that freedom and still be with Isaac. You don't have to lose your happiness to find yourself. You can have both."
Lydia pulled Stiles into a hug, and he let her. He breathed in her peach perfume, and let the weight drift off his chest. He was no less confused, no less hurt, but at least he knew that he was not alone.