EYE CANDY

Chapter I

The white airport walls served as a nice complement to her red striped dress. Lydia always loved the look of a simple bold print against a plain background.

"Use 'Rebecca'!" her friend and photographer suggested and she returned Lydia her phone. "It always brings out the reds."

Lydia hummed in agreement as she applied the action on her self-designed app. The whites brightened, as did the colors of her dress and hair. She saved and cropped the image before opening Instagram.

@eyecandyofficial: Airport style! Cali-bound for summer. Can't wait. Share your summer outfits with #ecstylishsummer
#ig_style #fashion #LMeyecandy

Then she switched to her private personal account and posted the image there as well.

Eyecandyofficial was the Instagram account for Lydia's fashion and lifestyle blog, Eye Candy. When Lydia was in high school she was the queen, but that was not her proudest moment. She had acted shallow and superficial, and she gladly left that version of herself behind when she entered college. One thing she did miss about it was talking about things like clothes and shopping. Just because she enjoyed learning and studying didn't mean she did not like dressing up, or making her living space look good. So after her first finals Lydia signed up for a blog and started sharing tips and picks. By the time she began her postgraduate studies at MIT, she had gain a rather large online following. Along the way, she expanded her online presence to social media and an Eye Candy photo-editing app.

She said goodbye to her friend, who had driven her to the airport, checked in and spent some time in a small bookstore before heading to the boarding gate.

Once settled on the plane, she pulled out her phone again. The photo-sharing app was still open and Lydia could her latest post already gathering likes and comments on eyecandyofficial. The single comment on that of her private account, however, stole her attention.

@allargentium: @booksxdresses see you in 6hrs!

Lydia smiled and turned her phone to flight mode.

She had intended to sleep until landing (it was a night flight after all, she couldn't get an earlier flight because she had planned the trip at the last minute), but got distracted by the in-flight entertainment. There were two movies she had wanted to watch but missed because of work.

They landed in California a few hours before sunrise on the west coast and Lydia felt her eyelids starting to droop a little. At least she was flying backwards in the time zones. She found jet lag easier to overcome that way.

She forgot about her tiredness when she spotted Allison Argent.

Lydia first met Allison in high school, when the girl's family moved into her town in New Hampshire. She had complimented the girl's outfit on the first day of sophomore year and they hit off from there. Allison was the only person who saw through Lydia's mask. The only person whom she could talk to about science and math as much as clothes and still be listened to and more importantly, accepted. When the Argents moved at the end of junior year they kept in contact, and after all these years the brunette was still Lydia's closest friend. And Lydia couldn't wait to see her again.

She might have run over three people with her luggage running to Allison when she spotted the paper reading "LYDIA MARTIN!!!!!!!!!"

"That's a lot of exclamation marks, Ally!" she exclaimed, pulling away from a tight embrace. Her best friend was a serious hugger.

Allison laughed, and Lydia revelled listening to her friend laugh in real life. Skype really didn't cut it. "It's better than the banner you had the last time I visited you."