Chapter Text
“Jo! You’re going to make me late!”
The holler came from downstairs, just as Josie Saltzman was reaching for her setting spray. Letting out an annoyed huff, she grabbed the bottle and squeezed her eyes shut tight as she sprayed herself right in the face.
“Josie!”
“I’m coming!” Josie exclaimed, jumping up from her vanity and grabbing her backpack off of the floor, slinging it over her shoulder. Her hands flew to her pockets, ensuring she had her phone tucked away somewhere, as she darted out of the room and barreled down the stairs.
She barely managed to dodge her dad, who came around the corner to come up the stairs at the same instant she reached the bottom step. “Whoa!” he exclaimed. “Slow down, you’re going to hurt yourself!”
“I’m not five years old, dad,” Josie reminded him with an eyeroll, squeezing past him and giving him a small wave. “See you later!” Lizzie was waiting for her at the door, anger carved into her expression. “You’re not going to be late! I’ll drive, and I’ll drop you at your building. Which is it?”
“You’re infuriating,” Lizzie snapped, as the two of them hurried out the front door, into the late summer heat. Even before eight in the morning, it was already too warm out, and Josie knew she was going to be drenched in sweat by the end of the day. It would be just like high school, only worse, because she couldn’t just stay inside all day. “It’s in the behavioral sciences building. Do you even know which one that is?”
The car that Josie shared with her twin sister was a four-door, beige sedan with miscolored patches sewn into multiple of the seats and more than a few scratches and dents on the body. Josie opened the door to the back seat and tossed her backpack in, Lizzie doing the same on the other side, before climbing into the driver’s seat. “No,” she answered, searching frantically for the keys before Lizzie purposefully dangled them in front of her. She swiped them from her sister and slotted the key into the ignition. As the car grumbled awake, she glanced back at Lizzie, “But you are perfectly capable of navigating me once we get there, right?”
“Just drive,” Lizzie pleaded. Josie didn’t need to be asked twice.
The ride started off quietly, which was a much needed reprieve from the hectic morning. Between Lizzie’s constant stressing and the fact that Josie’s alarm hadn’t gone off—or rather, she’d forgotten to set it—some calm was euphoric. She wasn’t completely off the hook, though, keeping an eye on the clock in the car as she drove them to campus. The clock was two minutes behind, but she and Lizzie both knew that, so she wasn’t getting away with cutting it too close. And it was understandable. Josie didn’t want to be late to her first day of classes either, but she hadn’t signed up for a class first thing in the morning. Still, she’d meant to set her alarm, and having one car between them, Josie knew what she was getting into.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I could’ve sworn I set my alarm last night.”
“It’s fine,” Lizzie breathed out. “This is just like, the one class that I actually need to make a really good impression in, considering this professor teaches one of the psych classes that I have to take later on, too. I don’t want her to hate me from the very first day of freshman year.”
“She won’t,” Josie promised.
“She might, if I’m late on the first day!”
“You can blame me!”
“Right, because being a full-grown adult and blaming someone else for me being late is going to look great.”
Josie chewed on the inside of her lip and pressed down a little harder on the gas, switching into the left lane. Maybe she could gain back a couple of minutes.
“Well don’t get us into an accident,” Lizzie muttered, rolling her eyes.
“Do you want us to get there on time, or not?”
The quiet returned, and then when Josie made it to campus, Lizzie directed her to the building where her first class was. She pulled up outside with five minutes to spare—not even including the two minutes that the clock wasn’t accounting for. Lizzie opened her door immediately, reaching around to grab her backpack before clambering out. “Thanks! See you later, Jo!”
The door slammed shut and Josie let out a sigh of relief. She watched Lizzie for a moment as she hurried in through the front doors, her straightened blonde hair blowing in the morning breeze.
The two of them might be twins, but there seemed to be more differences between them than similarities, including Lizzie’s light blonde hair compared to Josie’s brunette waves. Add in the blue versus brown eyes, and Lizzie’s lighter complexion to Josie’s tan, and pretty much no one would guess that they were sisters, let alone born within minutes of each other.
Josie went through a phase where she hated that—wished that she and Lizzie were identical, so that she could be as popular as the blonde—but by now, she appreciated that she didn’t have that pressure on her. Looking different allowed them a little more room to be their own people, and they’d finally figured that out during high school. That’s why, now, even when Josie stressed Lizzie out by being late and having to speed to get her to campus, she knew that Lizzie wasn’t actually mad at her. Things would be fine once they saw each other at the end of the day.
Josie was in no hurry as she drove the car to the student lot closest to the middle of campus. Since it was so early, there were still plenty of spots open, and she greedily took the closest one that her parking pass allowed. As she left the vehicle and headed for the campus plaza, she decided that maybe getting here so early two days a week wouldn’t be too bad.
The plaza in the middle of Mystic University was a place that Josie was already pretty familiar with. Living in a college town for her whole life meant that she was pretty familiar with a lot of things at the university, even more so with the fact that her dad had started working as a lecturer a few years ago. She and Lizzie had spent a fair share of their free time in senior year at the plaza. Usually, the reason for that was Lizzie wanting to spot hot, college guys, but Josie really liked to buy an iced coffee and work on her homework at one of the many picnic tables scattered around the area.
Besides the tables, there were large grassy squares filled with beautiful landscaping and surrounded by intricately paved walkways that were lined with benches. The walkways led off to each section of campus, making it the central hub during the semester. Just adjacent to it on one side was the student union, where all of the restaurants were and where students were encouraged to hang out. On the other side was the huge campus library.
Another notable feature of the plaza was the dark purple, upright piano that stood just outside the entrance to the library. Oftentimes, students would stop and play for fun, much to the entertainment of all the passersby. This early in the morning, the seat was empty, and the keys were covered.
Josie sat down at her favorite picnic table, covered by the shade of a huge oak tree, guarding her from the harsh rays of the summer sun. She figured that on a normal day, she’d work on homework at a time like this, when she had to be on campus for Lizzie, but didn’t have class yet. It wasn’t worth it to drive all the way home and back in the hour she would have to wait for her nine o’clock class. Seeing as it was the first day of classes, though, Josie definitely didn’t have anything to work on.
So as sparse amounts of students passed through the plaza around her, Josie pulled her music notebook out of her bag and opened it to the page where her bookmark—which looked like the keys of a piano—was resting. The left page was filled with lyrics, some scratched out and others circled or starred, and the right page was empty. For now.
Pulling a pencil out of her bag, she began to neatly draw five evenly spaced lines across the top of the paper. A short space below that, another five lines. Then again. A bigger space, and the same fifteen lines. With her practiced hand, she could fit three rows in her notebook. Then she expertly drew her curvy treble clefs and the menacing bass clefs. She labeled her time and key signature. She already had a pretty good idea of what she was going for, thankfully, as she recalled the tune she’d imagined while writing the messy lyrics on the left page. Next up, notes.
She was just a couple of measures in, humming the section over and over to try and figure out what piece was wrong, when a voice suddenly surprised her. “You know, they make computer programs for that.”
Josie jumped, closing her notebook self-consciously and looking up at the dark haired girl leaning against her picnic table and smirking at her. Penelope. “You scared me,” Josie huffed.
“How come you never let me see the music you write?” Penelope demanded, sitting down next to her. “Shouldn’t I get best friend privilege?”
“I don’t even let Lizzie look at it, remember?” Josie said with a sigh. “What are you doing here so early?”
“My dormmate got in the shower and started singing the most off-key version of Umbrella that I’ve ever heard. I had to leave, otherwise I would’ve barged in there. I can’t be letting people do Rih-Rih like that.” Josie chuckled, rolling her eyes. “Plus, I knew you’d be here early for Lizzie’s class, and I thought we could get coffee.”
“Maybe not a great idea,” Josie admitted, “I haven’t eaten yet.”
“Okay,” Penelope said, stretching the word out, “then food and coffee. Bitch, you can’t be on campus for eight hours running on nothing.”
“Why not? I did that for half of junior year.”
“Yeah, and remember how that ended up?” Penelope asked pointedly. “Your dad pissed at you because he had to pay for you to retake the SAT because you were barely functioning for your first try! Get up, we’re getting food.”
Josie sighed dramatically but slid her notebook back into her bag. “What would I do without you?” she teased as the two of them stood up.
“Starve and wither away, probably,” Penelope joked back.
There weren’t many places open, but the coffee shop definitely was, and it was probably also the busiest place on campus at this time. Josie and Penelope waited in line for a good few minutes before they were able to place their coffee orders, and thankfully, there were plenty of breakfast pastries and sandwiches available for Josie to get something more substantial in her as well.
They went back out to Josie’s favorite picnic table to eat, enjoying their iced lattes and pastries. It was actually pretty nice, sitting outside first thing in the morning, enjoying the fresh air.
While they ate, someone else who must’ve been on campus too early for their class slid onto the seat of the purple piano across the plaza. Josie eyed them as they started to play a pretty melody. “How many people at this school do you think play piano?” Penelope wondered aloud.
“Considering how many people are in the music programs, I’m going to go with a lot.”
“You’d think they’d have more instruments, though. Like, sitting around. What’s so special about the piano?”
Josie raised an eyebrow at her best friend. “The piano is probably the most common one people can play. Plus, it’s less likely to get damaged just sitting around.” She glanced back at the pianist playing away. “It’s nice to listen to. And—it comes in purple. And you know how much this school loves to make anything purple that they can.”
“Woohoo, MU spirit,” Penelope said sarcastically, snickering and taking a drink of her latte. “So. When do the students at Mystic University get to hear Josie Saltzman tickle the ivories?”
“Did you just say tickle the ivories?”
“My best friend’s a music education major, what do you expect?” Penelope teased, nudging Josie with her elbow.
“I’ve never said that.”
“Well. Whatever. Stop deflecting. When are you going to get up there and play?”
“It’s the first day of the semester, Pen.”
Penelope looked serious now, and Josie averted her gaze, looking down at her half eaten croissant. Her stomach grumbled a little, wanting her to keep eating. “You know you can’t avoid playing it anymore. You’re going to be learning how to teach kids music. The piano is like, fundamental to that. You said that things were going to be different now. Here, in college.”
“It will be,” Josie insisted. “Okay? I’ll play the piano… when I need to.”
Penelope sighed. “Girl. You know that I love you, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So I really hope you’ll hear me when I say that you need to just do it. Don’t put all that pressure on the moment you’re sitting in front of a professor or something. I promise, once you start playing, it’ll be like nothing ever changed.”
Josie pressed her lips together, looking back down at her croissant again. The lump in her throat forbade her from taking a bite of it. It’ll be like nothing ever changed. And that was what Josie was scared of. “I’ll be fine, okay?” She sat up straighter, forcing herself to make eye contact with the dark haired girl. “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
“Fine, Jo. You’re right. I just… want you to know that I’m rooting for you, okay? I know that you’re going to kill it this semester.”
Josie turned her lips up into a small, grateful smile. “I know.” Feeling a little calmer, she took another bite of her croissant. After a beat, she said, “You are, too, you know? The MU soccer team isn’t going to know what hit them.”
Penelope playfully flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I know. And after tryouts a few weeks ago, they should all know, too.”
“Good,” Josie said with a chuckle. She finished off her croissant and then grabbed her phone from her pocket, checking the time. She had twenty minutes to get to her first class. “I should get going. I don’t know exactly what room my class is in.”
“Alright. I guess I should do the same. I think we’re going in opposite directions, though.” Penelope pouted dramatically.
“Oh no, however will you survive without me?”
“I ask myself that all the time,” Penelope breathed out, pressing a hand over her heart. “Thankfully, I know you’ll never leave me. I’m way too amazing.”
“Shut up,” Josie said through a soft laugh. “I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah! Meet you in the SU for lunch?”
“I’ll be there.”
They headed off in their separate directions, and as Josie headed toward her first class of the semester—which was just a required English course—she listened to the joyful melody still being played at the plaza piano. It put a slight bounce in her step, with help from breakfast and coffee, of course. There were few things she’d ever loved more than listening to piano music. She could list them all right off the top of her head. Lizzie, her dad, Penelope—barely, she would joke with her best friend—and only two other things. Two things she preferred not to think about on her first day of college—when she was trying to be positive.
Unfortunately, one of those things had already been brought up by Penelope. Playing the piano.
But she didn’t have to think about the last thing, or the person, rather, who had once rivaled even her love for music. She never had to think about her, the person who had taken over her life in their freshman year of high school, only to completely destroy everything not even a year later. It was one of the perks of the fact that they’d lived hundreds of miles apart for the last three years.
But having to think about someone and just thinking about them anyway were definitely two different things.
And she was weighing heavily on Josie’s mind as she walked into her English classroom early. So much so, that she immediately mistook an auburn haired girl sitting in the front row for the one she hadn’t seen in years.
Until she unconsciously did a doubletake, blinking and wondering if there was something in her eye.
Because sitting there, in the front row of the classroom, was her.
Hope Mikaelson.
And Josie completely froze.