Mirror, Mirror

3.07 Mirror Princess

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"So, when she asked me to help her out in class, I did it," Starla continued. "Writing was always challenging for Ri-Yu; this is her second-language after all. And she was under so much pressure from her dad. Being 'average' wasn't enough. Of course I had to help!"

"And you knew what it was like to be under so much pressure to perform too," Rayvin nodded. "It makes sense."

"Yeah... exactly. Ri-Yu knew I was in love with her. She had to have. I idolized her. So, what started as me heavily editing her essays eventually turned into me writing her essays for her," Starla continued. "It was an open secret. A lot of people knew about it, even Crystallia. Especially Crystallia. She knows my writing, and she kept heavily implying that we would get in trouble. We didn't, though. I think she was afraid of going toe-to-toe with the Sun Princess, and by extension her father the Sun King. I think we could've continued getting away with it, too."

"But you eventually got caught, didn't you?" Rayvin guessed. "That's why she got expelled?"

"Yeah," Starla said. "But not directly. It all started with a series of mistakes, on my part and on her part, that spiraled out of control..." The story spilled from Starla's mouth.

"I realized I liked women shortly after Ri-Yu came out to me as gay," Starla said. "She helped me discover a part of myself I didn't know about. It became us against the world, the two gay girls at the school. We still fought and made up all the time, but we always had each other's backs.

"Well, one thing led to another and one night Ri-Yu and I were kissing, and it became more, and we even briefly considered ourselves together. But, we kept it on the down-low.

"Ri-Yu's dad wanted her to marry a man. In fact, he originally intended to marry Rivero, if not another noble at the academy. He couldn't know about Ri-Yu. He couldn't know about us. As soon as rumors starting going around that the two of us were together, Ri-Yu dropped me so fast. She knew my family would be OK with it-and I think she resented me for that-but she knew her father would not.

"So, we broke up. I was devastated. She was so open about being gay at the academy. But as soon as it became real, as soon as we got together, she wasn't OK with people knowing.I understood, but I didn't understand. When you're fifteen, and you're in love with your best friend drops, and she goes back to treating you like nothing, it feels like the world is ending.

"I told Ri-Yu I couldn't do her essays anymore. It was too hard for me to be around her and pretend to be friends. I needed to move on. She called me selfish and spoiled. We stopped talking."

"I'm so sorry," Rayvin said quietly. "That must've hurt."

"It did," Starla said, then paused. She chewed the inside of her cheek. "You know how I have a... sort of tendency to check my appearance a lot?"

"You care about what people perceive about you," Rayvin said softly. "And you've grown up with a hell of a lot of people perceiving you. It's understandable."

"Yeah... Something like that. It's- I can't help it. I have to know what I look like at all times or I get... really really anxious. Well, a while later, rumors started spreading that I- that I'm so obsessed with myself that... that I get off to my own reflection," Starla said through gritted teeth. "People started making fun of me any time they caught me looking at a mirror. They called me mirror princess. When I confronted Ri-Yu about it, she played dumb and said she didn't know how that rumor started. I believed her because honestly, I still loved her. I broke down in front of her, and she held me, and we became friends again.