The Grill wasn't overly busy, but it was bustling with life nonetheless. An overzealous game of pool was going on that Lizzie found herself eyeing as she followed the group in. The booths were overflowing, but the bar was empty.
She slid into the open place between Landon and Hope, and it wasn't long before a small group of bored co-workers had gathered in front of Finch and Landon to excitedly catch up.
“This is Lizzie,” Finch said, motioning towards her with a smile. “She’s looking for a new job.”
“Oh, yeah. We’d love to have some help around here.” A girl with a high brown ponytail smiled at Lizzie. “Ever since Finch switched schools, she’s been picking up less and less shifts.”
“Fancy boarding school classes keep you busy.” Finch smiled back politely. She couldn’t exactly explain that embracing her werewolf side was taking up a lot of the time that she used to spend suppressing that side of herself by working long, grueling shifts.
“Sounds like it.” The brunette looked Lizzie up and down. “I assume you go there too?”
“Oh, no.” Lizzie shook her head and swirled her straw through her drink nervously. “I start at Mystic Falls High tomorrow.”
Sensing where his co-worker was going with the conversation and the inevitable painful discussion, Landon jumped in. “Me too.”
“You’re coming back?”
The conversation switched away from Lizzie again, and she settled into her seat.
“You know …” Hope leaned her elbows on the counter and talked softly enough that no one else could hear them. “I know I kind of freaked out earlier, but I was just surprised.”
“That Rafael was alive?” Lizzie arched an eyebrow cautiously.
“No, you and Landon.” Hope sighed. “Maybe I’m being naive, and it’s going to come back to bite me in the ass, but as untrustworthy as you’re being, for some reason … I can’t seem to not trust you. So, we’re still and friends and if you and Landon want to get together -”
“Whoa -” Lizzie leaned back in her seat. “We are not - no. Absolutely not.” She kept shaking her head. “It was astral projection. I -”
“Okay, okay, I believe you.” It was easy to tell from Hope’s smirk that she didn’t actually believe her. “But if you ever change your mind, you have my blessing or whatever.”
Lizzie couldn’t even say thanks she was so taken aback. Thankfully, someone set a stack of papers in front of her and gave her an escape.
“You just have to fill this out and let us make a copy of your ID, and you’re good to go. No interview needed.”
“Oh …” Lizzie looked down at the application in front of her, already scrambling for her next lie. “I don’t have my ID on me, but I’ll bring it back here tomorrow.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
The four of them ordered a round of food - all on the house of course - and spent an hour chatting and laughing. Any distrustful tension that had popped up in the apartment vanished. Even Landon melted back into things pretty easily for as many lies as he had heard that day.
When it finally came time to go home and sleep before school the next day, the two of them walked together down the dark sidewalk.
“I have this feeling …” Landon started, hands shoved in his pockets and shoulders raised against the cold air. “... that even though you lied to me - and probably still are lying to me … that I can trust you. I can trust you, can’t I?”
Lizzie studied his face, lit up by the moonlight. Could he trust her? She certainly didn’t mean him any harm … but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t cause him any either. She had a way of hurting people even when she meant the best. That was the whole point of letting everyone forget her - because they also got to forget the damage she did.
“I want you to be able to trust me,” she said honestly. “I want to be trustworthy. But I … I can’t be completely honest with you.”
Landon nodded. In his mind, he considered a million things - every possibility he could think of. “I don’t think you have to be honest to be trustworthy.”
“What are you talking about?” Lizzie scoffed. Her breath came out in an angry cloud in front of her face.
“Well, I trust you. Even when you’re lying to me.”
“That’s because you’re an idiot.”
“No. It’s because I trust that you’re lying to me for a good reason.” Landon looked over at her pointedly.
“That’s how people get fucked over,” Lizzie quipped. There was no way this idiot was being serious. He couldn’t honestly trust her while also knowing that she was lying to his face. It didn’t work like that. It had to be some side effect of the Malivore spell.
Landon peeked at her cautiously. “Are you trying to fuck me over?”
“No.” Lizzie shook her head quickly. “Of course not.”
“Then why shouldn’t I trust you?”
“Because -” Lizzie stopped walking, planting her feet in the middle of the sidewalk as she looked around for the answer. “Because people get hurt when they trust me. They always do, and they always will.”
“What if I’m okay with getting hurt?”
Landon’s were wide and shiny in the dark. The deeper Lizzie stared into them, the more she could feel something pulling her closer. She blinked quickly, reeling back as soon as she felt like she was falling.
“Then you’re an idiot.”
She turned on her heel, huffing back towards the apartment, chin held high in the air. He was an idiot.
ΔΙΑΒΑΖΕΙΣ
Without Me
FanfictionLizzie's dreams of being a superhero had gotten her into messy situations before, but nothing like this. She sacrificed her life during the final showdown with Malivore but what life she sacrificed wasn't what she was expecting.
