Ephemeral

Betwixt Life and Death Part 2

I walked into the large room while holding my bag close to my side. 

I scanned the other people that were sitting down until my eyes landed on a man that was sitting in the back of the room with his eyes glued to the phone in his hands. I didn't know why...he seemed to be approachable even though he clearly didn't want anything to do with anyone.

"Are you here for the interview, too?" I asked the man, getting close enough to see that he had long black hair that was pulled into a bun at the top of his head. He looked like Jack...if Jack had decided to grow out his hair. The man looked up from his phone and gave a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

"Is that supposed to be a joke, Ri-Ri?" He questioned, and I blinked my eyes and instantly remembered who this man was in front of me. I couldn't believe that I had forgotten who he was up until just now. "That one was actually pretty good, though," Jonah mused as he let out a high pitched giggle before shaking his head.

He patted the vacant seat next to him and I sat down.

"I heard that fucking Dakota Tate is supposed to be running this interview, can you even believe that?" Jonah asked, and I let out a snort of disbelief.

I shook my head. 

"The guy that used to teach History-??" I whispered out, and Jonah nodded his head in excitement, finding too much joy that a teacher, who used to give us detentions for smoking by the football bleachers, would be interviewing us today. "No way..." I looked off to the side, expecting to see the guy show his face at any moment. "How did he fall so far as to sell health insurance to people...?"

"Dunno," Jonah spoke, crossing his arms, lazily. 

Unlike me, it seemed like he wasn't letting his nerves get the best of him. This was my first real interview and I was nervous – it wasn't like anything I had done before. I knew that I didn't want to let down Brendon and Esther back at home...

"Whatever, though," Jonah passed off the topic with a shrug. "It pays the bills, right-?"

"Right..." I agreed with him, scratching my arm nervously. It felt sore for some reason – as though the skin was bruised but there was nothing there. I couldn't shake the jabbing sensation, either -- I pinned the paranoia on my nerves, though. "Brendon and Esther want me to welcome one of their friends or something tonight."

Jonah pursed his lips and nodded. 

"That's different –

I was frozen in place as a man walked into the waiting room holding a clipboard. At seeing that I wasn't paying him any attention, Jonah shook my shoulder with his hand. I couldn't pull my gaze away from the man in front of me. Then, Jonah looked to where I was looking and he pulled his hand away slowly.

"I'm here to conduct the interview for Arianna Gonzalez...?" Aidan called out into the room.

I couldn't breathe – what the hell was he doing here-??

He looked around the room until his eyes landed on me.

Then, he smirked, knocking his knuckles on the paper that displayed my name. 

"Ah...I meant to say a Vienna Mathis..." Aidan walked over, holding the clipboard in his hands. "You want to work for me, Vienna?" He asked, and I paled at his question. 

I wasn't able to respond as I was trying to wrap my head around what was happening -- this didn't make any sense to me. 

"We can cut the profit fifty-fifty – you don't mind luring my product to their demise, do you?"