darker_london | Are you sure you want to belong? (Lydia) (Reply)

It wasn't that Lydia was anti-social or unapproachable in any way, but she was still finding it hard to fit in at London College. She was doing just fine academically, she was on par or ahead of those around her in that sense. But socially, she was years ahead of her classmates. Having to grow up quickly and being constantly surrounded by people who were older than you but treated you as an equal would do that to you. She spent a lot of her free time hanging around with Dylan of course and Hayley too, but it was hard when they didn't have courses together. Dylan was more of a literary mind and Lydia was much more in to maths and science, and Hayley was two years older than Lydia. The only class Lydia and Dylan shared was a history of the British Isles course, and Lydia was on her own the rest of the day. She mostly kept to herself and she wasn't considered weird or unlikeable by anyone, just quiet and slightly mysterious.

Until she heard some of the more popular girls in her physical science class discussing Paris instead of the experiment they were supposed to be doing. She leaned forward and quickly said, "I've been to Paris!" She was just glad to find something to connect with them about.

The acceptance of the girls was nearly immediate. Clearly, as Lydia had travelled, she had money and she was one of their own. "I'd LOVE to go to Paris." One of them breathed. Lydia thought her name was Brianna. "It would be so beautiful at night. Was it so beautiful at night?"

Lydia thought about that. She hadn't actually contemplated Paris's beauty while she'd been there. In fact, she'd hated every second of her existence there because she'd been stolen from her father's house and kept hostage by her mother who neglected and occasionally abused her. But she didn't really think, "hey, my mum kidnapped me and I've been kidnapped twice more since then, and hey by the way she killed herself a few months ago and then my dad had a brain tumour and he died too but he's okay now' was going to make them want to keep talking to her. So instead, she said, "Yeah, really beautiful."

"Oh...and the ART. Did you go to the Louvre!?" Brianna asked with a forced air of sophistication. "MY father says he wants to take us there one day. He says it's wonderful to be in a place where you are surrounded by works of genius like that. Di Vinci and the like. You feel inspired, you know?"

Lydia didn't. But she nodded anyway. "I met a really nice girl there too, her name was Audrey-"

"And the food. I bet it was fantastic!" Another girl named Casey interjected.

"Er..." Lydia hadn't actually had much in the way of food during her stay, beyond the pastries that Audrey slipped her. Though they had been very good....

"Did you meet any French men?" Brianna asked. "I LOVE French Men."

"I...not really..."

"Don't you have a boyfriend, Lydia? That little Irish chappie who talks like a knight?" Casey asked, looking incredibly interested. SHE didn't have a boyfriend...

Lydia smiled. "Dylan. Yes, he's wonderful. But uhm...not French."

"Do you speak French, Lydia?" Brianna asked, sounding hopeful. If Lydia could speak French, that made her even more interesting. Interesting was very good. Interesting and rich.

Lydia shook her head. "My mum did. She was part French. I think her mother was from there." Did. Past tense. Oops.

"Did? She doesn't anymore?" Brianna's face was quite dramatically shocked and full of sympathy, though Lydia couldn't quite tell if it was false or not.

Lydia shifted uncomfortably. "She...died." The girls looked horrified and Lydia sat there, just staring at them. "I uhm...my step-mother's still alive though so...I'm good. You know...Normal. She speaks Spanish...her family is from Spain."

The other girls looked at each other and for a moment, the silence hung over them like a gloomy little cloud. Until Brianna interjected, "I'd LOVE to go to Spain!"

And with that, Lydia relaxed. She explained she'd been there too. She wowed them with stories of Valencia and the seaside house Aly's family owned. She talked about Spanish family gatherings and the fact that she was learning Spanish to be able to talk with that side of the family. And by the end of the science class, the girls had exchanged mobile numbers. Because of course, they all had them. They had learned an awful lot about Valencia, Spain. A little too much about Lydia Kemp, and nothing at all about physical science.