13 REASONS WHY// Glorybringer [Completed]

[8] Fake Friends

Tape 3, Side A

Every time I think about you, I think this:

Fake things stay fake.

Don't you agree, Magnificent?

"Welcome to your tape, Magnificent Leffler"

~
Deathbringer didn't even go to school. He just walked and walked and walked. Listening to the tapes like his life depended on it. Pushing Play like it was the only thing he knew how to do.

Magnificent— you loved attention. Not attention on yourself— attention, bad attention, at other people.

And you loved knowing you caused it.

Now, the world was merciless. I thought about talking to someone but I knew I couldn't. Living my life was more scary than ending it.

Then you came along.

I didn't go to cafeteria for lunch, not anymore. It was like I forgot to socialize. I usually went to the library and didn't eat.

I met you there— in the library.

The school library was a paradise for me. Just silence. People minding their own business. No bullying. Just calmly reading, a safe zone from the bullies and the popular.

I was actually surprised to find you there, actually. You were the giggly, almost-pretty girl that everyone tried to be on your good side. Outside, you seemed pretty harmless. Inside, you were deadly.

You were Scarlet Burn's sidekick. Nobody trusted you, and you didn't trust anyone. You spread rumors, and you controlled everything in the school. Heard some news about someone? You already knew it.

You made sure you did.

You weren't the kind of girl that spent their lunch time in the library. You didn't read at all. You probably had stopped reading when you were in first grade.

At least, that's what I thought then— you came to the library for your own pleasure, whatever it was.

I was stupid.

Very, very stupid.

We didn't have a good history. You were always mad at me for being the Queen of the Forest in a stupid kindergarten musical. You wanted that part, and so did I.

I won.

Just like that— I beat you, and you didn't like that. Hated that, in fact. You swore revenge, and turns out you never forgot it.

So, after all those years, you remembered.

It seems, Magnificent, you remember everything. You didn't forget, and you made sure nobody else did, either.

Somehow, in the library, we became friends. We started having small conversations. Then big ones. I even leaned on you for support. I thought you had matured. I thought you had changed after all. I had small, wishful hope in my heart.

You didn't.

I was just stupid enough to think you did.

Then she stopped talking. Deathbringer thought he might have pushed Pause, but it turned out that it was Glory.

Glory was crying.

He heard her silently crying, then going out of control. She was crying like a small child, crying like someone who had a broken soul.