Burn Bright

-5-

Violet's POV:

The others did their best to distract me for the rest of the night, and while I appreciate their efforts, I still found myself dreading the morning. It didn't matter how many random places we visited or how many stupid things we did, the crushing knowledge that in the morning, this could be all over twitter.

I woke up face down on the sofa in the Weekes' residence. I push myself up and push the loose strands of hair out of my eyes before getting to my feet and wandering into the kitchen. There sat Bandit, Knox and Amalie, eating bowls of cereal and talking quietly, probably in an attempt to let me sleep.

"Hey Violet." Bandit smiles tiredly as I sit between her and Knox, pouring myself a bowl of cereal wordlessly.

"Morning." I smile back, equally as tired.

"How much did you sleep?" Amalie asks as I begin to eat my breakfast.

"Like, two hours?" I answer unsurely. It could have been less.

"Today's gonna suck." Knox groans, placing his phone on the table, face down. I figure that they all got about as much sleep as I did.

"Where's Luke and Noah?" I ask, opening my phone and scrolling to find Twitter.

"Upstairs, still asleep." Amalie replies without missing a beep.

I nod my reply, glancing around at the small group and realizing that everyone's on their phones, except Knox, who appears to be trying to have a nap with his head on the table. What stereotypical teenagers we are.

I glance down at my phone to find that twitter has loaded, and open my notifications to see what's new. I often like and retweet people's comments or art work. In the back of my mind I thought about the party last night, but didn't think anything of it until I saw the tweet from Popbuzz.

'Violet Urie sleeping around at neighborhood party?!' read the headline. I open the article and begin to read, the sinking feeling in my chest becoming more and more difficult to ignore. What am I supposed to do in a situation like this?

"Don't read that shit, Violet." Knox says, looking concerned as he takes my phone and skims through the article. "Seriously. It's all bullshit anyway."

"Don't listen to the media." Bandit says, putting her hand on my shoulder in a reassuring manor. "They don't know the full story, and they just want attention grabbing headlines."

"It'll blow over soon." Amalie adds, sending me a small smile. "It always does."

---

When Amalie said it would all blow over, I wanted desperately to believe it. So I didn't talk about it for the rest of the weekend, and although I received many concerned looks from almost everyone around me, I was able to block it out and pretend that the god awful party had never happened.

Well, until Monday morning, when I was once again forced out of my home and into school, bag on my shoulder and Noah and Lucas by my side. Nobody bothered to say anything as we walked in, mostly continuing their conversations or just watching from a distance. I heard my name a few times as we passed on the way to our lockers down the hall.

It was silent between Noah and I as we made our way to our homeroom class with our snappy teacher. He offered me a small smile before we entered, and then I was left on my own to sit amongst some of the party-goers from Friday night.

This is going to be a long day.

As the class starts up, I cant bring myself to focus on what Mrs Daniels is saying. I stare blankly at the front of the classroom with the rest of the student body and wonder if my life will ever get any better then this. I think about the possibilities of where I could go, what careers I could take up and how easily I could mess it all up.