Whatever We Lose

I was just... leaving. (Part 2)

"Hey, Jo Jo. Need an escort?" Penelope asked and Josie sighed.
"Sure." she says while keeping the note that Hope gave, "Do you know anyone whose heart isn't made of stone?" Josie's voice were cold. Icy, rather.
"Look, I am sorry about earlier. I saw a chance to make Lizzie suffer and, uh... I shot my shot." Penelope says  with a humorous smile.
"Why can't you just ease up on her?" Josie asks.
"She sucks the air out of every room you're in."
"She's my twin. We can share oxygen."
"Are you sharing love interests now too?" Penelope asks, clearly getting annoyed at Josie for once again taking her twin's side. "Because she's the only one with a date. See? You have crawled so far down the co-dependence rabbit hole that you think taking care of yourself is selfish. But it's not. So when are you gonna take care of you?"
"I take care of myself just fine." Josie says firmly, a little bit sharper than she should have and being a fuel to Penelope's building rage it is something she can't help.
"Oh, really? Party starts in five." Penelope said in a pitiful tone. The kind that Josie doesn't like being showered towards her although, yes. She just likes it being under Lizzie's shadow. She loves her twin so much that she doesn't really mind although yes, at some point it gets tiring and suffocating. But Lizzie is family. And rain or shine, she will never turn her back on her sister. "It's a shame you spent all of that time helping Lizzie get ready." Penelope spatted before eyeing Josie with anger and retreats back into the party.

Josie hated it. Josie hated how Penelope insinuated the things that Josie herself is willing to do for her sister. She just doesn't see the point. She's not as naive as her ex-girlfriend thinks, all of them are her choice. She knows that of all people.

She's annoyed and started feeling lost. Penelope's words taking a toll on her and she doesn't need it. Not right now, not later. So she decides to start putting on the gown and afterwards, finally deciding on something, she makes her way towards her father's office and opened the door. Revealing her Bio-Mom who turned to see her and smiled warmly.

"Do you know how to braid?" was her only question and it was more than enough for her biological mother to welcome her in, where of course she says yes.

Making Josie sit and borrowing the brush from her daughter's grip, she started fixing the younger's hair while exchanging stories later on resulting to both of them letting out some hearty giggle. "Aren't you gonna be late?"
"No, it's cool. No one will notice."
"At your own party?" Her mother asks and returns the hair brush to her.
"Maybe if I had a date." Josie says, her mind diverting to Hope.

'Since she gave me a gift, will she be at the party?' she asks herself. Surely someone did remember and for the first time, just her and not Lizzie.

"Is there anyone special?" her mom asks.
"That is a complicated question." she says. Her mother moving in front of her and sits tightly.
"Humor me." 

Josie smiles, "Well...." she started. "Last year there was a girl, and she, uh... dumped me. And then there was this boy but Lizzie has dibs so, it's okay. And then, there's this I don't know. This girl from then and now..." she trailed of, 'You're seriously gonna bring her up, are you?' she asks herself internally but her mother is waiting for her to continue. And so she did.
"And what about this girl?"
"This is where the complication starts with, I guess." Josie says, "Because she's the kind of person who's had enough loss. So much so she had these walls put up since then and nobody has yet enter. But she makes me feel special. Her entire being screams hard steel personality and that's how it is to everyone else. Sometimes she mocks them. Nobody could get into her. But lately, there are time when she lets me in. Brief times." Josie chuckled, 'Yes, I am seriously bringing her up.' she thought. "She never cares but she actually cares about me. She never lets anyone close but she's fine with me. I have always been suffocating whenever they judge me for being second best from Lizzie, sometimes invisible to others, but she always sees me for me. She believes that I am brave and no one has ever seen me like that. Everyone has seen me as someone who will never be better than being Lizzie's shadow but she, she sees me for what or who I am."