lviii. hazel eyed boy
chapter fifty eight
hazel eyed boy
━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━
WHY COULDN'T Odessa Stone sleep? Usually, she wasn't too bad to sleep with. Her inability to sleep was mostly due to how cold she was all the time or the stress she was facing when dealing with supernatural threats.
But there were no threats for the last three months and she was currently being heated by Silas' body while surrounded by blankets. So what could be the problem? What could be preventing her from shutting her eyes and falling asleep?
Odessa had been completely on edge recently—almost nervous. It was a kind of feeling she had never experienced. It was a sort of nagging not only in her chest but her entire body. Like something was consistently dragging her down because she didn't remember or she forgot something. It was as if her body was trying to tell her something and she had no idea how to figure out what.
The Stone kept it hidden from her friends, especially Silas. Though he had been her boyfriend for almost a year, there were things she was always hesitant in telling him or confiding in him. It wasn't because she didn't trust him, it was simply just the way she worked when it came to him. It was the opposite with her best friends because she knew she could tell them anything and they would always listen.
Silas wasn't entirely involved in the pack. It didn't really bother Odessa because it was one less person to worry about getting hurt. He had come along in the middle of their junior year when they were dealing with the dead-pool and after that whole ordeal was over, he asked her out and she said yes. She didn't have her memories at the time but he was all she could remember from her memory dreams and she felt comfort with that. They had been officially together ever since.
Though she had a good boyfriend, there were many things Odessa did independently and without his help. She researched about her Ember abilities and her parents by herself. She got her own car by herself. She liked being independent. It made her feel stronger in her own skin.
But she wished she had a trusted support system. Something concrete and always accessible. She had that with her friends—her pack. But sometimes, Odessa felt as if she couldn't go to Silas for anything. And that always disheartened her. He made her happy but sometimes that wasn't always enough. She always felt as though something was missing in their relationship.
To put it quite simply, the connection wasn't really there. Sure, they liked each other. But it didn't go past that. They've never said I love you to each other, they have sex, sure, but it was nothing special. Odessa wanted passion, something worthwhile. She didn't feel that way with Silas. Who could she feel that with?
When thinking of the feeling, she got a sense of deja vu. Which was strange because Silas was her first boyfriend. She had nothing to compare him to. Odessa had no other boy in her life that made her feel the way she knew she could feel. So what was giving her the idea she knew what that kind of love and passion felt like?
With her back pressed against Silas' chest, her S necklace laid heavy on her chest as she tried to shut her mind up so she could try and get some sleep. He got the necklace for her for their 6 month anniversary and Odessa never took it off since. It was a very thoughtful gift and something she always appreciated him for. As the numbers changed on her alarm clock on her bedside, Odessa felt her eyes start to grow heavy. She took that as a sign to try and sleep, digging the side of her face into her pillow. Within a few minutes, she was finally asleep...
"Why does that always happen?"
Odessa Stone looked up at the boy she was laying with on her bed. Her brown eyes ran over the small features on his face. The crease in his brow, the small birthmarks on his face. He was the ultimate comfort. He was everything.
She gave him a playfully scolding look, knowing his patients always wore thin with things like this, "every book has to have a cliffhanger of some kind. It's what keeps it interesting."
"Who cares about interesting, okay," the boy took the book from her hands into his own, trying to find the page they ended on, "I wanna know if he gets there in time."
Odessa groaned out a chuckle, easily snatching the book back from his hands, "ugh, you're the worst. Remind me why I agreed to start reading with you?"
The boy smiled bashfully, batting his lashes, wrapping his arms around her waist, "because you love me."
"Unfortunately."
The couple laughed at the blonde's sarcastic comment before leaning in to press their lips together, causing both of them to let out simultaneous sighs of relief at feeling each other again.
They were everything. He was everything...
Odessa gasped awake but controlled it so she wouldn't wake up the boy behind her. Her tired mind was racing with what she dreamed about. Only it didn't feel like a dream. It felt like a memory.
━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━
Sleep never came for Odessa after her memory dream. Questions upon questions relentlessly popped in and out of her brain as she tried to figure out what her mind wanted her to see. Who was that boy and why did she basically tell him she loved him? It wasn't Silas, obviously. That boy looked nothing like Silas.
The boy in her dreams had soft hazel eyes and the kindest smile. He seemed to be looking at her like she was the only person in the world that mattered. No one had ever looked at her that way. Not even her boyfriend... supposed boyfriend? Odessa didn't even know anymore.
What did she know, however, was that that dream—that memory and that boy changed everything for her.
Odessa was pretty quiet while getting ready for school once her alarm sounded. She pretended to be waking up just like Silas even though she quite literally watched the alarm clock change to 8 AM, eyes wide open and awake. She drove her and Silas to school, only giving him a kiss on the cheek as a goodbye, too busy with her own thoughts to care. Plus, there was always her first period that seemed to put her in a mood.
Senior year meant different classes and a different schedule from junior year, naturally. For her last year of high school, Odessa was blessed enough to have Math class as her first class of the day. Great. The only reasons Odessa made it through the class were Lydia, Malia and...
Huh.
It was just Lydia and Malia that got her through the class everyday. No one else. She didn't know why she was going to say another name. She didn't even know the name she was going to say. Weird.
After dazedly going to her locker to grab her textbooks for all of her classes she had before lunch, Odessa walked into her Math class five minutes before the bell. A small smile graced her lips at the sight of her two best friends already in their seats. Malia was excessively highlighting everything as usual, something she learned from Odessa herself, while Lydia was reading the textbook, probably just for fun. If the blonde was being honest, she didn't know where her highlighter system came from, it just became a thing.
Quietly greeting her friends, Odessa took her seat in the back row next to Lydia with a heavy sigh. Feeling her eyes flutter dangerously, she willed herself to stay awake just as the bell rang overhead.
"I'm impressed. With most of you," Ms. Flemming left her desk to start passing out grades tests the class took the week before, "it really speaks to your study habits and your commitment to your own education. Everyone else, see me for extra help."
After giving Malia back her test, Ms. Flemming gave Odessa her test back, the blonde satisfied when seeing a C+ at the top right corner of the stapled packet. The Stone gave her teacher a quiet, "thank you," earning her a quick squeeze of a hand on her shoulder by the woman.
Odessa might not be the best student and wasn't a big fan of school but she always respected her teachers no matter what.
Looking up from her test, the blonde widened her eyes when she saw Malia's claws sprouted under her desk. Sitting up in her seat, Odessa pursed her lips at the red D- shown on her friend's test. A small growl left Malia's lips as Lydia seemed to catch on to what was happening.
"Ms. Flemming, um..."
"I already told you, Lydia," the woman stopped the strawberry blonde short, unaware of her other student next to her glaring at her, "I don't give extra credit for alternate equations based on your own theoretical findings."
As Lydia nodded, Odessa watched their teacher walk away before leaning closer to Malia, hissing out, "Malia. Claws. Claws, Malia."
The Tate let go of her iron grip on her desk as the anger dissipated. She gave her two friends a slight nod, telling them she was fine again.
Sighing in relief and exhaustion, Odessa leaned her head on the palm of her hand as she tried to listen to the start of Ms. Flemming's lecture. But Math was never something Odessa could pay attention to, even with a full nights sleep. Her mind and body took over as her eyes shut, letting herself dream once more...
"You have the prettiest eyes I've ever seen."
The boy smiled down at Odessa Stone in slight surprise at her compliment, not expecting it. The two were laying face to face in the girl's bed the night Liam and Hayden were saved from the Dread Doctors. Their conversation about nothing changing between them gave them a reason to be extra sentimental and affectionate as the night continued on.
Brushing hairs behind her ear, the boy exhaled sharply through his nose, chuckling airily, "why do you say that?"
Odessa's gaze was unwavering as she observed every aspect of his hues, "they're, like, different colors all in one. I don't know, they're not just hazel. You have, like, little gold specks in them. It's hard to explain but they're so pretty. I could look at them for hours."
"I love your eyes, too," the boy shared after a moment. He didn't know she held such a high admiration for something so small such as his eyes. His heart only grew bigger at the fact.
Odessa scrunched her face in confusion, knowing there was nothing special about hers, "why? They're just brown."
"Yeah, but they're, like, a dark dark brown with little sprinkles of light brown," the boy recalled, caressing her cheek with his thumb absentmindedly, "I look at them and they remind me of the coffee my mom and dad used to share in the morning before she died. They both liked their coffee with the smallest amount of creamer and no sugar. Your eyes are dark but hold so much light in them. And plus, brown eyes are my favorite. Yours are my favorite."
Feeling small tears start to well at his words, Odessa only leaned forward to press her lips against his, knowing deep down what she really wanted to do was so, so much more than he knew...
Odessa Stone jumped awake as she heard the bell ring around the classroom. She stayed in her seat as her classmates, including her friends, packed their things and left the room to get to their next class. After taking a few breaths, the blonde slowly packed her things and stood from her seat, trying to ignore what she just dreamed about.
"Odessa? Can you come here for a second?"
Crap. Crap, crap, crap, Odessa thought while she walked slowly toward Ms. Flemming's desk. She slept through class, something she never did before and she felt immensely guilty. With her book bag on one shoulder and her Math book against her chest, Odessa sheepishly started apologizing before her teacher could let out a word, "I'm so, so sorry, Ms. Flemming. I don't even know what happened but it won't happen again."
Ms. Flemming gave her a soft, comforting smile from the other side of the desk, "thank you for your apology, Odessa, but I'm not mad. I know tired eyes when I see them. I sometimes still have them myself," she walked around to face the blonde, placing a hand on her shoulder, "just don't make it a habit, okay? Make sure you get enough sleep. And don't work yourself too hard, you're doing just fine in this class."
"I will, Ms. Flemming, thank you," Odessa nodded extensively, relief starting to build in her chest at her teacher's reassurance, "have a good day."
"You, too, Odessa. I'll see you tomorrow."
The Stone walked about the classroom with a shaky exhale, clutching her Math book tighter as relief was replaced with anxiety. She looked around the hallway, looking for someone to come and save her, comfort her, even look at her. But no one was there.
But she felt as though there should be.
━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━
Leaning against her car, Odessa sighed in relief at seeing Lydia and Malia pull up in the dark wooded reserve. The blonde was doing her Math homework, which was proven difficult because she slept through the whole lesson. To help her focus, she put in her headphones, which was why she didn't hear Scott leave the house and somehow end up in the woods.
When the Stone got the text, she almost thought he was joking until Lydia and Malia texted her telling her they were on their way, prompting her to change out of her pajamas, race into her car and drive purposefully to the wooded reserve where Scott told her he was.
Once Lydia parked, the three girls walked up the small hill together to see Scott waiting for them with a flashlight. Once the four were together, Scott led them to another part of the woods, grabbing more flashlights for the girls to use.
"I went to bed at home and I woke up out in the woods," the Alpha bluntly explained while passing around the flashlights, "about a mile out. I think there's a reason why this has happened. I've been out here before. It was the beginning of sophomore year, the night before tryouts for First Line," he started walking through the woods, the girls following close behind, "I remember because it was all that I could think about."
"What were you doing," Malia asked as she shone her light on the grass floor, making sure she didn't trip on anything.
"I was looking for a dead body."
Lydia exhaled, not expecting that answer, "that's morbid."
Odessa nodded in agreement, furrowing her brow, "yeah, Scott, you would never willingly do that to begin with, let alone by yourself."
"So then, what was I doing out here all alone?"
"I wish I could help you but I didn't know you then," the Martin shrugged, keeping her eyes in front of her where her flashlight was shining.
Malia added her own excuse, "I was still a coyote so I might've tried to eat it."
Odessa then contributed with a raise of her hand, "and I wasn't anywhere near here until a year later."
"Deaton said that my subconscious is trying to tell me something," Scott shared with the girls, the information fresh in his mind since it was only told to him a couple hours before, "but I need you guys to help me figure out what it's saying."
"Maybe you were just a curious teenager," Lydia suggested the most obvious and logical explanation, "you heard there was a body."
Scott shook his head, it not adding up in his mind, "but how? I never watched the news. And I didn't have a police scanner."
The Tate took her own guess from the information she did know from her time with the pack, "your mom works at the hospital. Maybe she got called in and you overheard her?"
"My mom wasn't home that night," Scott stopped in his tracks, causing the girls to do the same. Now that he was talking about it out loud, more and more wasn't adding up, "I live five miles away from here. How did I get here?"
"You drove."
"I didn't have a car."
"You ran."
"I couldn't have. I had asthma," Scott recalled before starting to walk again, hearing his friends follow him, "I was hiding, but they knew that I was here."
Malia offered another guess after her two attempts to get answers from the questions she asked Scott, "maybe you made a ton of noise with your asthmatic breathing."
"How would they know it was me," they all stopped again, the girls hanging onto every question Scott was asking himself, "why would the Sheriff even think that I would be out here?"
Lydia shrugged knowingly, pursing her lips, "because like most deaths in this town, it was related to the supernatural."
"I wasn't supernatural," the McCall stressed every individual word, sighing, "I mean, this was the night that I was bitten. I wasn't a werewolf yet. And I wasn't out here alone. I know this sounds crazy. But I think I had a best friend. And I think he was out here with me that night."
"It doesn't sound crazy," Malia shook her head, answering instantly, "I know that someone chained me up and I think they wanted me to stay human," she turned to Odessa specifically, who was simply watching her friends try to put the pieces together, "someone helped you with me on full Moons."
"I came to school this morning expecting to see someone at their locker. I expected for someone to start talking to me. A friend," Lydia shared, putting her experience simply. She had also been having Banshee moments but nothing too crazy.
Gradually, the three teens looked at their blonde friend, who was watching the grassy floor like it was the most interesting thing she had ever seen. If Odessa was being honest, she was nervous to share what she was experiencing. It felt too real for her. Almost too real to want to make it real.
"Odie?"
Swallowing thickly, the Stone looked up, locking eyes with her best friends before contributing quietly, "I've been having dreams again. Like the ones I used to get about the Salvation when I first got here. Every dream has a boy in it and it's not Silas. We were kissing and saying that we loved each other... whoever he was... I loved him... a lot. He was... everything to me."
Scott's eyes grew more confident when he realized he wasn't alone, nodding, "what if we're all missing the same person," after a thought came to mind, he took out a folded picture from his pocket and showed it to them, "I think that he was in this picture."
Odessa inhaled sharply at the familiar picture that was currently on display on her vanity desk. It was taken the day the seniors got their picture taken at school three months ago. It was one of her favorite pictures taken of her and her friends. She furrowed her brow at the photo, depicting something she hadn't noticed before, "he was sitting right there," she pointed to where she was sitting between Lydia and Scott, "I was sitting on his lap..."
The four friends glanced at each other in curiosity. They knew something was going on, and they were going to get to the bottom of it.
━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━
Odessa would always be surprised when coming to the Animal Clinic. With one phone call between Scott and Deaton, the latter was able to come up with a way to help in no time at all. When the four teens got there, Deaton had already set up everything for them to do—for Lydia to do.
Banshees could do many things to figure out many things. One way was automatic writing, which Odessa had tried to get her to do before during their junior year when Lydia drew the Nemeton, which they didn't know at the time. To this day, Odessa still didn't know how she knew automatic writing was a way for Lydia to help as a Banshee, but she was starting to question everything she did when she first got to Beacon Hills. Specifically, did she do everything alone like she thought she did?
The set-up at the clinic was pretty simple. Deaton tied a piece of glass, something that Scott had in his position that he didn't know how he obtained in the first place, to a string on one of the smaller metal tables. The string was attached to a small light while the rest of the room's lights were off. Lydia simply had to use that piece of glass as a focus point to try and write something—anything.
"Now she just magically writes down all the answers?"
"It's not quite that simple," Deaton countered to Malia as Lydia sat down at the metal table next to him.
Lydia cocked a brow, "it never is."
"In automatic writing, the hand moves outside of any conscious awareness," Deaton started to explain openly before speaking to Lydia directly, "now hopefully the silence, the darkness, and the light will allow you to find a more comfortable, relaxed, trance-like state. Lydia, I want you to stare into the light. And let go of all thought."
After the instruction and passing a piece of paper and a pen to the strawberry blonde, Deaton guided the other three teens to the side of the room to give her the space she needed to concentrate. Odessa kept her arms crossed against her chest as she watched her friend click the pen in her hand and press it on the paper. Only a few seconds later, Lydia began to write.
"I have to warn you," Deaton brought the teen's attention back to him as they were watching Lydia write, "we may not be able to access these memories."
"Why not," Scott asked as Odessa furrowed her brows from next to him. If they couldn't access them, why was she gaining access to memories through her dreams like she could with her past?
Deaton sighed, glancing at Lydia for a moment before looking at the Alpha, "the legend has always been that the Wild Hunt takes people. But if what you're telling me is right, the truth is much worse. They erase people from reality."
The McCall shook his head, not fully grasping the situation they were in, "how do we remember someone who has been completely erased from our minds?"
Before Odessa could contribute and tell Deaton what she was experiencing, Malia spoke something first, eyes on the Banshee, "maybe he hasn't been."
The teens and Doctor turned their attention back to Lydia, who was scribbling on the piece of paper fiercely, not being able to stop. As her breath grew heavier, they started to become concerned.
"Oh, is she okay," Scott asked, stepping forward, "should we stop her?"
Deaton placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him in his tracks, letting himself go toward the girl, "Lydia? Lydia? Slow down," when she didn't listen or seem to hear him, he turned off the light, causing her to snap out of the trance she was in, dropping the pen on the table.
Leaning closer to look at her friend, Odessa noticed the distant look in Lydia's eyes, "is she okay?"
"Lydia?"
When Deaton's call went unanswered again, Malia took it upon herself to grab the piece of paper on the table, observing it, "what does 'mischief' mean?"
Scott took the paper, and after a moment, came to the conclusion, "that's not what she wrote."
Taking a look for herself, Odessa's heart spiked when reading what Lydia wrote. A name was written in big letters made out of the word 'mischief'. A name the Stone had never heard of but at the same time, felt so familiar. Eyes not moving from the paper, she heard Lydia gasp herself out of the trance and question she uttered not a moment later.
"What the hell is a Stiles?"
━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━
comment & vote babes.. ily !
i know there is a major lack of stodessa rn but pls keep reading cuz it's really discouraging when i read comments about people not reading anymore just cuz stiles is gone. yes this is a stiles / tw book but odie is still her own character and i'm gonna try my best to include stodessa memories as much as possible for u guys. just pls be nice and mindful in the chapters to come <3 also, pls trust me w the whole silas thing. as u can see, he's really not that involved and his presence will be explained in future chapters. xoxo
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: AzTruyen.Top