Smoke and Mirrors

Paths

Marinette

I woke up this morning feeling emotionally drained and physically exhausted. The night prior was a clear indication that I needed to fix the relationships that are happening around me. Trying to isolate myself and clear my mind, I pull my phone out to play some music. And of course, as if the universe couldn't hate me enough, Six Degrees of Separation by The Script begins to play. I begin to internally scream at the universe that screwing with me today is not the best way to get me ready for what I have to do. To be fair though, the song did make some valid points based on how to deal with break-ups. Right now, I did think that having a broken heart would be the worst thing to have happened.

"MARINETTE?!" a woman screams. And just like that I realized why the second part would kill me. Alya runs up to hug me, and despite not wanting to be touched, I hugged her back. I hadn't told anyone about what has happened with Luca or Chat Noir yet, and a part of me wants to tell Alya. I really wish I could've let her keep her memories of us knowing each other's identities, but I had to take them away after Hawkmoth found out who she was and killed her dad. I started out as a good friend once upon a time before I focused all my energy into being Ladybug and saving all of Paris. I pushed her away to keep myself from causing more harm to her and her family. After all, Mr.Césaire would still be alive had I not been so careless around her. Alya pulls away from our hug, looks up at me and slowly raises her hand for me to see an 18 karat diamond engagement ring. "NINO PROPOSED TO ME!"

And there was the third before I ever got the chance to get over the second stage. I look at her genuinely shocked, "Holy crap, Alya that's so huge!" I exclaimed. I don't want to take her moment away from her, so I try my hardest to hide my pain, jealousy, and anger. My world truly feels like it is being split down the middle at this point, but I continue to push through it by putting her feelings above my own. "Have you told Adrien yet?" I questioned, knowing full on and well he was probably there for Nino as moral support.

"No, he and Kagami got into an argument before he even made it to my place. Nino said Adrien called him this morning, something about kissing some other girl," at that moment I froze. Adrien was never the type to cheat, but before I could defend him, Alya kept going on. "I never expected Adrien to be a cheater, but Nino said that the girl kissed him. Like seriously, we both know that kissing is a 2-way street. He could've easily pushed her off if he wanted to."

Alya did have a point, but I didn't have the energy to argue semantics with her as I just so happened to think that I wasn't doing myself any favors by thinking about other people's relationship issues. As Alya kept rambling on about Adrien's relationship issues, I felt like I needed to tell her my own to feel better. "Alya," I say timidly, trying to stop her from talking about what she would do to Nino if he did that to her. "Alya." I say a bit louder, now she was saying how many ways she could castrate him if he ever thought about it. "Alya!" I yell finally catching her attention.

"Mari-" she notices the tears in my eyes, confused as to what is making me cry at this moment.

"Luca dumped me..." I tell her quietly, relieved that I finally got it out. I'm just glad that I'm not bawling my eyes out like last night. Tears are present but they're just the residue from all the years that I held them back. Truly, as much as I felt for Luca, I think that after our second break I just couldn't bring myself to love him. It was like I told myself he wasn't the one and I tried to prove myself wrong. The more I think about it, the more I just feel upset with myself that I placed myself in this situation. I look up to see Alya trying to gage whether she should give me a hug or ask when. "It happened last night, he was upset that I didn't tell him my 'secret,' even though I told him multiple times I didn't have one. Then he yelled at me about not loving him, and then just said we were done."