Why I Shouldn't Have Done It | ✔️

Chapter 19

When we got to PE, we went straight to our lockers. I glanced over at Alya to see she was wiping away her tears.

I remembered I had to probably be reassigned to another locker due to the fact that I was taken out of this school for a while.

"Alya, I have to go to the locker room office to get a new locker assigned. I'll see you in the PE class," I told her, hoping I could get to the bottom of whatever was making her upset while we'd be playing football or whatever. She nodded in response and walked over to her locker by herself.

What was she upset about? This scared me more than anything because Alya was always so strong and fearless. I never once saw her as anything less than brave, but she was a real human. Of course she had the right to be emotional, but whatever was upsetting her must've been big. She was never this upset.

I frowned to myself and went over to the office to request my locker. I internally died when I noticed the usually kind person wasn't there and that Ms. Mendeleiev was there instead.

Oh goodness, I thought to myself. "Hello Ms. Mendeleiev! It's me, Marinette," I greeted her nervously.

"Oh, Miss Dupain-Cheng? Where have you been? Ditching with your friends?" She accused me, causing my eyes to widen.

"No, no! I was getting homeschooled because of the people that were getting too excited about me being Ladybug," I quickly said.

"Let me get this straight. You, Ladybug, changed your education because of teenagers that got too excited with your secret identity?" She asked me, her eyes rolling.

"Uh..." I nervously didn't know what to reply because if I said yes, she'd probably put me down, but if I said no, she'd know I was lying.

"Can I be assigned to a locker please?" I asked, my words coming out fast as I had no idea how to respond to her previous question.

"The good thing, Miss Dupain-Cheng, was that you had the courage to come back to school. Most in your situation would probably stick to homeschool, but you came back to have a regular Parisian school education," she told me, taking off her glasses and setting them on the desk as she looked me straight in the eye with her harsh, icy blue eyes.

"Thank you," I squeaked out nervously.

"Anyways, I'm taking over for your usual locker supervisor for this period. I'm not sure how this works, but is there a particular locker you would like to have?" She asked, changing the subject as she opened a binder where the lockers were mapped out.

"Is there any available lockers near Alya Cesaire?" I asked hopefully.

Ms. Mendeleiev scanned the sheet and shook her head, "No, but there's an available locker next to Chloe Bourgeois."

If this situation happened previous to the reveal, I would've been crazily declining at the chance that I'd have a locker next to Chloe, but now that we were good friends, it was different.

"Could I please have that one?" I asked, surprising the teacher.

Ms. Mendeleiev replied, "Are you sure? I mean there's another locker available by Rose."

"Rose is really nice, but I'm best friends with Chloe now," I told her with a smile. Her eyes widened and she nodded as she scribbled my name into the place of the locker beside Chloe's.

"Alright Miss Dupain-Cheng, you're set. Don't be late for my class after lunch," she reminded me as she handed me the combination password for that locker.

"Thanks! I won't," I replied before stepping back into the locker room.

I made my way around the changing students to find Chloe.