I walked into school the next day feeling refreshed, for once. Everything felt clearer as if I hadn't been truly seeing the world this whole time. Its amazing what sleep can do for you. Even when I'm not ladybug I can't help but feel there's always a part of me that's in survival mode.
I walked into class and sat at my seat early for once like I always used to be. Alya and Nino look up from the desk in shock. "No, way! I must be hallucinating! Is that Marinette, early for class?" She says nudging Nino in the side to take his seat below us.
I rub the back of my head in embarrassment and laugh. "Yeah…I guess I actually got a good night's sleep." I say setting my bag down on top of the table.
"I've been telling you girl, you might want to think about going to the doctor for that insomnia, its not healthy. Do your parents even know?" Alya asks as our classmates start to find their way into the room. I'm prevented from answering by my bag flying to the floor spreading papers and pens everywhere. I look around to find the source of the destruction and find none other than Chloé.
"What the hell, Chloé?!" Alya yells as I jump to my feet.
"Oh, what? It's not like Marinette isn't used to picking all her books up off the floor." She kicks one of my pens across the room so hard that it hits the blackboard and shatters into separate pieces. I feel my cheeks boiling as I step face to face with the queen of evil.
"What the hell is your problem?" I say ready for a fight. I don't care anymore. I don't care about suspension. I don't care about grounding. Someone needs to teach this girl a lesson.
"You're my problem Dupain-Cheng!" She says shoving a finger into my chest. I raise my hand instinctively to slap her. Chloé closes her eyes bracing for the strike, but before my hand makes contact a hand grabs my wrist. I turn around and Adrian is there. He pulls me behind him and squares off against Chloé. To her credit she immediately looks ashamed.
"Chloé, leave Marinette alone! She didn't do anything to you!" He says with more anger than I've ever heard in his voice. Chloé takes a step back her eyes grow wide, and she looks on the verge of tears for a second before turning a glare on me then back at Adrian.
"Whatever." She says turning back to her seat and plopping down next to Sabrina who looks like she's about the combust from anxiety.
Adrian turns to me blocking my view of Chloé and puts his hand on my shoulder. "Are you okay, Marinette?" He asks and my heart skips a beat. All I can do is nod and he pats my shoulder slightly and moves down to his seat. I slowly sit down and then look around at the room. Everyone hurriedly avoids my gaze.
"Here's your stuff, girl. Your I pad looks ok." Alya says handing me bunches of papers. She also takes the pens that Nino had collected off the floor and hands those to me as well. Miss Bustier enters the classroom as I'm putting away the contents of my bag. She seems to feel the suffocating air in the room as she makes a comment about our silence but moves on with the class swiftly.
The lunch bell rings, and everyone jumps out of their seats eager for some reprieve. "After lunch and science I'll be expecting all of you to present your ideas for the dance to the class." I cringe at the thought of even going through the rest of the day with Chloé let alone presenting with her.
I walk with the rest of the girls to the cafeteria, and they swarm me eager to know what happened between me and Chloé to make her act like that. I look over my shoulder to see Chloe exiting the school like she usually did for lunch. I wonder what I did wrong too.
It came time to present, and all of the other groups were buzzing with excitement with their ideas except me and Chloé. She had tried to make some excuse to get out of class but Miss Bustier had shot her down immediately. We sat together in silence until Miss Bustier decided that it was time to present. All the fun ideas made me excited for the dance and actually made me forget that I was sitting next to Chloé.
"Marinette. Chloé. You're up." Miss bustier says at last and I walk up to the front of the class without looking back at Chloé. The faint taps of her flats are the only thing that lets me know she's followed.
I present our main ideas by myself. The class excitedly starts chattering among themselves at some of our ideas. Suddenly, Miss Bustier puts her hand out in front of me. "Marinette, how about you let Chloé explain one of your ideas?" She asks and I turn to Chloé who simply stares at her nails.
"Do you want to present our last idea Chloé?" I ask quietly and she looks at me through the corner of her eyes. She continues to look at her nails, but I don't move. Ignoring me isn't an option here. I'm about to give up on her when she lowers her wrist and looks up at the class.
"We want to have an ice cream machine and a table full of toppings so that you losers can decide what goes on it yourselves." She says and everyone starts talking excitedly among themselves. I let out a small sigh of relief and Miss Bustier tell us we did wonderfully. Among the excitement I hear Kim exclaim that he bets I came up with the ice cream machine idea, and Chloe flinches but says nothing. She was the one who came up with that one. The bell rings for the end of the day and everyone rushed out of the room. Me and Chloé grab our bags and head out after everyone else has already gotten out the door.
Chloé pushes past me knocking me into the wall, but before I can say or do anything she's gone. To think I ever thought that girl had a soft bone in her body!
The days leading up to the dance went the same. As excitement for the party grew Chloé's bullying continued. She no longer tried to do anything to me when others were around and she didn't try any big stunts again. Instead, she opted to make my life hell by tripping me when I passed by, stealing things out of my bag, unplugging my tablet while it charged, and hiding my clothes after gym class. I felt on edge every moment while I was at school and to top it off, I couldn't even prove that it was her! For once in her life she was being subtle.
Me and Alya stood together in the quad during break. I hadn't told her anything about the incidents with Chloé yet. I didn't have the energy to vent, and I just wanted to take my mind off of things. I was talking about jagged stone's new album when I noticed Alya's eyes go wide and excited. I turned to see Adrian standing behind me. The sight of him just about ended my life right on the spot.
"Hey, Marinette. Can I talk to you alone?" Adrian asks scratching the back of his head and averting his eyes from mine and Alya's eyes. He's holding a pink sheet of paper in his hand tightly.
Alya yanks me close to her and whispers in my ear. "Oh my god he's going to confess to you!" she says then pushes me forward. "She's all yours." She said walking away and leading anyone else who was around a fair distance off.
"Uh…hi umm..what did you want me to talk about? I mean to talk to me about? You!" I say tripping over my words as badly as I tend to trip over my own feet. Adrian finally looks at me and then smiles sadly.
"I got your note." He says handing me the pink piece of paper. My note? I take the sheet as he explains. I read out the over-the-top confession scrawled there in red ink and signed Marinette with a heart at the bottom. "I'm really flattered Marinette, but I'm in love with someone else." He says firmly looking me in the eyes. My heart drops down to my feet and I feel like the wind has been knocked out of me.
"I didn't write this…" I whisper holding the note out to him wishing he would take it back.
"What? Your name is signed on it though? Does this mean that you don't like me after all?" he says and the relief and hope in his eyes makes me want to vomit.
"I-I don't know." I say crumbling the paper up in my hand and looking at the floor. Adrian is in love with someone else. Adrian is in love with someone else. All I can see is the blurry floor as tears fill my eyes. No! Don't cry! Then he'll know! Does it even matter? He doesn't love me! He'll never love me!"
"Marinette are you ok?" He says putting his hand on my shoulder and I jump away from his touch and knock into the wall behind me. The tears fall onto my cheeks and I wipe them away quickly but it's too late. Adrian looks at me with pity and regret filling his eyes. Over his shoulder I see Alya looking on in utter despair. The whole school heard. Then, I hear that grating laugh high and loud echoing off the building walls.
"Looks like Dupain-Cheng finally got rejected!" She screeches and some people who I didn't even know began to laugh.
My face burns with embarrassment and anger. I storm past Adrian and Alya and every other goddamn person who had to witness my shame. Chloé looks as if she's about to say something when I push her so hard she falls to the floor. Sabrina gets in my way, but I push her back too. I get on top Chloé and start shaking her so hard her ponytail comes loose.
"What did I ever do to you?! What did my family ever do to you?! I have never done anything for you to hate me!" I scream in her face at the top of my lungs. I drop the collar of her jacket with one hand and slap her across her face. Tears are already streaming down her face when she starts fighting back. She pulls my hair with one hand and grabs my wrist with the other and yells back.
"You've always been little Miss perfect our whole lives! Everything I ever did got compared to 'that little baker girl' You had to have the perfect family, the perfect grades, the perfect hair, the perfect life, and what did I get?! 'You need to do better than that little Chinese girl! Your mom would pay attention to you if you were top of your class! If only you were as sweet as, Marinette Dupain-Cheng!'" she screams and I shove her off of me.
"How is that my fault?! That was your parents not me!" I say and she shoves me to the ground once more and beats her hand against my side. We pull each other's hair, claw at each other's faces, until the teachers break us apart.
The teachers are screaming in our ears, but I can't hear anything they're saying. All I can think of is taking out my anger on Chloé until Miss Bustier screams. "You both have to calm down! You've drawn an akuma here!" I look around and my eyes land on the rest of the students attempting to shoo away the akuma with brooms, bats, and anything else. I stop resisting and instead go slack in Miss Bustier's arms.
"The other day!" I yell and Chloé stops moving and looks at me. "I thought we could be friends. I thought that at least we would be able to get along, and I thought you thought so too. What happened to make you treat me worse now than you did before?!" I yell at never felt so hopeless and desperate. She's comparing herself to me? I can't even keep my emotions in check. Ladybug was supposed to protect people, not cause their akumatization. Everyone stands around shocked and I hear the familiar sound of Chat Noir's feet hit the roof above. Chloé stares at me shaking her head her bottom lip quivering. "What did I do Chloé?! Tell me!"
"You abandoned me!" She screams back her voice breaking on the last word. She breaks down into loud sobs and Miss Mendeleiev lets her fall to her knees. I don't know what she means at first, and then I remember that I had run away that day that the akuma attacked. I went to fight the villain, but of course Chloé wouldn't know that. To her it would just look like I was protecting myself and leaving her to get hurt by the villain. I hear Chat Noir use his cataclysm and I turn to see him crush the akuma in his claws. He walks in between me and Chloé. He looks at me sadly and then looks at Miss Bustier.
"I'll be around to make sure hawkmoth doesn't send anymore akuma. I trust you know how to handle this situation better than I do." He says. Miss Bustier says she does and thanks Chat Noir for his work. He looks at me and Chloé one more time before using his stick to exit through to roof of the building. The school bell rings and the teachers usher all the other students to their classes while Miss Bustier ushers me and Chloé to her office.