The Broken Ones

Chapter Thirty-Five

"I like your recitals," Frankie commented to Valeriana as they enter the large hall with Alesia and Johnny.

"Thanks," Valeriana smiled.

Alesia wasn't paying attention to her friends. Instead, she was scanning the crowd for a familiar face.

"I will be back in a second," Alesia told her friends. "There's someone I need to talk to."

"See you then," Johnny replied.

"Amelia!" Alesia called out as she approached her.

Amelia turned to look at the girl. "Alesia, itis good to see you again," Amelia told her politely.

"You too," Alesia told her. "I was wondering if we could talk about Maya."

"Yeah sure," Amelia replied. "What about her?"

Before Alesia could answer the question, another voice cut her off. "Millie!" someone yelled. Alesia turned to see Katarina walking towards the two.

"Hi Katarina," Alesia said as she looked the girl up and down. Katarina was still the same. Short with long dark brown hair and green eyes hidden behind thick glasses frames.

"Alesia," Katarina said. She looked over at Amelia in surprise.

Alesia took a deep breath. "Where is everyone else? I might as well tell all of you the reason."

"What are you talking about?" Katarina asked her.

"The real reason Maya killed herself," Alesia answered.

"One second," Katarina said before running off to find her other friends.

"You know the reason?' Amelia asked.

Alesia nodded. She looked over Amelia's shoulder and watched Katarina return to them followed by Aiden, Renate, Jude, Blake, George, Denise, Jonah, Toby, and Lisa.

"Katarina said that you know the reason Maya killed herself," Blake said.

Alesia nodded again. "Maya and I never stopped being friends," she told them. "We pretended to hate each other at school, but then we would hang out after school. I week before she did it, we had a bad fight." Alesia stopped talking to take a deep breath. "The night she died she turned up on my doorstep to apologise for what she had said. She told me that she was leaving to stay with family, and I believed her. She didn't kill herself because of the bullying, she killed herself because she was scared of turning into Angelica."

"That's the reason," Renate muttered.

"It's not everything. I have anxiety problems and post-traumatic stress disorder since I was five and Maya knew that. She was sick too, she had depression. She came to me because she wanted to know if it would ever get better and I gave her the wrong answer." Alesia looked up at them. "Can I just ask something from you?"

"Anything," Amelia told her.

"Stop glorying Maya," Alesia told them.

"We're not," Blake began.

"No, you are," Alesia said cutting him off. "Stop telling people about how she was kind and considerate because she wasn't. Maya was only sweet when she wanted something. She was a good person, but she always understood that to get stuff done you can't always be kind. She was stubborn and blunt. She knew what she wanted, and she wasn't afraid to fight for it. She could be mean to the people she loved and cared about, but that was only a mask to hide how insecure she was. She was always afraid that you would ditch her once a better deal came along so she would try to convince herself that she didn't care, but she did. Maya wasn't perfect, she was flawed. Yet I loved her."