Chapter 6
“Uh, hi.” Sheriff Mac begins awkwardly. “What’s going on here?”
Fuck.
Her heart stopped. The world stopped. She couldn’t even breathe.
She should probably make an effort to make herself decent, at least to put a shirt on and wipe Maya’s wetness off of her thigh before attempting to interact with her mother, but despite her literally screaming at her body to do something, say something, she couldn’t force herself to move.
“Ethan!” She hears Maya hiss from behind her, snapping her fingers sharply in his face. She snaps out of her stunned stupor just in time to see Ethan’s eyes slide away from her barely-concealed boobs and onto his sister, who was stalking towards him with a murderous look in her eyes.
“Mine.” The girl growled under her breath. Ethan’s eyes widened minutely, almost as if he were genuinely intimidated by Maya.
Why would Ethan possibly be intimidated by Maya? Yeah, she was angry, but he was huge compared to her. She couldn’t touch him. Not even with his arm in a sling and a cast.
Weird.
“Have you two been drinking?” Sheriff Mac exclaims. Maya’s menacing demeanor drops immediately as she slowly, reluctantly turns to face her mother.
“Really, Maya?” It wasn’t anger that appeared on her face, it was sadness, disappointment, fear, even.
“After everything this family has…” She trailed off, pinching the bridge of her nose for a moment.
Fuck.
How could Hope have forgotten?
Alcohol had literally ruined Maya’s life. Alcohol was at the very center of her entire family’s trauma.
Was it her fault that Maya had been drinking? Had she pressured her into it before the party?
Sheriff Mac probably thought that she was a horrible influence. She’d never let her see Maya again.
“Hope, honey, I think you should go.” Sheriff Mac sighed, turning back to her daughter.
Right. Just like that, Hope had managed to lose another friend.
“But mom! Hope doesn’t even have a car, she’ll have to-“
“Maya, it’s okay.” Hope interrupted, already making her way towards the door. It was a short walk, anyway. She slipped carefully between the Machados, deliberately avoiding eye contact all the way out the door.
God, how was it possible that she could fuck up a relationship so fast? Was she really so broken, so defective that she couldn’t keep one, single friend for more than three days?
She knew about Maya’s dad. She knew that he was an alcoholic, and yet she still suggested drinking before the party. How could she be so stupid, so oblivious, so insensitive?
This is why everyone leaves her. She’s a terrible person. And a terrible friend.
She opened the front door tentatively, hoping she might just be able to slip up to her room unnoticed. Ric didn’t deserve to have to deal with her shit right now. Or ever.
No such luck.
“Hope, can I talk to you for a minute?” A voice called from the living room.
Fuck.
Deep breaths, she reminded herself. Straight face. Ric probably needed help with a monster or something. He needed Hope the tribrid, Hope the superhero, not Hope the useless, crying teenager.
“I just got a really interesting text from Sheriff Machado.” He began stiffly, making that awkward, pinched face that he so often does.
She felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach.
Sheriff Mac told Ric about Maya. She told Ric that she and Maya were hooking up.
No, no, no. She swore she wouldn’t panic. Monster issues or not, she wasn’t going to burden Ric with some pathetic freak-out. But all of a sudden, there were a thousand bricks sitting on her chest, collapsing her lungs, stealing her every breath, and-
“Hope, it’s, uh…it’s really not that big of a deal. You’re a sexed-up teenager, it’s perfectly normal-“
“No, no, it’s not that.” Hope began, eyes trained on the floor. “You didn’t know. Before Malivore.”
God, she wasn’t making any sense. Deep breaths.
“You didn’t know I liked girls.” She whispered, tears flooding down her face for what felt like the millionth time this week.
“I know, it’s stupid, I knew you’d be fine with it because of Josie and everything, I just-“
“What do you mean, ‘because of Josie’?” He interjected.
“I just mean…I knew you wouldn’t have a problem with it since you never had a problem with Josie being pan.” Hope explained, finally meeting his eyes but finding nothing but confusion behind them.
“Josie...you mean my daughter Josie?” He questioned.
Hope just nodded. Why was Ric acting so clueless?
“Hope, uh… Josie’s straight.”
What? What the hell was he talking about?
Sure, Ric could be a bit absent with his daughters, but he definitely knew that Josie was pansexual. Every single person at Salvatore had been subjected to her and Penelope’s excessive face-sucking in the halls between class, and he was no exception.
“What do you mean, she’s straight? She dated Penelope for, like, a year!”
Ric looked at her like she’d absolutely lost her mind.
“Penelope, as in Penelope Park? Josie despised Penelope.”
How was this possible? Josie definitely wasn’t straight when Hope left, how could she be straight now?
“And how do you even know Penelope?” Ric added, baffled. She was still too caught up in her own thoughts to answer.
He sighed deeply. “Hope, I still hardly know anything about you. I want to help you, but I need you to talk to me.”
She knew that this was coming at some point. Honestly, she was surprised that he’d left her alone for as long as he had. She dropped down next to him on the couch, kicking her legs up onto the coffee table and pulling a throw pillow into her lap. Where the hell was she even supposed to start with this?
“You said you’re Klaus and Hayley’s daughter, right?” He answered her unspoken question for her. “So how are you a witch?”
Of course he would ask the most complicated question first.
“Because of Esther. My dad’s mom.” She answered simply. He was the headmaster of a school for the supernatural, for god’s sake, he knew the history of the Mikaelson family.
“I got my grandmother’s magic and my parents’ werewolf genes. And since my dad’s half vampire, I also have vampire blood. So, theoretically, I’ll also become a vampire when I die.” Hope’s bored, almost rehearsed answer is starkly juxtaposed by Ric’s incredulous facial expression.
“So that makes me the one and only tribrid.” Hope added, gesturing with mock enthusiasm. Only she could somehow manage sarcastic jazz-hands.
“A tribrid…” Ric repeated.
“Yep.” She confirmed, popping the p. She definitely wasn’t taking this seriously enough, but telling her life story was no easy task, and she wasn’t in the mood for another breakdown today. So, forced humor and apathy it is.
“My parents sent me to Salvatore when I was 7. People had been trying to kill me my whole life, and they wanted me to have a ‘normal childhood’.” She mocked, making exaggerated air quotes.
“You helped me keep my identity a secret from everyone at school. For 8 years, they all knew me as Hope Marshall, the witch. You didn’t want anyone to treat me differently for being a tribrid, or for being the ‘Great Evil’s’ daughter.” She gave a dry, humorless chuckle at the nickname.
“They all found out when he was killed, though. I didn’t care, I shut everyone out anyway. I spent all of my time with you, helping you fight Malivore monsters and training. You were always all over me about making friends my own age, but I never would. Until I started talking to Josie.” Her voice wavered slightly, dangerously close to exposing…whatever it was she was feeling.
“But none of that matters anymore. They all forgot about me.” She stated coldly, abruptly getting to her feet. “Goodnight, Ric.”
Much to Hope’s relief, he didn’t even try to stop her, just watched as she hurried towards the stairs. But something stopped her, something weighed on her so heavily that she couldn’t bring herself to brush it aside.
“Is it possible that erasing somebody’s memories about me would change things about them? Like some kind of ripple effect?” Hope asked, hand perched on the banister and a foot frozen on the first stair.
“I suppose if you had some kind of major influence on a part of a person’s identity, erasing their memories of you might erase part of them, too.” Ric speculated. “Why?”
Hope was already running up the stairs, avoiding having to answer him.
Josie would never love her back. Josie could never love her back. She’s straight now.
Somehow, it feels like she’s lost Josie a dozen times in the past few days.
Josie forgot her.
Josie’s with Landon.
Josie hates her.
Josie’s not even acting like herself anymore.
Josie’s straight.
And no matter how many times she tells herself that she needs to let her go, it feels like a punch to the gut every time.
Every. Single. Fucking. Time.
And now she’s lost Maya too.
She flicked the lights off as soon as she entered her room, barely managing to kick her shoes off before she flopped face-down onto her bed.
Fuck her life.
She raised her head for only a moment, retrieving her phone from her back pocket and grabbing the charging cord on her nightstand to plug it in.
‘Maya Machado: I had fun tonight ;)’ Her phone screen read.
She felt her heart flutter, a grin so wide it hurt her cheeks spreading across her face.
Maya didn’t hate her. Maya didn’t hate her. Maya. Didn’t. Hate. Her.
‘Me too ;) Can’t wait to see you tomorrow!” She typed out, finger hovering over the ‘send’ button.
Was that too desperate? Too enthusiastic?
Screw it, Hope decided, hitting send before she could change her mind. There was no such thing as too enthusiastic with Maya.
She had finally found someone who would stay.