chapter-32

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Josie ran through the darkened streets, tripping over the cobblestones, barely keeping her balance. Faster, her brain urged, faster! Lizzie's house was just few blocks away.

She barely had time to catch her breath.  But she couldn't stop. Her chest ached, desperate for air.

‘ Saltzman run fast. I don't know what happened yesterday night but whatever it was, it was clearly not good. God knows what happened but I can't lose her. I love her. They can't just leave’

She ran till she reached her friend's house. It was around 9 o'clock, when she just ran out of her house yelling that she is going to Lizzie's, to her parents.

She reached front porch and took long deep breaths to stable herself. She than softly knocked on the door. Caroline opened the door after a few moments with a smile on her face.

“Hey Sweetheart”

“Hi aunt Caroline. Uhmm...can you please call Lizzie. It's urgent I need to talk. She is not picking up my calls not even replying to my text.”

Before Caroline could say anything Stefan appeared from behind her wrapping his arm around her waist. He gave Josie a smile.

“Hey Josie. You're here. Uhmm... Ah... Lizzie actually is not here. She is uhmm..”

“...she is at her friends house for a sleepover” Caroline helps her husband

“Yeah a sleepover. You know she loves it.” They both were acting weird.

“Okay. That make sense. So I think I should go. Good night” Josie hugs both of them and turns around to leave. She hears door shutting noise behind her.

They are terrible liars. But why they will lie? I think Lizzie might have told them. Ofcourse she is ignoring you. Good luck Saltzman, you're dead’

She turned around and saw Lizzie's room light turning off.

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Next morning

“You can do this, no, you have to do this. Yesterday Penelope and I didn't got any work but that doesn't mean we won't get today”

" You can do this, it's just a job, you don't have to work here forever, besides, Kol is friends with manager here" Hope sighs

The clock reads 2:50. Should she go in now? Her interview is at 3:00 and she's in her car, staring at the clock every thirty seconds hoping that it would just be 3:00 so she could get this over with already. She sighs and checks her phone, wondering if Penelope have got job or not. 2:55. well she should probably go in now.

Hope takes a deep breath and steps out of her car, mechanically locking it and trying to keep her composure as she continues to go through the motions. It almost feels like an out of body experience as she opens the door to the little pizza shop, glancing down at her shirt one more time, wondering if she should have worn something more professional. Why the hell didn't she ask Kol before she came in?

Hope sits down on one of the small chairs provided for guests and waits. After a few moments, another boy peeks his head out from behind the dividing wall of warming cabinets, and scrambles to the front counter, greeting Hope with a large smile that lights up his blue eyes.

"Welcome to The Pizza Press , what can I do for you?" He asks.

"I'm here for an interview," Hope replies, and the counter boy nods.

"Oh really? That's cool! C'mon in, I'll tell Roman you're here"

A tall guy appears from nowhere, a huge smile on his face and tattoos covering his arms, he has a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other.

"Hello myself Roman Sienna.Shall we step outside, Hope?"

Once they were outside, he smiles and looks down at his clipboard, and Hope notices that it's the sloppily written resume she had turned in

"Okie dokie, let's get this underway!" He says, then looks down at Hope,

"I'm gonna be honest, I'm just gonna go on Kol's word. He said you would be a good worker and I trust him."

"Oh, cool, thank you!" Hope was surprised

"Are you still open all hours?" he ask

"Yeah, anytime," Hope affirms.

"Do you have any days soon that you need time off from?"

"No"

"Alright, then, we'll get you a t-shirt and hat and employee manual and send you on your way!"

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"Pretending I'm not here isn't going to actually make me disappear, you know?"

"Well it did all morning" Lizzie mutters to herself

"C'mon Liz, you can't go camping. You hate creepy crawling insects. And you just want to go so you can ignore me!"

"How do you even know that?" Lizzie raises her glare from her lunch to her bestfriend, Josie sitting opposite her, who is smiling smugly either because she managed to get Lizzie to actually look at her or because she totally guessed that Lizzie does, in fact, dislike camping.

"I might love camping." Lizzie says glaring

"No, you don't," Josie says matter-of-factly.

"In sixth grade, I had to hear you bitch to Maya about getting bitten by flying bugs and ants crawling on your toes when they got into your sleeping bag when you and your dad went to camping that summer. Many, many times. Enough times that I still remember your utter dislike of camping."

"Yeah, well, whatever." Lizzie hates when Josie is unpredictable. It's like her equilibrium is thrown off. Josie isn't supposed to remember random shit Lizzie told Maya years ago.

“Whatever?" Josie repeats slowly, lips curling into a disapproving scowl.

"That's a second grade level Lizzie comeback. What's wrong with you today? You're normally much more scathing and insulting."

"Nothing's wrong except that you're still here when I'm trying to ignore you," Lizzie tells her, getting a good glare in before turning her head to look out the window.

"You can go away now, Josie. I'm going to go back to pretending you don't exist."

"You can't forget I exist, Lizzie, so I don't know why you bother trying. I mean, some people might find it cute that you think it's even possible to ignore me, but I generally find it annoying." Josie huffs.

"Now are you going to tell me what exactly happened yesterday night?"

"No" Lizzie kicks Josie's leg under the table even as she focuses on staring out the window.

"Liz please?"

"Whatever" Lizzie stood up and walked away leaving Josie behind.

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I hope you'll enjoy this chapter.

See you in the next chapter. Just wait for Penelope's interview part 😂

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