The heart has its reasons that reason knows not

Crushed hopes and glitters

Mia fell in love on a Friday. A glimpse across a hallway was all she needed to be utterly and thoroughly under Carli's spell. She read once that going through your first love was both, the best and scariest thing that could happen. The butterflies and the daydreaming, followed by the bounds of despair at the thought of unrequited feelings, caused a particularly ditsy whiplash.

But even with the fear of heartbreak looming over her head like the sword of Damocles (she'd learned more from Will's love for everything theatrical than her English teacher), she couldn't help it. Carli was new, a chance to reinvent herself, someone whose memory of her wasn't tainted by her ED. Thinking of Carli, wanting to be near her orbits and attempting new things for her, made her feel more alive than she had in the past seven months, if not ever.

She'd found a new love for Shakespeare. For someone who lived centuries before her, it was as if he'd captured every bit of what she felt whenever her eyes found Carli. Her heartbeat would quicken, her palm would grow sweaty, and a smile would blossom. Carli was her oxygen; she drank her in like an alcoholic chugging a bottle of vodka. She was her everything. Until she wasn't.

Carli knew. Her chance to reinvent herself, her salvation, her one silver lining to a normal life, was gone. 'What must she think of me now?' It was all she could think. Surely, Carli would see her like the rest did: a wounded animal that ought to be pitied. It wasn't a breakup, nor did she really get rejected, but it might as well feel like she did. Just as she'd gotten Carli, Mia had lost her just as quickly.

And if her first heartbreak wasn't enough, her best friends were, well... they were doing it. In a way, Mia expected it from Cam, but Becca was her ride-or-die, her confidant (Cam used to be that, too), the one person whom she felt like crying her heart out. Nothing was going well, and at times, she felt like there was this wall separating her from the rest. A wall made of experiences she'd missed on, in her months in the psych ward. Who even needed sex -okay, perhaps the whole of humanity for procreation, and the other creatures and... did plants have sex? She couldn't remember her biology class for the li- alright, many needed it. It didn't change Mia's discomfort whenever it was brought up. And why did they have to watch porn at school?

She'd never been too much on watching X-rated videos, but as the others were hunched over Cam's phone, she felt like she had to watch. They say it's far from reality, but how are you supposed to know what it's really like when you never had sex, to begin with? Did people just know? Mia questioned if her body would act on some primitive instinct buried within when the moment presented itself. If it ever did. How would she know if she actually liked it? Her eyes naturally rose in Carli's direction. For a second, Mia wondered if she would enjoy Carli's touch, but even that didn't feel right. The thought of hands feeling her, going along the length of her body, seeing what she didn't want anyone to see, no, Carli was the last person she wanted to witness her naked body.

The thought that the object of her affection -preemptive heartbreak of not- would see the anorexic girl in her was enough of a damper to any sexual fantasy she might have had. Mia doubted she'd get it crossed out of her Fuck it Bucket any time soon (how wrong she would be).

Speaking of it, the next thing the gang laid their eyes on was the 'break the law' bullet point. While having her list be out there for anyone and everyone to see -herm herm, Carli- was a bit embarrassing, the embarrassment was cut short by Alison's chirping voice. "Sounds great."

'How are you everywhere?'

The sudden appearance of Alison Price and her self-invitation to their 'Operation Selling Sunset' was a tad bit confusing. To some extent, Alison and Carli were similar to Mia. Carli was a mystery, whereas Alison was an enigma. Not Alison per se, but more her actions were out of the norm of comprehension for Mia. They were never friends. Mia was convinced she'd hung out more with the brunette in the last few weeks than before her life fell apart. Back then, they occasionally spoke to each other, being nothing more than, at best, people who frequented the same circle. But then again, Alison Price's clique included the entirety of Westmere.