Because He Loved Me First

6

"Marinette, someone's here for you!"

Bogus! That was her first thought. Who would want to come see me? Marinette climbed off her bed, not really sure she wanted to head downstairs and see who it was. But then she stopped. All throughout the day in school, Chloe had been giving her glares, sending her notes of reminder of her disobedience. What if it was Chloe? What if she was here to finally announce that the bakery was going to get shut down, that they weren't allowed to make business anymore? Marinette shuddered at just the thought, but then Sabine called out for her again.

"Marinette, it's Adrien. Come down now. He's waiting for you."

Although she was glad and relieved that it wasn't Chloe, she was still a little annoyed that even after everything she'd told him, Adrien still came here. Why didn't he understand? Why didn't he know that he was putting her life in danger? Still she headed downstairs, wanted to see what Adrien was up to now. She had a feeling that he was doing this on purpose, trying to befriend her, and now showing up at her place.

She reached the bottom of the stairs and folded her arms. She then cleared her throat to get Adrien to look at her. Once Adrien gave her his attention, he instantly waved but she only grabbed his hand and started pulling him away. "What did I say?!" She exclaimed coldly. "What did I say about leaving me alone?! You think just because you're all famous, everyone wants to befriend you now?! Well, I don't!"

Adrien stopped and looked at her, and Marinette swore she saw feelings of hurt pass through his eyes. It was all too familiar to her, after all, it had been the feeling she had gotten on the first day of school, when Chloe decided it'd be a good idea to pick on her just because she had accidentally gotten her limo dirty. She sighed and looked down. "Okay, I'm sorry, but I'm being serious. I don't want you around. I don't want this attention from you, you're going to regret it!"

"Actually," Adrien scratched his head with a small chuckle, "I came here to get some pastries. Your mother must have gotten the wrong idea and thought I was here to see you."

"Oh," Her face flushed red at his explanation. "Oh, oh, sorry. You can get back to whatever you were doing just now." She cleared her throat from embarrassment and started leaving to go up to her room. Right! Adrien wasn't here to see her. She was thankful for that, but he had to be more careful. What if someone like Chloe decided to follow him, and she ended up following him here. She would get more wrong ideas and officially decide that the bakery would no longer stand. Walking inside her room again, Marinette closed the door shut and brought out her calendar.

On Thursday, she would leave. She ran her fingers along the words written, before she grabbed her pen again and scratched out the number '14'. She couldn't wait any longer. Quickly, she rearranged her decisions in her head before writing it down. Maybe if she left sooner, Adrien would come to see that she was right and should forget about her.

Just 1̶4̶ 11 more days to go.

She quickly put her calendar away when she heard a knock on her door. She usually locked her door, but today she might have forgotten with so much being in her head. "Come in," She called out. The door started opening and whoever had knocked started walking in. Marinette paid no attention, instead she stared down at her pen and thought, am I really going to take my own life?

"Hey?"

Marinette snapped back into reality and looked up. Groaning she stood up from her bed and face palmed. "Adrien, of course it's you. Should have guessed. What do you want now?"

"I just wanted to make sure of something first. I talked with your parents, and. . . They don't seem to know what's been going on in school-"

"They don't have to know," Marinette shot back, grabbing her pillow and pressing it against her face. "It's not that easy to just tell your parents what's going on. I told you I didn't want attention. If I go to my parents now, you know they're going to get me unwanted attention." Sighing, Marinette laid back on her bed. She remembered the first time it had happened, and Marinette had wanted to tell her parents about it, wanted to tell them what had happened to school, how the mean girl was going after her, but before she had planned on telling them, before she had even come home from school, Chloe had walked inside the bathroom and threatened her once again with her parents' business. "Tell them and I'll bring the bakery down!" Chloe must have found out that the bakery was her weakest point. She didn't want to be a disappointment, she didn't want to be the reason why this bakery shut down, she didn't want to be the reason to her parents' unhappiness, so she had done whatever Chloe had told her to do in order to keep the bakery standing.

"Well, I think they'll be of good help, just saying," Adrien spoke again, making Marinette look up at him. "Don't you think it'd be way better to have someone be with you through this? Well, you obviously don't want me around, so I thought your parents might have already been helping you." Marinette placed her head against her pillow now, knowing Adrien made sense, but then again, knew it didn't even matter anymore. "I guess I'll leave now." Adrien turned around and left the room, leaving Marinette there to think about his suggestion.

No, Marinette turned to her side and took her calendar from under her bed. It doesn't even matter anymore.