Without Me

Chapter 29

Lizzie ducked her head against the cold wind. Originally, she had intended to go straight from the locker room to the Salvatore School, but she lost her nerve halfway there.

Doubts started to creep into her mind. She felt like she shouldn’t make such a rash decision based on things she felt during a crash.

But then she wandered around the woods and thought it over on a park bench. It was the right thing to do.

Hope had been the same way - convinced that everyone was happier without her and that coming back would only make her selfish to take that away from them. And Lizzie had given her so much shit for it. Apparently, things weren’t so clear on the flipside of that. Who would’ve thought?

She was back on her mission now, determined to right her wrongs. It would be late at the Salvatore School, but she was sure she could find her father hurrying through the halls, trying to fix one problem or another. He always was.

“Lizzie?”

She thought she imagined it at first. That she had just been thinking of him too hard. But when she turned, it really was her father standing there. 

“I was just coming to see you.” He motioned down the street a little, to the corner that lead to the apartment building. 

Lizzie swallowed heavily. She already knew her voice would waver before she spoke with a nervous smile. “That’s funny. I was just coming to see you.”

“I think you should let me go first.” Alaric reached into the deep pockets of his coat and pulled out a folded packet of paper. He handed it to Lizzie.

Her heart hammered away as she unfolded it. “What’s this?”

“A DNA test.”

Lizzie stared at him instead of the papers. She already knew what they would say. “You took a DNA test?”

“I thought maybe you were Meredith’s. I don’t know how I got started on the idea, but … it was just a gut feeling. I was sure you were my daughter. The timelines were close enough. Quite frankly, she was the only possibility left alive. But you’re not Meredith’s. You have Jo’s DNA. Actually, you’re a near-perfect match for Josie.” Alaric shifted his weight from foot to foot.

“You know.” Lizzie’s voice came low. He couldn’t tell from it how she felt. It was too guarded.

“Malivore, right? The same thing happened to Hope.” 

Lizzie passed back the papers. “Did you DNA test her too?”

“No.” Alaric shook his head. “No, she came clean the same day she met me.”

Lizzie hung her head. Maybe she didn’t do the same thing Hope did. Maybe she did it worse. 

Her father stepped forward. “I … Why?” He looked at a loss for words that would do his heart justice. 

“It’s kind of a long story.” Lizzie dug the toe of her shoe into the sidewalk. Her nose was red and her breath hung in an icy cloud in the air. 

Alaric gestured to the giant Mystic Grill sign behind them.  “Then how about we talk about it over dinner?”