Darkling

9. Cherry Bomb

Today's the day I told myself as I walked down the hallway.

'You can do this Marinette, you got this!'

Avoiding the stares as I made it to my locker, grabbing my books, and headed towards the homeroom. Entering the room, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

"Oh, look everyone it's Tantrum-Cheng" the voice came from Alya. Stopping to look at her, she looked at me with a smug expression.

She really had changed that much. Lila had turned her against me that quickly.

A roar of laughter exploded as I averted my eyes and headed to an empty table in the back. Not bothering with sitting in my assigned seat.

"Careful Kim you might want to hide your baseball bats" Lila chimed in. Sitting as my classmates continued to tease me, I just stared out the window waiting for class to begin.

"Over here, dude!" Turning to see Nino call Adrien over. Only to see him walk past his best friend and everyone else. Walking up the stairs up towards my table, gesturing to the chair next to me. Head nodding as he sat down in the chair.

"Oh, Adrikins I'm sure you don't want to sit by someone who vandalizes her own parents' place of work," Chloe said walking up towards us her heels clicking.

'Why me, why is this happening to me?' Scooting further down in my chair; the class hadn't even started, and I just wanted to go home.

"Actually, Chloe I'm totally fine sitting by Marinette." He then stood up and addressed the class. "For all of you who think that Marinette is such an awful person. You should look at your reflection in the mirror. Oh, and Lila you may have everyone here fooled but not me!" He sat down and I felt like I couldn't breathe as everyone looked at us.

"Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous" Chloe huffed and turned to go to her seat. Everyone else mumbled to themselves and turned to the front of the room.

Lila was the only one still staring at me. Shivers of fear ran down my spine and eventually, she too turned towards the front. Just as Ms. Bustier entered the classroom.

"Class let's begin the lesson," she said. So grateful that she didn't question why Adrien and I were in different seats. As she talked, I couldn't pay attention to anything she was saying. Then once class was over everyone headed out of the room; except for me and Adrien.

"Thank you for earlier Adrien."

"Of course, Marinette the rest of the class don't even know the whole story. It's best if they just keep their mouths shut." Not responding I just nodded as we headed to our chemistry class. Yet freaking out that I was about to take my chemistry test.

Hoping for a drama-free hour since that I didn't have to deal with Alya, Chloe nor Lila since they weren't in the same class as me. The class was assigned partners and we began the multiple-choice portion of the test. Then once with that, it was time to work with the beakers. Thankfully, my partner was Adrien as I carefully placed the mystery substance into a beaker. Next, I placed the scandium sulfate in the beaker, and we patiently waited for the reaction. All around us classmates were gasping as their beakers changed colors.

In our safety goggles, Adrien and I watched as our beaker was starting to boil and turn red. As I leaned closer to it the glass had shattered. Recoiling I screamed as the red substance landed on my face. Stripping my goggles off as everyone turned to look at me and busted out laughing.

"That wasn't supposed to happen" Adrien exclaimed reaching to grab the instructions. Slowly I could feel my skin starting to burn as I made my way over to the sink that was next to the eyewash station. Washing the stuff off, I looked in the mirror to see the rest of the residue.