𝑅𝑒𝒷𝑜𝓇𝓃 𝒜𝓃𝒹 𝑅𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓃𝑔𝑒

33 - Thirty • Three

"How do you feel about sitting right in the front row?" Nino asked as he took a seat right next to Alya with his tray of lunch.

"I have to say... It isn't that bad, but it definitely isn't that good either," Marinette sighed as she poked on her spaghetti with her fork.

"You should be worrying about me!" Alya exclaimed. "I'm sitting right next to Chloe frickin' Bourgeois, my enemy since day 1!"

"Yes, I do feel bad for you," Marinette wasn't really thinking about the new seating arrangement. She was thinking about whether to tell Alya and Nino about her situation now, or wait for after school to tell them.

Finally she decided to tell them after school. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to tell them now, after all some other people could try to eavesdrop on them.

"Marinette?" Chloe tapped her on the shoulder with a frown. "When are you ever going to sit and eat with us? I thought we were your best friends, not them!"

Marinette silently groaned to herself. She turned to Chloe and nodded at her. "I'll be there in a second." Chloe nodded and started walking back to her table.

"Chloe seems to be giving you a hard time," Nino frowned as he watched Marinette pack her lunch. "Are you sure... You two are even friends?"

"I..." Marinette felt the rush of guilt inside of her. She leaned closer to Alya and Nino and whispered. "I'll tell you two everything later. But you have to promise to believe me!" She didn't wait for their reply as she quickly switched her table and went to sit with Chloe, Lila and Sabrina.

"Marinette, Sabrina told me that you two have become really great friends," Chloe spoke as Marinette took a seat. "I'm really glad to see that all four of us are getting along. Right, Lila?!"

Lila nodded with a fake small smile. "Right, I totally agree."

"Yeah... Me too..." Marinette sighed. How long were these girls going to pretend to be great friends and so naive? She rolled her eyes at the question though, already knowing the answer to it.

Soon Chloe and Sabrina were caught in a long conversation. Marinette stayed quiet. She could see that Lila wanted to join the other two girls in their conversation, but obviously she didn't even know what they were talking about.

"Hey," Marinette smiled at her and Lila was quick to know it was fake. "Chloe and Sabrina seem to be caught up in a conversation... Why don't we two start our own conversation? Let's talk things out, Lila, so that in class you wouldn't have to keep giving me those horrible glares!"

Lila clenched her fists as Marinette continued. "At my first date with Adrien, you apologized to me and said that you being jealous and angry about us wasn't how a best friend was supposed to act. What happened? Why are you so mad and jealous now?"

"I... Just the fact that you lied to me makes me mad!"

"Hey," Marinette chuckled. "I'll tell you the truth, okay? Chloe was the one to tell you that me and Adrien weren't on good terms, and she did that to make you feel better. When we found out that Chloe told you that, me and Adrien started pretending to hate each other, so that you wouldn't see Chloe as a liar. I just didn't want you two's friendship to break. I actually begged Adrien to have us pretend."

Marinette smirked to see that Lila was actually considering believing her, so she continued to make the story even more true. "But then, you found out about the truth, and I felt horrible. I didn't want you to hate Chloe, so I started to think fast. I decided to pretend I was at fault... So I told you some mean words to make you believe that I was at the wrong, and not Chloe."