Based on Beside You by Marianas Trench, with some inspiration from Celine Dion's Because You Loved Me.

I don't own Total Drama.

"Can I sit with you?" She asked.

"Uhhh. . ." Zoey began after a moment of awkward silence, before quickly grabbing her tray. "You can sit here - if you want, but we actually just finished eating!" She said, quickly picking up her tray and standing up.

The blatant lie felt like a blade had been plunged into her back, but she said nothing, taking a seat at the table as her former friends carried their full trays of food elsewhere. She could almost feel their hostile glares burning into her back as they made their way out of the cafeteria.

"Congratulations!" Heather sneered from a nearby table, laughing with her boyfriend and fellow villain, Alejandro. "You're one of us now!"

Her lips trembled, but she refused to let herself cry. Instead, she stabbed the piece of lettuce with the fork and raised it to her lips. She couldn't even enjoy the taste her salad because of the tight feeling in her chest.

Sure, she'd lied, but it had been a harmless little white lie! It hadn't been out of malicious intent, and it hadn't even hurt anyone. She was clever – it was strategy and that's how you played the game.

She'd been honest when she said she was content with the things she'd collected from the island. Those would raise enough money for her cause, which really was animal welfare! Didn't that count for something?

So she wasn't actually a psychic. Fortune telling wasn't a real thing to begin with. She couldn't just look at someone and read their 'aura' – she'd just said that to get on the show, so she could attract attention to her cause. Her mother was a psychologist, and she herself was exceptionally perceptive. She made educated guesses based on her own observations and matched them with psychological theories, and she had a lucky habit of getting hits instead of misses.

Mike had lied too, and his alternate personality Mal had tried to kill Zoey and Cam, and yet she was the villain while Mike was forgiven. Not that she thought Mike shouldn't have been forgiven, but her offence seemed rather minor in comparison. Even though she had chosen that path, while Mike had not, it still hurt that Zoey and Cam trusted someone whose alternate had attempted to murder the both of them at least once, and they despised her for telling a harmless lie.

"Never thought you'd be the pariah, eh Fairy Princess?" Scott leered as he carried his tray past her table to another.

A lump rising in her throat, Dawn slammed her fork down on the table, attracting the attention of the entire cafeteria when she stood up, the legs of her chair scraping against the tiled floor. Her eyes stinging, she stood for a moment with all eyes on her, the entire cafeteria in silence. But when she tried to speak, to defend herself, no words came out.

Her throat dry and unable to produce sounds, she turned and abandoned her meal, making her way out of the cafeteria before anyone could see how close she was to crying.

Everything blurring from the tears, she walked into a large plastic garbage can and stumbled, running into someone that she couldn't identify. They let her use their arm to steady herself, and she barely managed to mutter an apology before letting go and turning away.

When she felt them put their arm around her shoulders and began to walk with her, she was completely overwhelmed and couldn't hold back her tears any longer.

When she tried to speak, she felt her throat constrict, and still made no sound as she blinked the tears from her eyes, feeling them hot and salty as they ran down her fair cheeks. When she tried to pull away from the individual, they put a hand on her arm as though to hold her back.

"They can't break you if you don't let them." She was stunned when she recognized the voice as belonging to Noah, someone she'd never actually spoken to before. He was absolutely the last person who she would ever have thought would stand by her, even if they had spoken before. "I'll be right beside you."

And those five words meant more to her than she could have ever expressed.

Constructive critique appreciated! Please review!