The Wild Side | Stiles Stilinski | One

36 - Jitterbug

The next morning I woke up to the universe's most effective alarm clock—Lydia Martin on event day.

It started with the blast of my stereo, jolting me into consciousness in a panic as if I'd been woken by gunshots. Then Lydia tore open the curtains around my bed, turned on the lights, opened the windows, making everything as bright and loud as possible to force me out of bed. I groaned and buried my face into my pillow, only to have Lydia rip it from my hands and throw it across the room. She screeched something about "up" and "school" and "formal," but since my brain was only half awake, it was easy to tune her out. She stormed over to my closet, rooting through the contents and talking so quickly about our time table and the complimentary colors that if I'd been any more asleep, I would have been convinced she was speaking in tongues.

I took the path of least resistance. I let Lydia shove me around the house, pick out my clothes, and load me into the car at her own pace. I didn't have the energy to fight anyone today. My plan was to have a quiet, calm morning, and save my energy for whatever was going to happen at night. But as I should have expected that plan went directly into the garbage.

"Tada!"

Stiles and Scott were waiting for me at my locker, Stiles wearing a wide smile while Scott wore a pained look and a bright blue gift bow taped to his shirt. I raised an eyebrow, continuing about my business to get my books.

"Wow. A very stressed-out teenage werewolf. Just what I always wanted."

"Thanks," Scott grumbled, and I smirked.

"Come on," Stiles sighed in frustration. "He's my apology gift."

"Should I be worried?" I asked. "What did you do this time to warrant an apology?"

"Well, I'm going to the dance with Lydia, so I found you a new date!"

"Right. Well, you don't need to worry about that. I'm asking someone else."

"What?" Stiles asked, so quickly it didn't even sound like a word. "Who?"

"Isaac Lahey. I'm gonna talk to him in chem, see if he wants to go with me."

"O-kay, well, now you don't have to do that, because now you can go with Scott!"

Stiles shook Scott by the shoulders again, and I frowned.

"Isaac's really nice. I'm actually really hoping he says yes."

"Scarlett, we all know you really want to go with Scott, so can you just agree already?!"

My frown deepened, looking from Stiles's slightly exasperated face to Scott's extremely exasperated one. He shook his head slightly, letting me know that it was better if I didn't ask.

"Please, Scarlett?" he asked with his puppy dog eyes. "Finstock kinda...banned me from formal because my grades are so low. I need someone to let me in from the roof."

"Okay. I can still let you in if I come with Isaac."

"I also...need a ride..."

I groaned, leaning my head against my locker. One day. I just wanted one day away from breaking rules and werewolf nonsense, but I could even have that.

"Fine," I caved, slamming my locker shut. "Whatever. I'll be your illegal date to the formal."

"Thank youuu," Scott sang quietly, relieved to pull the gift bow off his chest.

"Alright!" Stiles cheered, wrapping an arm around each of us and steering us toward English. "Look at this! I get to go to formal with Lydia, Jackson's keeping an eye on Allison, and you two crazy kids get to go together! Isn't this great?"