Chapter 6
The next day comes quickly, much too quickly for Hope’s liking. She’s counting down the minutes until lunch so she can apologize again to Josie, but the next time they meet isn’t during their lunch and certainly isn’t at their spot.
The next time they meet comes much sooner, and in a much more chaotic way.
“Ow!” Lizzie groans as her back collides into Hope’s short frame. The collision between the two not only knocks Hope’s books out of her hands but also causes the hallway filled with students to go quiet.
Hope was rushing to her chemistry class when she tripped and crashed right into the head bitch herself, who was not only standing in the smack middle of the hall, but was blocking the only door to the chem lab.
“Fuck.” Hope mumbles as she watches her books scatter across the hall. She shifts her gaze as the tall blonde turns around and steps closer to her.
“What the— Mikaelson? Of fucking course.” Lizzie spats.
Lizzie’s dislike for the older girl wasn’t a secret. Not in the slightest. And it wasn’t one-sided either.
Hope rolls her eyes as she realizes who she’s bumped into. The apology that rested on her lips was gone in an instant.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Lizzie grits, staring down at the girl.
Hope was known for being quiet, but she wasn’t one to be messed with. She’d gotten into her fair share of fights (all of which she’d won), and she wasn’t afraid to get into one with Lizzie Saltzman of all people.
When Hope stands there silent, staring at the younger girl, it only seems to fuel the blonde's irritation.
“I said,” the younger girl starts, “What. The. Hell. Is wrong with you?” She yells.
Hope stands her ground and continues to stare up at the blonde when out of the corner of her eye she sees light brown hair and a yellow sweater make their way into view.
“Liz, I’m sure it was an accident. Let’s just go.” She whispers loud enough for only the three of them to hear.
With Josie in her line of sight, Hope quickly feels her facade falter, and she’s not sure why. She’s quickly made aware of all eyes on her and the whispers circulating all around the hall.
“No! Why should we have to go?” She pouts, and Hope tries her best not to tell her she’s acting like a child, instead, she focuses on trying to locate her missing books.
“Shit.” She mumbles when she can’t find them.
“Yeah, but— what was that?” Lizzie cuts herself off at Hope’s voice and quickly turns to her. “You got something to say bitch?” She laughs (more like cackles).
“Lizzie,” Her sister scolds. “Look, we’re going to be late for French, and you know he’s been taking points off for being late. Deal with this later.”
“Fine.” She rolls her eyes, turning to Hope one last time. “Watch where you’re going, freak.” She grunts, storming off.
Josie winces at the word and then lets her sister go first, stealing one last glance at the Mikaelson girl, offering her an ‘I’m sorry my sister is an asshole’ smile.
Hope doesn’t return the smile, just a nod in understanding. She watches the brown eyed girl turn and make her way down the hall before she goes back to her mission of locating her scattered books.
After the last bell rings, signifying the start of classes, she gives up her search and makes her way into the lab. She walks all the way to the back of the room and next to the windows, her favorite seat in every class since freshman year.
However, she stops in her tracks as she sees something on her table.
Her books.
Her books were placed neatly on her table with a pencil on top. When she goes to take her seat, she spots something on the floor next to her chair.
A yellow hair tie.
—-----
Unfortunately (and unexpectedly), Josie is the one who doesn’t show up to their spot that afternoon, instead, she spends her lunch with her sister and MG in the library.
“Can you believe her? Who does she think she is?” Lizzie continues to rant.
Both MG and Josie roll their eyes and shake their heads at another mention of the Mikaelson girl. Ever since the encounter in the hall, Lizzie has yet to shut up about it.
Josie rakes her fingers through her hair, wishing she didn’t lose her hair tie in the chaos earlier so she could put her hair up. “Lizzie.” She finally speaks up. “We get it. We really do. Now, can we get back to finishing this chapter?”
The trio had decided to spend their lunch studying for their history exam that afternoon, but hadn’t gotten far in their attempts to absorb the material.
“Okay, but like, did you see her? Her stupid face. Ugh! Her entitled ass didn’t even apologize.” She frowns.
“Lizzie. It was an accident. She was probably in a rush.” Josie mumbles, avoiding eye contact with her sister, knowing what her next words will be.
“How dare you?” She gasps.
Yup. Just as Josie predicted.
“How can you defend that weirdo?” Lizzie says sharply. Josie sighs at the word but makes sure to hide it well.
“Liz,” She sighs. “I’m not defending her. You know I would never.” She lies. “I just really want to get this over with.”
“Well, you can finish it on your own. MG and I are going out for lunch today instead of staying here with a traitor.” Lizzie says, closing her textbook and packing up her things.
“Wait, babe! The test is really soon, are you sure?” He asks, looking at her with pleading eyes, knowing that if he didn’t get some studying in soon, he would surely fail the exam.
“MG? Come on, you promised.” Josie frowns as she watches her sister tug on his arm.
The twins find themselves in a stare down while MG has a battle with himself, trying his best not to pick sides.
When it becomes clear that Josie is losing the staredown, she huffs and looks away to the windows beside their table. “Fine. Go.” She mumbles.
MG whispers an apology, to which Josie shrugs off, and quickly follows Lizze out of the library.
Josie sighs. She hated it when her sister would get in these moods. She understood her twin couldn’t help it; that it wasn’t her fault her brain was wired the way it was, but she couldn’t help but feel hurt by the girls' words in these kinds of moments.
When twenty minutes pass and it’s clear none of the words in her textbook are sticking in her head, Josie decides to skip her next class to have more time to study.
She closes her textbook and rests her head on it, frustrated and exhausted. She hears the chair across from her scrape against the hardwood floor but ignores it, hoping whoever it is isn’t Lizzie or MG right now.
“You know, you’re supposed to open the book and read it, not use it as a pillow.” A familiar voice speaks softly.
“I paid for it, I have to make use of it somehow,” Josie mumbles, causing the person to laugh lightly.
“What’re you doing here?” Josie asks, head still placed on her textbook, refusing to meet those blue eyes she thinks about so often.
“Well, Saltzman, you’re a hard woman to find, surprisingly.” Hope chuckles. “But I came for a few reasons. I wanted to apologize first, but I’d like it if I could do it to your face instead of your hair.”
Josie has to contain her smile before she lifts her head, though no matter how hard she tries, she can’t shake off the slight red that colors her cheeks. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“Look, I’m sorry. Again. I didn’t mean to lash out at you like that. Everything is just new to me.” She sighs. “I shouldn’t have run away like that, and you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It’s okay,” Josie says with a small smile.
“It is?” Hope asks, surprised.
“Yeah. Things happen.” Josie says. She knew that the older girl wouldn’t admit that Josie had gotten a little too close to understanding her, but it was an unspoken truth. And Josie knew that with this apology, considering Hope made it her mission to find the brown eyed girl and confront her some place that wasn’t their spot, she knew it meant Hope would try harder this time.
She just knew.
And she was completely right.
“Okay. Cool.” Hope lets out a sigh of relief. “Secondly, I’m here to thank you.”
“For what?”
“You picked up my books earlier. You put them on my lab table. That was… it was very kind of you.” Hope sends her a smile, and the girl can’t help the one that spreads across her face at the sight.
Snap out of it! You have a boyfriend.
She has to quickly remind herself.
“Oh yeah, it was no problem. How did you know it was me?” She asks.
“You dropped this.” The older girl lifts up her wrist to reveal the yellow hair tie. “Couldn’t have been anyone else but you. Figured I’d keep it though. Fits nicely as a bracelet, don’t you think?” Hope smirks at the girl.
“Oh, so you’re a thief now, huh?” Josie says, crossing her arms across her chest. Just then, the bell rings, signaling the end of their lunch.
Chairs and the whispers of their classmates swarm in every direction around them, but neither girl makes any attempt to get up so there they sit, across from one another, staring at each other.
Hope realizes in that moment that she sees what most people in their stupid school didn’t.
Lizzie may be beautiful, but Josie had a completely different kind of beauty. She had an unreal, gorgeous glow to her.
No matter how alike the twins looked, that much was very different to Hope Mikaelson.
What the hell am I thinking?
She rolls her eyes at the thought and instead speaks up. “Not a thief if I found it. You should really be more careful where you leave things.” She winks.
“You got me there.” Josie laughs. Just as she’s about to speak up once more, she hears another familiar voice, a rather unpleasant familiar voice.
“Hey, babe!” Landon says much too loudly, receiving glares from those around the library. He leans down and gives the brunette a sloppy kiss to the lips, making Hope turn her head in disgust. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have class?” He asks, seemingly completely unaware of the interaction he’d just interrupted.
He turns to the blue-eyed girl, giving her an odd look, before turning his attention back to his girlfriend.
“Oh, uh, yeah, but you know, I just needed some extra study time before my test this afternoon.” She laughs nervously. Landon wasn’t as judgmental as the rest of their friend group, and he surely wasn’t close enough to Lizzie to report her meeting with Hope back to her, but having him and Hope here at once made her stomach churn.
Speaking of the girl, Josie looks across the table and makes eye contact with the girl and she feels a wave of guilt and shame wash over her when she returns to meet Landon’s eyes.
When Landon brings himself down for another kiss, he makes sure to pull the brunette by her neck closer into him, leaving no room between them.
Hope grimaces and decides that’s her cue to leave the pair. She clears her throat, hoping to get the Saltzman girl's attention, but when she watches the girl continue to suck on her boyfriend's bottom lip, she realizes they’re too far gone. She quickly grabs her bag and makes her way out of the library, making sure not to turn around.
“So, Mikaelson? What’s up with that?” Landon asks, finally releasing his firm grasp on Josie’s neck.
“Oh, nothing. We were paired up for an assignment, so we were just trying to get a head start.” She lies. “You actually saved me from the awkwardness. That girl is so weird.” She says, hoping that with that insult, he’ll leave the topic alone.
“Yeah, she seems like it.” He mumbles, and Josie can’t help but take note of his harsh tone. “Anyway,” His frown turns into a smile as he lowers himself into the chair next to her. “We have next week off from school, we should go on a date,” He says gently.
That catches her off guard. She and Landon hadn’t gone on a date since they started dating sophomore year.
“A date? Really?” She asks.
“Yeah! I haven’t been the best boyfriend. Let me make it up to you.” He smiles, kissing her cheek.
“Okay.” She agrees, knowing she really had no other choice.
—-----
“What kind of flowers do you guys want for this poster?” Hope asks,
“Hmm, add some lilies and some roses here and there.” Ms.Tig points to the corners above the title.
That afternoon Hope had stayed back to help Ms.Tig with posters for her art club. She wasn’t supposed to help until after their week off, but she figured she’d get a head start.
“I’ve finished grading my papers for today. I’m going to the lounge to refill my coffee. Would you like anything?” She asks as Hope reaches for the red paint.
“No, it’s okay, I’m about to leave.” It was nearing five soon, so she’d paint the flowers quickly and then head out.
Once she finished, she left her brushes in water and made her way out of the art room, and just like this morning, she bumped into a tall figure, this time dropping her phone instead of her books.
“Not again.” She mumbled, quickly going to recover her phone from the floor.
“Oh, sorry.” The other person speaks up, retrieving her phone for her faster. “Here.”
She stands up and is met with dull grey eyes.
Landon Kirby.
She nods and goes to grab her phone before he quickly pulls it away. “Uh, no ‘thank you’?” He laughs.
Hope stares at him like he’s lost his mind. He knows she didn’t talk. She was Hope Mikaelson, she didn’t talk to anybody.
Anybody who wasn’t Josie Saltzman, his girlfriend.
“Well…?” He waits, dangling her phone in the air like she were some dog waiting for her treat.
“Thank you.” She finally says with an eye roll.
“So she speaks!” He smiles. “You have a lovely voice.” He says as he hands her phone back.
She snatches it and quickly makes her way around him before he unexpectedly grabs her by the arm, specifically her sprained wrist, and pulls her into him.
“What the—” She winces.
“Listen.” He whispers. “I’ve been watching you. And I’ve been watching Josie. Since we started dating, her eyes always seem to wander off to you.” He spits. “And I don’t know when you two became such great friends, but I saw the way you looked at her today in the library.”
His hold on her arm was strong. Landon was definitely a lot stronger than he seemed. “I don’t know what you think you’re getting out of this, but Josie is my girlfriend and she’s straight. You got that?”
“I don’t care what she is or isn’t. Let me go before I break your hand.” Hope grunts. She knew she was capable of such a thing, even with her own hand being wrapped up.
“You better not try anything on her, or it’ll be the last thing you do.” He seethes as he twists her wrist, causing her to fall to her knees.
Once she’s down and he’s made his point, he walks down the hall and out of the front doors, leaving Hope to wonder what she’s got herself into.
—-----