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 Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 7:44 pm
Hospitals were absolutely boring. Boring, boring, BORING. In an effort to keep herself from getting even more sad, the dark haired girl had dared to ask her equally dark haired mother for her crocheting needle and a big bundle of yarn. Yarn could be pretty cheap, especially when using the appropriate coupons. Natasha Weaver simply smiled gently and did as requested, bringing the next time she visited the requested plastic hook and a large bundle of yarn that switched between white and green colors.
The start was slow, but it usually was, but eventually the girl got into the groove of the motions. She was still limited with her one arm, since she was still attached to a few different machines, but her other arm made up for it by doing all the work.
This will make a nice scarf... but it needs something... As the girl attempted to figure out what this green and white striped scarf was lacking, something bizarre happened.
Well, at least Yvette thought it was bizarre. Her large clunky excuse of a cell phone began to ring. It was a very bare basic default ring tone that simply rang like a normal old phone. Not nearly as pretty as the ring tones she had heard on some of those fancier phones.
Carefully, the girl set her project down in her lap and squirmed into snatching up her cell phone.
"...uh... h-hello?"
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Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 10:49 pm
Every December, Lydia Sfakianos remembered that she had a cousin.
It was, other people told her, an odd thing to forget. Lydia argued that it wasn't, not when their families squabbled the way they did. Or more accurately, the patriarchs of their families. And so they kept their families apart, with only the occasional visit, some phone calls and cards in the mail, a casual email now and then. Lydia had fond memories of her ksádelfi from when they were young, but their age difference was too much for them to be in the same school- not that they would have been, with Lydia stuck in private schools and Yvette going to public- and so, slowly, they began to drift apart.
Last December, Lydia's remembrance had taken the form of a solid ache in her chest. By then, Yvette had been dead for nearly a year, but her death was still a raw wound. Even though they hadn't seen each other much beforehand. Or, perhaps, because of it. Lydia couldn't remember what Yvette's favorite color was, or how many outfits she'd made, and that made her cry late at night, after her parents had gone to bed. She hadn't loved her ksádelfi enough, and now she was dead.
Or so it seemed, until a few weeks later, when Lydia heard that Yvette was, in fact, alive. Caught up in a news scandal, the victim of horrors that nobody would elaborate on, but alive. Lydia wanted to go see her. Her parents refused, stating that hospitals were no place for children. So she'd relied on them for news, sent cards and gifts through the mail. At the time, it had seemed enough, and their relationship went back to the way it was, albeit with a little more distance caused by Lydia's guilt and discomfort with Yvette's death and sudden return.
This December, Lydia was determined to make things different. She was fourteen years old now- practically an adult, really- and Crystal Academy, while strict, couldn't keep her from seeing her extended family. But fourteen years of conditioning wasn't erased so easily, and when Lydia moved to leave, she couldn't.
"Fine," she muttered to herself, fishing out her cell phone and going to the last entry in her address book. For a moment, she looked anxiously at the clock, wondering if this was the right time. Then, with renewed conviction, she mashed the TALK button with her thumb.
The phone rang. And rang. And rang. And- oh! "Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Yvette, Happy Birthday to you!" Lydia belted out the song at full volume, not noticing that her key was slightly off. "I know I'm a little late, but happy birthday! At least, I hope it was a happy birthday."
A little winded from the singing, Lydia took a moment to catch her breath.
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Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 7:21 am
It was a good thing that Yvette had already set her things down so carefully, otherwise she might have dropped it all on the floor when she heard the song on the other end of the phone. The young adult had still yet to learn how to program her phone properly to warn her who was calling, so it was definitely a surprise. A very pleasant surprise!
Fortunately, the room was quiet enough to allow her small voice to be heard. It had been a long while. A very, very long while. Yet somehow, even now in the hospital, she could recognize the voice she hadn't heard in a long while. "Lyddie? Lyddie, is that you?" A tiny hamster-styled giggle escaped the girl. Of course her cousin would sing her happy birthday. Even if she was a little late, the girl felt as if her heart was swelling. Almost about to burst, but somehow, Yvette embraced this feeling.
A finger went to play with the already crocheted sections of her pending scarf, making certain to not loosen any of the stitches. "Thank you Lyddie!" Though her voice was tiny, it was obvious from her tone that she was all smiles thanks to her younger cousin's words. "To be honest... it's been a rather uneventful birthday... I just seem to have this tendency to be in the hospital during December it would seem." Last year it was after Barren Pines that she woke up in the hospital. She could only start remembering things at least a couple weeks after her birthday. She honestly couldn't even remember what she had done to celebrate her birthday the previous year. Or if she had even bothered to celebrate at all. The girl more or less gave up on remembering and just assumed she had been sleeping in the hospital the year before for her birthday as well.
Shaking her head slightly, though the motion wouldn't even be noticed over the phone, the girl returned to the current conversation. "...but enough about me Lyddie! Tell me about how you've been? Are you in high school this year, or is that next year for you?"
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Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 9:35 pm
The fact that Yvette was so surprised to hear from her gave Lydia another sharp pang of guilt. They really didn't talk as much as they used to, or as much as she wanted to. Still, that meant that she was right for finally taking the initiative and calling. And the fact that Yvette sounded happy to hear from her helped to ease her worries. "None other!" she chirped back. "It's really good to hear you, Yvette! I've missed you!"
Much enthused, Lydia relaxed back into the pillows on her bed. The next thing Yvette said, though, made her sit up again sharply. "The hospital? What happened? Are you okay? Nobody told me anything! Oh Yvette, I'm so sorry!" Some days it seemed like her ksádelfi had the worst luck in the world. She was stuck in a tiny house with no car and no computer and none of the things Lydia took for granted. She had been kidnapped and probably tortured for a whole year. And now she was spending her birthday in the hospital?
"We'll have to do something to make up for it, then," Lydia decided. And they could, now that she was in the city proper, without Babbás and Mana watching over her every move. She couldn't wait to share that particular bit of news. "Yes, I'm in high school now! And guess what! I got them to let me come to Crystal Academy! Babbás was against me going to boarding school at first, but they have a really good reputation, and I know he only wants what's best for me." It was just that his ideas of what was best for her often conflicted with her own.
Leaning back again, Lydia turned on her side. "What about you? Did you graduate yet? I know you were really excited for that." She hoped she would have heard if something that exciting had happened, but it was entirely possible that she'd missed the memo.
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Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 11:13 pm
In an effort to keep her fingers occupied as she was on the phone, the girl in the hospital bed balanced the cell phone to her ear with her shoulder. The phone no longer being much of a concern, she resumed her work with her plastic crochet hook. She scooted back a bit so she was a bit cozier.
"N-no... i-it was my own fault I'm here..." Her lips formed a tiny frown, hearing how genuinely concerned Lyddie was getting over her current location. "I forgot my epi-pen and I accidentally set off my allergies... I really should have remembered it." Maybe the girl at the smoothie place had gotten her order wrong, but it was also Yvette's own fault for speaking too quietly. She didn't need to tell little Lyddie that particular detail.
If there was one thing her cousin was good at, it was turning any frown upside down. "Really?!" She straightened up a bit, and missed a loop of yarn with her plastic hook. She let out a nearly inaudible tsk sound. "You are so lucky, Lyddie! I heard that Crystal is a really good school!" It wasn't like Yvette would ever know that. It was way too late for her to join that sort of program. She was a Senior and a half. No chance to transfer. "You have to promise to come see me! Mommy and Daddy would probably love to see you too! Promise me Lyddie!" Yvette's end of the phone got really quiet as she waited for her cousin to give her an answer. Lyddie wasn't going to get an answer about graduation until Yvette got her answer.
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Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 12:14 pm
Once she was sure that they would be talking for a while, Lydia put her phone on speaker and set it on the bed next to her. Then, with a slight yawn, she took the end of one of her long braids and began to undo it.
"Oh. That sounds terrible, Yvette." But in a weird way, Lydia was jealous. When she was home, she could never leave the house without at least one of her parents making sure she had her inhaler, her medic alert bracelet, her cell phone, and her list of emergency contacts. Never mind that she'd been quite healthy for years, or that she was fourteen years old and knew how to take care of herself. Yvette's relationship with her parents was so different from Lydia's relationship with hers.
And it had landed Yvette in the hospital, so maybe there was something to be said for paranoia.
"Well, I'm really glad to hear you sounding so good, at least." Lydia reached up to untie the ribbon that held the top part of her braid in place. "Yeah, it seems good so far! I've only been there a semester, though, so I'm not sure I can tell you much." Most of her energy went into personal research, rather than school extracurriculars. Her class schedule was pretty generic, since she wasn't there with honors or talents in anything special. Just one more daughter of a well-off family.
The mention of a visit made her slightly nervous. While Lydia loved Yvette and her aunt, her uncle always intimidated her a little. Part of it was the way he looked and the way he carried himself, but most of it was the arguments she knew he'd had with Babbás. She still loved him, but it was hard being around him sometimes. "Are you sure Theios Alan would want to?" she asked slowly, anxiously. "I want to see you, of course, but I don't want to make things... difficult."
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Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 4:45 pm
During that time when the girl waited for her cousin to respond, Yvette managed to pull back on the yarn she was working with just enough to undo a few stitches so she could get the loops right. One mistake wasn't bad in a project like this, but it was just easier to undo the stitches so that when the final piece was finished, it wouldn't have that one section that just stands out compared to the rest. There was no excuse to make an ugly scarf.
Yvette eased herself back into the rhythm of working with her crochet hook. If someone nearby watched, they could easily count along with simple rhythm of 1... 2... 1... 2... 1... 2...
"Is the campus as big as they say it is? Are the dorm rooms cozy enough, Lyddie? Or are they horridly cramped?" Even though her cousin had confessed she didn't really have much to tell, the elder of the pair couldn't help but ask all the questions she had always wondered for herself.
However, her questions got cut short by a simple question. It would have taken a simpleton to realize that there wasn't some sort of friction going on between the families. There had been friction ever since she was a little girl, but as the years went on, the strain on the two families just got worse and worse. And in the past couple of years, the relationship had almost been nonexistant (most likely due to Daddy getting extra paranoid due to that whole Barren Pines fiasco). "I know Daddy wants to see you! He'll be good, I promise! If he tries to be mean, I'll bop him on the nose!" If it was just little Lyddie, it wouldn't be much of a problem. If only a telephone could send a reassuring smile to the other end for her cousin to see.
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 11:40 am
"I don't know how big they say it is, so I can't tell you that." Lydia giggled at her own bad joke. "The dorms are fine. I don't have a roommate though- they said that a lot of students left during the epidemic." They had also implied that several students had died during it, something that she tried not to think about too much. "But I'm not sure how much truth there is to that."
There was one easy way to answer all of Yvette's questions, though. "Would you like to visit sometime? We're allowed to have visitors, as long as they sign in and everything. I could show you around the campus, and then you'd see how big it is and everything!" It was, in Lydia's mind, the perfect solution.
She paused as Yvette talked about her father, and had to grin at the mental image she invoked. "Yvette, you'd have to stand on a chair to bop Theios Alan on the nose!" That was true, but it was not an agreement. Lydia wasn't sold on the idea just yet.
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 12:05 pm
A tiny frown managed to make its way to the girl's lips as she was reminded of the epidemic. Tara had managed to survive the epidemic, and so had Topher's mom. Mr. Darrow too. They had been lucky, but it didn't mean that Yvette didn't feel bad about the whole thing. So many emotions had run wild during that time, many in which she didn't want to see or experience again. People she thought could never be so miserable were. Strangers had lashed out at her from frustration. Things were not the way they should have been, and even though life was finally starting to get back to normal again, some things would haunt her to this day.
Still partially caught in her own mood, the girl replied to the really good suggestion in an almost withdrawn manner. "I'd... I'd love to..." With her current tone, it was a less-than-convincing response. Her eyes glanced down and noticed that she had actually stopped with her crochet needle as she had been thinking. It was probably for the best, because if she didn't stop, she probably would have made several mistakes by brainlessly making loops.
The girl seemed to regain a bit more emotion to her voice though when she retorted to something Lyddie had said. "I could still do it! It would just require Daddy to be sitting down!" She was determined that she should come visit the family. If not now, then maybe soon. After Yvette visited the school maybe?
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 1:38 pm
Lydia hadn't personally known anyone affected by the epidemic. Her parents had associates and friends who were hurt, and she'd heard stories from them about how bad things were, but they were watered down by people who didn't want to scare their daughter. She didn't know that Yvette was any different, so she misunderstood the nature of her quieter-than-usual tone.
"It's not scary there. I mean, not really. I know a lot of people think that Crystal girls are mean and stuck-up, but most of the girls I know are really nice. I think it's just like that old saying- don't let a bad apple spoil the whole bushel! And if anyone tries to say anything about you, I'll make them stop."
Not that Lydia was a fighter, or a strategist, or even particularly diplomatic. But if she promised Yvette that she wouldn't let people pick on her, then she wouldn't let people pick on her. It was as simple as that. At least, it was in her mind.
"That's true," she admitted, though it was still a funny mental image. "But if you have to hit Theios Alan to make him say okay, wouldn't it be easier for us to go... I don't know, someplace else?" Anyplace would be fine with Lydia, as long as it didn't have the emotional baggage that either of their homes would.
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 2:08 pm
The elder girl didn't make any effort to correct her cousin at all. Lyddie was just being nice, and maybe protective. Of course, the girl in her hospital bed couldn't help but shift slightly in place as she realized how ironic it was for the younger of the pair to be the stronger. Shouldn't Yvette have been the one protecting Lyddie?
"Th-thank you Lyddie... you always look out for me..." She let out a weak laugh, acknowledging without words how awkward that probably was. However, that weak laugh turned into an amused giggle quite quickly.
"No no no no! I wouldn't hit Daddy! I'd bop him on the nose! There's a big difference!" At least, in her mind there was a difference, since all a "bop on the nose" to her was really a flick to his nose. Almost like punishing a dog in all honesty. Amidst her giggling, she managed to finally admit defeat. "...fine, fine! We'll meet someplace else. But I know both Mommy and Daddy do want to see you still!"
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 3:30 pm
Age had nothing to do with it in Lydia's opinion. Yvette was strong- she had to be, to make it through all the bad stuff she made it through- but that didn't mean that she didn't need help sometimes. Especially when it came to mean people who didn't understand how awesome her ksádelfi was. If it came down to it, Lydia would protect Yvette from whatever unhappiness she could. It was only fair.
"Don't worry about it. So you'll come, right? Winter break's coming up, maybe that would be- oh, but you graduated already, right?" It had come back to that. "What are you doing now, anyway? Are you working?"
To Lydia, a bop still qualified as hitting, even if it was no more than a light tap and meant in jest. But explaining that might make Yvette feel bad, and if she conceded the point, she didn't have to. "We'll all do something together another time, okay? Right now I want to see you most of all. We have to celebrate your birthday, too!"
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 7:10 pm
The girl couldn't help but make a slight face at the mention of graduation status. It would always remain a tender subject because she had to stay for an extra semester, even after all of the work she had done to try and catch up with the others of her age group the year before. "The school district actually made me stay behind for another semester because of that whole... um... situation last year..." That was a nice way of phrasing she had been a part of an organ ring scheme, right?
"I did start working last year after Daddy had his accident... he couldn't work for a few months because he broke his leg... so I got a job at the mall to help out." A job in one of the more embarrassing shops in the mall. However, Lyddie didn't need to know that. If she told her, then Lyddie would probably try to visit her at work. Something that Yvette would like to avoid. She'd like to avoid anybody she knew visiting her at work.
After such a long pause, the girl finally got back to crocheting. The pace was slow to start again, mainly to make sure she didn't make any mistakes. "You don't have to worry about celebrating my birthday... it's okay... just talking with you has been good enough, Lyddie. I do want to see you, but let's not visit just to celebrate my birthday. I-it's not necessary!"
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 9:06 pm
It had been a bad question. There were signs, and Lydia had skipped right over them. "Oh Yvette, I'm so sorry." The hurt in her cousin's voice was quite evident, and there wasn't much she could say to help. "But if it's one semester, that means you're almost done, right? That's fantastic! We'll do a graduation party for you!"
Lydia had a permanent lemonade stand set up for all the lemons life was tossing her.
"Accident... what?" That was something she hadn't heard about at all! Neither of her parents mentioned it, and her contact with Yvette was still poor at the time. "Is he okay? Why doesn't anyone tell me anything?" Frustrated with the way everyone was handling her with kid gloves, Lydia pounded the bed. Several times. Yvette would probably hear a series of muffled thumps through the phone line.
Then she stopped, and sighed. "Well, as long as everyone's okay. And yes, we do have to celebrate, Yvette. Birthdays are important. You're important." Now that they were talking again, just like old times, Lydia was remembering just how important her cousin was to her.
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 9:45 pm
Almost as if echoing her cousin, the girl uttered "I hope I am almost done... I feel like a dummy for being in high school at the age of 19..." Yvette had already been a bit old for her age group, despite not really looking the right age.
Her pace had finally picked up again before she had to pause again. What in the world was that noise on the other end of the phone? Yes, she had heard the words of frustration prior to it, but that sound was pretty weird. "Hmmm... I think my phone is acting up..."
The girl paused and waited for the noise to stop before she replied again. "He's okay now... but while he wasn't allowed to work, he went pretty stir crazy... he still has to take it a bit easier on that leg, but he's okay for work now." The specific details to the actual accident had remained pretty much to herself and to her Daddy. Would people believe her about the weird monster? Or would they believe her about the fact that the terrorists had saved her family?
"I really don't need to go out to celebrate in my old age." It was a lame attempt on her end to weasel out of going out to celebrate herself.
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