Right Beside You | Stiles Stilinski | Two

32 - Full Moon Rise

"I'm not crazy."

"Hey, I didn't say you were."

"I know that look, and I'm not crazy."

"Okay, I did not give you a look."

"Yes, you did, and it's the kind of look that says you don't want to believe me."

"Scarlett, I want to believe you. I guess I just don't want to have to think about Peter Hale still being a problem for us."

"Well, that makes two of us."

Stiles sighed, leaning back on a bookshelf. It was Wednesday, and he'd dropped by the library during my shift so I could finally talk to him in person. Lydia had basically been holding me hostage for the last few days, cramming every second with some best-friend-birthday-prep activity that absolutely needed to be done before the party. Between shopping for party supplies, constructing playlists, decorating, going to lunch, going to the movies, going to dinner, and trying to figure out how Derek's psychopathic uncle could have affected my best friend—I felt like I hadn't been breathing all week.

What made everything worse was the distinct feeling that Lydia had noticed me trying to pull away. She'd still been her overly perky self, grilling me about school and the details of my love life, but ever since our visit to the animal clinic, I couldn't look at her straight. It was hard to talk about hooking up with Stiles when I was half-convinced I was talking to Peter instead of Lydia. And ever since our visit to the animal clinic, Lydia had made a point to be practically sewn to my side. We'd had every meal together and even slept in the same room for the last four nights. Short of confiscating my phone, Lydia was putting all her energy into monitoring me. While that made it easy for me to monitor her, it was also driving me up the wall. I'd barely convinced her to leave me alone at work.

"And you haven't heard from Deaton?" Stiles asked, passing me another book from the shelving cart.

"Nope. Which is obviously not calming me down."

"I don't know. Maybe no news is good news, right?" I gave him a pointed look, and he cocked his head in ascent. "Or it means everything is awful and something is devastatingly wrong. Which is more likely."

"I just wish he'd told me something, you know?" I complained as I shelved the last few books. "I could be doing my own research right now! If you don't want me to act on anything, fine, but don't leave me in the agonizing and ignorant dark."

"That was incredibly poetic." He dodged my smack with a grin and propped his elbows on the cart. "Come on, Deaton knows that if you knew something, you wouldn't be able to stand by and wait for someone else to make the call. Not if it was about Lydia."

"This coming from the guy who tried to train his werewolf best friend."

"Successfully trained, thank you very much. Besides, Lydia being ridiculously controlling isn't exactly out of the ordinary, right? All things considered, I think she's acting pretty normal."

"She's too normal."

Stiles dropped his head to his chest, then looked up at me with pleading eyes. "Come on, Scarlett. Things can't be awful all the time, right?"

"Stiles," I said sternly, glowering at him with my hands on my hips, "you're the one who taught me to question everything. And you're usually right."

"Well, I can't argue with that." I smirked as he pushed himself off the cart, walking around to drape and arm around my shoulder. He kissed my cheek and pulled me back toward the front desk. "Much as I love being right, I'm also a fan of ignoring the utter crapstorm that is my life and pretending everything's normal. So, how's the party coming?"