Still

Chapter Eleven

"You can't come over," Lydia said, "because your cat gets lonely?"

I slowly nodded my head, trying not to show the fear in my eyes and in my smile. Lydia leaned back in her seat, obviously annoyed and frustrated. Alas, the day has come where Lydia would ask me to come over to finish our French project, and for me to finally lose my closest friend.

Lydia sighed, and brushed her long auburn hair out of her face. "You told me you didn't have a cat!"

Shoot, did I really?

"I'm sorry," I blurted out. "I didn't want to lie to you."

"Then why did you?"

Because I got to a really good part of my story and I wanted to talk to Harry about it. Lydia would totally understand this, because it definitely wasn't creepy or weird at all that I visited the fricking hospital frequently to talk to a coma patient that I didn't even know that well!

That was the stupid truth that I didn't ever want to reveal; not to Sara May, not to my parents, and definitely not to Lydia Dane, who was one of the only people who didn't treat my like dirt.

"I... I get nervous going to other people's houses," I told Lydia, and she dropped her angry expression for a moment. It wasn't a complete lie. "And I don't have a phone that I can call home to anyways, and my mom would have a manhunt out for me if I'm not home after school."

Lydia instantly became sympathetic, and pulled me in for a hug. I let her, and gently squeezed back.

"Alice!" Lydia said into my neck. "You don't have to worry about that!" She let go of me, and shrugged. "I've got a brother who can take you home afterwards, if you'd like. Please?"

Now it was Lydia's turn to use puppy eyes, and damn did it work. I caved in, mentally pinching myself.

"Fine," I answered. "But only because I like you!"

Lydia clapped her hands delightfully. "We're gonna have so much fun at my place!" she said.

There went my plans for the day, then. I mean, I was really excited to talk about Ashlyn and how they were going to get her out of the castle. The idea of having her in the story just kind of came to me one night. I loved having this princess-like character that's both naïve and witty.

At the moment I was eating lunch with Lydia though, who graciously gave me her juice and apple. When she found I out didn't like to eat the school's "food", she freaked out and tried to get me to take all of her lunch. I had refused and told her about the last time I ate stuff in the cafeteria, and neither of us ended up eating.

It had been a week since we met, and we spent all of our free time together. She was amazing and fun to be with, always comforting me when I needed it. Every day, we sat in the choir room for lunch, just the two of us, and chatted like we were now.

And just like every B day, we ended our lunch session early to get to class. It was an incredibly normal day, and we spent all of our french period memorizing different verbs. Sometimes Lydia would ask for help, despite the fact that she already knew what she was doing.

It was strange; she had all the confidence in the world when it came to talking to people, but when she started a project in school, her self esteem shrank down, leaving her worried and stressed out.

The thing was, Lydia was the perfect student. She got straight A's, but was always nervous that she was doing something wrong. It was nice being able to help her, even if it meant reminding Lydia that she was doing it correctly.

Lydia was the exact opposite of me in that way. School was easy for me, but people were scary. I didn't care if Lydia soaked in all of the attention. Actually no, that was I lie. I cared that she got attention, and I was glad that she got it because she was amazing and deserved it all. I was totally cool with being in the corner and cheering her on.