CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
YOU'RE MY SISTER

"LYDIA, WANNA GO TO THE dance together?" Elaine questioned. "I don't have a date. Neither do you. It's a compromise."

"I'll go with you last minute." Lydia answered. Elaine frowned.

"Last minute? What do you mean?"

"I'm giving that Stiles kid until the day of to ask you. And then we'll go together." Lydia said with a smirk.

"You're joking, right?" Elaine gave her friend a blank look. "Lyds, he knows you aren't going with Jackson, he'll ask you before he ever thinks of asking me."

"Well, I'll say no." Lydia smiled.

"No, don't do that." Elaine shook her head. "It will break his heart."

"And if I do say yes―︎if he even asks me―︎ and I go with him, it'll break yours." Lydia told the girl, frowning. "El, I'm your best friend. Even though I'm a bitch most of the time, I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you."

"Is it really intentional if I already know about it and already approve it?" Elaine questioned. Elaine offered her friend a gentle smile.

"You and your selflessness is annoying." Lydia muttered. "Though, admirable. I wish I were you sometimes, you know that."

Elaine let out a laugh, smiling as she shook her head. "Trust me, Lyds, when I say, no you don't."

━︎━︎━︎━︎━︎

The three started up the escalator of the mall, Elaine turned around so that she was looking down at Lydia and Allison who were behind her.

"Nothing's wrong. . . I just, I have a lot on my mind." Allison said with a soft sigh.

"You could smile, at least. Ever heard of the saying, 'Never frown―︎someone could be falling in love with your smile?'" Lydia told the dark haired girl. "Smile, Allison. I'm buying you a dress."

"Have to admit, as far as apologies go, that's more than I expected." Allison spoke, earning a chuckle of amusement from Elaine.

"It's an apology more than she's ever given me in our many years of friendship." Elaine told Allison with an amused smirk.

"But not as much as I'm going to ask." Allison spoke, looking at the girl before looking at Elaine who just nodded her head. Allison didn't like the plan, knowing how much this was truly hurting Elaine, but the McCall was adamant on saying she was perfectly fine with it, and she just wanted Stiles to be happy. And his happiness was going to be with Lydia. It took Elaine years to finally admit that she would never be his happiness.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Lydia questioned.

"It means. . ." Elaine started, getting off the escalator and turning around, standing beside of Lydia as the trio continued walking. "You're going to cancel on whatever dumb, 'roided-up jock I know you said yes to and you're going to go with somebody else."

"What?" Lydia frowned. "Who?"

"Him." Allison nodded her head over towards Stiles who was currently smelling some of the perfumes. Elaine gently laughed as she watched the boy spray himself with perfume, going into a sneezing fit.

"What? Elaine―︎!" Lydia tried to protest, but Elaine just smiled at her friend.

"Don't frown, Lydia! Someone could be falling in love with your smile." Elaine shot back.

"No, I'm not doing this to you." Lydia shook her head towards her friend. "Allison, how could you do this to her."

"I don't like it either, but she refuses, claiming that he deserves happiness and that's with you, blah-blah-blah." Allison huffed. "We had a thirty minute disagreement."

"Elaine never loses." Lydia realized, huffing.

"Got that right." Elaine smiled.

"Do you enjoy torturing yourself?" Lydia questioned.

"If it means making my friends happy, then yes." Elaine smiled, nodding her head before shoving Lydia forward, earning a glare from the strawberry blonde before Elaine and Allison moved on to do their own dress shopping. And so far, the ones Elaine had found were really fancy, and really pricey, and quite frankly she didn't want to force Lydia to buy them for her. Elaine couldn't help but watch with a smile as Stiles followed Lydia around, a stack of dresses in his hand.

"I'm going to the dressing room." Elaine told Allison.

"Give me a minute and I'll be there to judge." Allison offered her friend a smile. Elaine nodded her head before walking to the dressing rooms, entering one of the dressing rooms and stripping down before deciding to pull on the red one first. She listened through the speakers as Allison's car was stated that it was being towed, making her huff. Now she would never have a judge. And of course, the one room she chose didn't have a mirror in it. The girl huffed before walking out and going towards the mirror that was on the wall in the corner of the room. It was a simple red dress, the only thing fancy about it being that it went off the shoulders. She shook her head, not liking it. She went back to the stall, and changed into the navy blue―︎almost black―︎ dress.

She pulled on the dress. It went up to her knees in the front, and in the back it went down right below the back of her knees. The sleeves were lace with clear cloth covering the neckline, and the torso of the dress being covered in the same lace, just compacted onto each other, no skin being able to shine through. She sighed, walking out and looking at her self, messing with her hair to see if maybe there was a way that it would look right with the dress.

"Elaine, you look gorgeous!" Lydia called, making Elaine jump in surprise. She turned towards the strawberry blonde, offering her a small smile.

"You think?"

"Hell yeah! If you don't get it, I will." Lydia told the girl.

"Technically, you are getting it."

Lydia rolled her eyes. "You know what I meant."

"I agree with Lydia." Stiles appeared from behind the girl, and Lydia sent Elaine a smirk, watching as her friend furiously tried to hide the blush that was creeping up on her cheeks.

"Thanks, Stiles."

The boy looked at her, really looked at her. Smiling gently upon noticing the light blush that tainted her cheeks, giving her away. She truly did look gorgeous, standing there in that dress. It wasn't often Elaine dressed up, for she wasn't really a dress girl more than she was a jean jacket and jeans girl. But the dress she had chosen, she really seemed to be comfortable in. And it fit her perfectly. "You should, uh, you should definitely get it."

"See." Lydia smirked. Elaine narrowed her eyes at Lydia before offering Stiles a small smile and then quickly entering the room once more to change out of it and into her regular clothes. He looked happy standing there with Lydia. That's what mattered. He was happy. Or at least, that's what she kept telling herself over and over in her head.

━︎━︎━︎━︎━︎

Elaine laid on her brother's bed, her hands covering her face as her brother continued to look at her from his spot in front of the door, his arms crossed over his chest as he listened to her talk. He always listened to her, but he was convinced she thought otherwise.

"I know, this was my fault. I put this on myself. I'm the one that wanted Lydia to go with him, because I want Stiles to be happy. That's all I ever wanted, Scott. I know he'll be happy with Lydia. I mean, she's all he's ever wanted. And I guess it just hurts, knowing that he's in love with my best friend and will never give me the time of day as anything more than just friends. It hurts." She blinked, feeling frustrated tears fill her eyes. She sat up, looking up towards her brother. "It sucks, Scott." She cleared her throat that had quickly gotten clogged with unshed tears. "And I know, you'd rather not listen to your adopted sister rant about her love life. But I love him. I always have, and always will. And he only has eyes for my best friend."

"Sister." Scott suddenly spoke, making Elaine look up at him with furrowed eyebrows.

"What?"

"You're my sister." Scott sternly told her. "Not my adopted sister, my sister. I'd rather hear you rant about this than keep it to yourself, thinking that you have no one to listen to you." Scott moved so that he was sitting beside her. "I know it sucks, El. Trust me, I know. Watching Allison get so close with Jackson recently has been tearing me apart. But El, Stiles only has eyes for your best friend, because he hasn't bothered to open his eyes to look for anyone else. He doesn't know that you're in love with him like I and the rest of the world knows, because he's so oblivious to that sort of thing. So, tell him."

"Tell Stiles, one of my best friends, that I'm in love with him and possibly ruin our friendship for all of eternity?" Elaine questioned her brother. "Absolutely not."

"You're just as oblivious as he is." Scott said with an amused laugh. "You don't see the way that he looks at you whenever you're across the room, or the way he looks at you only when you're speaking to each other because he doesn't want to look away from you. He looks at you like you're the only person in the room, El. And he talks about you more than I think he realizes."

"Really?" Elaine whispered, searching her brother's eyes for any clue of false hope. But Scott only smiled, nodding his head.

"That night at the school, he was holding your hand practically the entire time, trying to keep you from harm, putting himself in front of you so that he would be the one to get hurt and not you." He searched for another before smiling again. "Or-or that same night, when Allison dumped me, Stiles and I went out to the woods to get drunk, and he talked about you. I don't think he remembers it because he was wasted, but we were talking about like different fish in the sea. . ."

"Dude, you know. . . she's just one. . . one girl. You know, there are so many. . . there are so many other girls in the sea." Stiles spoke, drunkenly speaking as he looked up at his best friend who was sitting on a tree stump whilst he was laying on the ground, a bottle of alcohol in his hand.

"Fish in the sea." Scott muttered.

Stiles scrunched up his face. "Fish? Why are we talking about fish? I'm talking about girls. I love girls. I love 'em. I love especially ones with red-brown hair, diamond blue eyes, five foot three. . ."

Scott looked down at his best friend with wide eyes, surprised att he confession that had just stumbled from his mouth. Though, he wasn't mad, in fact, in was thrilled. "Like Elaine?"

"Yeah, like Laney!" Stiles laughed.

Elaine looked at her brother with wide eyes as he recalled the memory. She swallowed. "Are you sure that wasn't a misunderstanding? 'Cause Lydia and I are the same height a-and he was drunk, so I mean. . ."

"Haven't you ever heard the saying drunk words are sober thoughts?" Scott questioned his sister, cocking an eyebrow as a gentle smile pulled up at the corners of his lips.

"Don't give me false hope like this, Scott." Elaine warned.

"I'm not, I swear!" Scott said, putting his hands up. He watched as a smile over took her face, making him laugh before nodding his head towards the door. "Now go get ready, you have dance to get to."