Finding Joy

CHAPTER 4: TODAY AND YESTERDAY

"Oh, I get it." Lily nodded understandingly. "But he's still in there alone."

"It's fine," replied Joy. "He doesn't seem like a bad guy, and he can barely move anyways."

Nick clapped and cheerfully said, "Wow you're so nice! So sad the boss yelled at you though. He got you real good haha. He was like," Nick imitated their boss, "'Your coat is disgusting and you smell so weird. It's like you've become a dog, rolled around in the mud, and then transformed back into a human. I'd rather you stay a dog."

Lily held up her hand and gestured for Nick to pause. "Nick, you are so dramatic. You're such a kid. Anyways, Joy, you're lucky the CEO was there to calm him down. He's always so nice to you." She paused. "Wait, do you think he likes- younger women?"

"What?" Joy exclaimed as she falls backwards off of her seat.

Laying flat on the floor, she looks up and sees a woman wearing a Channel dress, Prawda heels, and holding a Guchi purse.

Ignoring the two girls, she walks over to Nick and says, "There you are Nikki! Mind if I sit with you?"

Lily narrows her eyes and gives her a fake smile. "Actually, Paris, we do mind."

Paris's smile turns into a frown as she, also, narrows her eyes and twitches the right side of her upper lip. "I wasn't asking you. Anyways," she says as she turns back to Nick. "Nikki, how are you?"

"I'm doing great. You?"

"I'm so much happier now that I'm with you!"

Nick puts on a bright smile so bright that you might think he was sprinkled with glitter. Paris slso smiles brightly, basking in Nick's presence. At this point, Joy picks herself up and shakes her head in disapproval since Lily was too distracted by Paris to help her up. Joy sits back down and joined Lily in her staring contest with the side of Nick and Paris's faces.

Irritated, Lily cut them off. She swung her hand down between them in a chopping motion and announced, "Oh would you look at the time! We need to go back to work now. Right, Nick?"

Nick moved closer to Lily and put his arm around her shoulder. "It looks like we should be going, Paris. It was nice seeing you again!"

Paris shot Lily a mean look and stood up to leave. "Ok, bye Nikki! I'll see you again soon!"

As Paris waved and walked away, Nick turned his head towards Lily.

"Don't you dare." said Lily.

Nick smirked and teased her. "Aw, are you jealous? Do you like me?"

And just as usual, Lily punched Nick, and he found a corner to sulk in.

Joy nudged Lily and smirked as well. "You're totally jealous."

"No! It's just her! She hated me from day one! What did I ever do to her? Even her name is pretentious! You know she's the daughter of Kenzo Hall right? The CEO of Hall hospital? Why should we be so nice to people from there. You know what they did!"

-

Twenty years earlier, CEOs of hospitals were receiving threats, from an unknown source, to follow orders that would jeopardize the hospital. If they resisted, their families paid the price with death. Winter also received threats, but the CEO no longer had family at the time so he had nothing left to lose. If anything suspicious was reported in a department, they would be investigated, and many employees would be fired regardless of whether or not they were innocent in order to weed out intruders. The only hospital that didn't receive threats was Hall. Small hospitals, which decreased in value, were bought by Hall. Hall hospital, which was once on the brink of collapsing, began growing at a rapid pace, but Winter was always one step ahead. Everyone knew Hall had something to do with scandal, but there was not enough evidence to prove it.

-

"Lily, we don't know if she had anything to do with it. I'm mad about it too, but all we can do now is to keep moving forward. Let's get back to work."

They get back and sit in awkward silence: no one knew what the other was thinking. You could cut the tension with a scalpel, not a knife, because knives are not allowed in the laboratory or any other room other than the kitchen. They all wanted to continue working happily as they normally would, but it's hard to live in the present when you're so attached to the past.

Nick, being the happy go lucky one, was also quiet- rare. He pouted and looked back and forth between Lily and Joy, but both were looking down: quietly and slowly moving around liquids from tube to tube with pipettes. When Joy accidentally dropped the tube, Nick became upset that their research was being compromised, so he took the liberty of breaking the silence.

"Did you guys hear about that new lotion that just came out? I think it was from either Newtrogina of from Olays. I really want to try some."

Lily used this opportunity to get Joy's mind off of things.

She pointed at Nick and said, "He might use all these fancy skincare products, but how is his skin so clear? All he eats are sweets. I eat so many vegetables!"

Silence- Lily and Nick look towards each other anxiously and then look back at Joy. Moments later, Joy sighed and put down her pipette.

Lily grabbed Nick's sleeve and shook him aggressively. "Nick, what the heck! Why did you say that! You made her mad!"

Nick started freaking out and hid behind Lily. "I don't know! I don't know!"

However, to their surprise, Joy looked up at them and smiled softly. "Wc Monald's fries don't count, Lily."

Nick breathed a sigh of relief and came back out. "You should try to be more like Paris and eat Kale chips hehe."

"What did you say?"

Their spirits eventually picked up and they laughed as they walked to the parking lot after finishing work. They went their seperate ways and, as per usual, Lily and Nick drove off together.

Joy sat in her car and thought to herself, "I bet he's hungry. I should order something." She reaches into her pocket for her phone but finds nothing but her keys. "Right, I lost my phone."

She drove to a tech store and consulted with an employee. The employee pulled out a phone and showed it to her, advertising the new waterproof Smansung model with outstanding camera quality. In the middle of the sales pitch, Joy saw a familiar stature out of the corner of her eye, walk past the storefront. When she looked up, it was gone.

"Ma'am, is everything ok?" asked the employee.

"Ah yes! I'll take this one." Joy replied. She thought to herself, "I guess I was just seeing things."

Joy calls UHop, a local restaurant, with her new phone to order food and drove there to pick it up. She ordered two servings of t-bone steak, loaded potatoes, and cheesecake.

"That'll be $49.50." said the cashier. "Cash or Credit?"

"Credit."

"Thank you for coming to UHop. We hope to see you again!"

Joy left the restaurant with a smile on her face, but it quickly disappeared when she saw a man get out of his car. It was Brandon, her ex-boyfriend.

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