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* Zedd, Elley Duhe - Happy Now *

AN: this was a 2.9K-word chapter so I cut it in two for the ease of reading.

***

"Ms. Elizabeth Lavendon!" yelled a short man in a black suit, his bald head was shining under the office lamps.

"Yes!" replied Lizzy with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. It\'s been about two weeks since Sammy\'s death, yet his disappearance has only become more unbearable with each passing day.

Lizzy had trouble waking up to her phone\'s alarm instead of her brother\'s soft voice. A morning crying session has become a routine for her.

Whenever she enters the kitchen, she\'d imagine him surprising her with blueberry pancakes for breakfast. And wherever she looks around the house, she\'d find traces of him everywhere, which would only make her cry harder.

Even though she knows her brother is not coming back, it still pains her greatly to see his room with a closed door.

He had always kept it open, never once closing in it in his sister\'s face, but now that he was gone, Lizzy had closed it to avoid being overwhelmed by grief again.

Part of her still believes that he\'s inside his room...

Lizzy\'s feelings of grief, despair, and stress, weren\'t the only thing Sammy\'s loss had left her with.

She has basically lost her guardian, the one taking care of her, guiding her through this tough life, and supporting her emotionally, mentally, and financially.

Even though he was a student too just like her, he had a part time job that was enough to support both of them.

He\'d always wanted his sister to focus on her studying rather than working and that\'s why he\'d never let her get a job.

The real reason he hadn\'t joined the EDA was because he didn\'t want to risk losing his life and leaving his sister alone. Little did he know, that was exactly what he had done.

Now that Lizzy didn\'t have a source of income and together with the fact that she was over eighteen, she was expected to get over her loss quickly and continue on living like normal.

In normal circumstances, one might find help from the government or other agencies, but with the current situation of the planet and the aftermath of the portals incident, everyone had their own family to support.

That meant that Lizzy had to secure a job on her own. And this is exactly why she was waiting for the past hour for the job interview at a small electronic store.

"Ms. Elizabeth Lavendon," said a man in a white suit sitting behind a round table. And before Lizzy could say hi, the man continued "we don\'t have enough time, so please tell me quickly why should we hire you?"

Lizzy was taken aback by the man\'s rude behaviour. She was never the shy person, but quite the contrary, she was one of the confident ones.

But her loss had changed her to the worse, even though she was fighting hard against her bad feelings and trying her best to live up to her brother\'s expectations.

"Yes-" thinking for a second, and going back to her professional attitude, "why should you hire me? Well for a start, I\'m a computer sciences student in the University of Torinto, the top school around."

Smiling in a professional manner, she continued, "I\'ve been named one of the best among the thousands in my class because of the experience-"

"Ms. Lavendon, I apologize for interrupting your bragging session, but I was wondering, Why. Should. We. Hire. You!" the man had a frown on his face as if he was already dismissing her.

"Let me ask you this, in your resume you stated that you\'ve never worked before, is that correct?"

"Yes, I haven\'t worked for a payment, but I did some volunteer work in the university-"

"Ms. Lavendon, please just answer with a yes or no, have you ever had a real paid job?"

"No..." Even though she still had a smile on her face, Lizzy was about to start crying. In most professional companies, a volunteer job for a student would be as good as a job, but the manager of this small store wasn\'t even giving her a chance.

"Have you ever had any experience with customer service?" the man in the white suit continued.

"No, but-"

"Then what can you possibly bring us to the table? What good would adding you to our team do?" he interrupted.

Hearing that, Lizzy was confused and one word away from breaking down. This was supposed to be a small job at an electronic store, not a job at Microsoft Corporation.

"I\'m sorry, I have to go..." saying that, Lizzy stood up and headed to the door. With each step she took, her tears became warmer, heavier, and harder to suppress.

By the time she reached to grab the door knob of the office, she was barely seeing anything from the blur in her eyes.

Breathing the outside air almost made her cough her eyes out. Even though it had just lately stopped raining, about two days ago, the metallic smell of blood was still faintly in the air.

Walking up to a random bench on the street, Lizzy sat down and covered her face with her shaking hands.

"Why?" she cried silently, "why is this world such a cruel place?"

It wasn\'t the first job interview she\'s gone through. The other day, Lizzy had tried her luck at a girls\' clothing store, but she was kicked out for \'faking gender\'.

The store manager didn\'t believe her when she said she was a girl, even though she had provided an ID. He\'d only dismissed her with the thought that she was a pervert boy with a fake ID.

Before that, she took her chances at an interview at a grocery store close to her house, but she was refused the position because she has no customer service experience.

"Why?" Lizzy whispered again in her wet hands, "why is it so cruel? Is it better on your side, Sammy? Can I join you?"

Having no one to support her at her time of need, Lizzy was one step away from a full mental breakdown.

"Please, save me..." she whispered, yet her voice was lost in the city\'s noise.

It got so noisy all of a sudden that Lizzy thought she was going deaf. A huge part of the city was under constructions, but the noise shouldn\'t be this loud.

Taking a moment to breath and calm herself down, she realised it was just her the stress caging her mind.

\'Am I losing it already?\' she thought to herself, feeling drained.

"Hello?" Lizzy could hear a young masculine voice calling out next to her. Looking up, she found herself staring into two light blue eyes.

"Sorry young miss, I was waiting for the buss on the other side of the road when I noticed that you\'re... crying? What\'s wrong?" the young man asked with worry in his voice. He seemed in his mid twenties.

"I\'m sorry," Lizzy said while wiping away the tears from her face and eyes. "It\'s alright, nothing serious..."

Lizzy was surprised that the man had recognised her as being a girl, but she guessed it was because of her feminine skirt suit.

Hearing her talk and with such a shaky voice, the youth felt bad, "I can tell you\'re so bad at lying, haha," he said with an awkward smile as he sat down next to her.

"From your clothes and situation... can I assume that you\'ve been fired- wait I\'m sorry, it\'s not my business to ask about that." the youth looked rather embarrassed when he said that, but it only made it easier for Lizzy to breath again.

"It\'s ok..." she replied weakly. It\'s been a while since she has talked to another human being, aside from that old lady at the collective funeral and the crappy store managers.

Looking closely at the youth next to her, she could admire his calm blue eyes, wavy brown hair, and mascular build.

"I wasn\'t fired, but I never got the job either," she said between sniffs that she couldn\'t control.

"Hm, the problem isn\'t you if that\'s what you\'re thinking." the youth commented warmly, "at these times, most people have lost someone or something dear to them, plus everyone is looking for a job.

"That contributes to the business owner\'s bad attitude and since they have more people to choose from, it\'s only natural that they\'re quite picky, don\'t you think?"

Hearing the youth\'s reasoning, Lizzy felt a little better about herself. "uhm..."

Smiling to himself for being successful at calming the girl down a little bit, he introduced himself, "my name is Liam by the way, nice to meet you."