Right Beside You | Stiles Stilinski | Two

33 - Sucker Punch

Mom and Natalie were still home when I made it back to the house. The car was packed with their bags for the lake house, but I could hear them arguing in the backyard the moment I stepped out of the car. I peeked around back to find them yelling across the pool, my mother teetering on top of a ladder.

"Natalie! Just get over here and hold it!"

"You just told me to come over here, Claire. If I drop the lights, you're going to get electrocuted."

"They're not even plugged in! You're going to get electrocuted as soon as I get down from here!"

"Stop being a child. Scarlett, will you please help your mother?"

I held in my snort as I grabbed the ladder, steadying it so Mom wouldn't kill herself trying to hook up the lights. "Welcome to my world. Do you want me to get it?"

"No," she grunted, standing on her tiptoes and yanking on the wires. "I am perfectly capable of hanging up the lights when the ladder doesn't feel like it's going to collapse beneath me."

"Now you're just being dramatic," Natalie called from the other side of the yard.

"Honestly, why don't you just keep these up all year? We're outside enough."

"Because I don't want them up if there's a storm or something. It's a safety hazard."

Mom mimicked her under her breath, scrunching up her nose as she climbed down to the safety of the ground.

"Do you want some help with these?" I asked, after kissing her on the cheek. "I know they can be a pain to get up."

"No, that's okay. I'll probably manage without dying. Why don't you see if you can get through to Lydia?"

"What?" I asked quickly. "What happened?"

"Nothing more unusual than...well, usual," Natalie sighed as she joined us on our side of the pool. She wiped her hands, avoiding our gazes with an air of exasperation. "My daughter has been in the kitchen preparing for her party since she got home. Neither of us are allowed in, and she isn't coming out."

"Is she okay?"

"She says she's making punch. Why that needs to be a top secret operation, I can't imagine. It's not like we don't know you children drink."

"Well, is it better if you don't know how much we drink?"

"No," they answered in unison.

They both looked at me with a hard, stern expression, and I crumbled.

"Right...well, good luck with the lights. I'm gonna go help Lydia."

I escaped into the house, doing a sweep of breakable objects as I went. Property insurance had been my role for most of the parties Lydia had thrown, but our mothers seemed to have taken care of that already. Most of Natalie's nice vases and glass knickknacks had disappeared, some even replaced by paper decorations, sparking numbers and tissue paper pompoms in white, blue, and purple. The house was clean and festive, and for the first time in weeks, I let myself feel excited about the party. Maybe Stiles was right. Maybe normal was all we needed.

"What are you doing?"

I jumped back from the hall to the kitchen, which was suddenly blocked by Lydia. She was already dressed in her first outfit for the night, a grey, striped dress with a low-cut neckline. It was the third or fourth outfit I'd seen her wearing so far; she was truly on a roll. And judging by her scowl, she was also angry. She glared at me as I laughed off my surprise.

"Uh, helping? Mom said you were making punch, but they weren't allowed in the kitchen."

"No, I said 'no one' is allowed in the kitchen. Not just them. Everyone. That means you."