Because He Loved Me First

29

"Is she like. . .moving back to this school?" Sabrina asked after Chloe finished telling her about Alya. Chloe shrugged, continuing what she was doing, which was staring at her nails. Soon both girls looked up once the door opened and Lila walked in.

"You're a little late," Chloe spoke, placing her arms on her desk. "You're usually always early for school, though. What's changed, Lila? Why is it that you've been acting quite different lately?"

Lila looked at both girls, not knowing what to answer, but once she peaked over at Adrien who was listening to the conversation, she just walked past Chloe without a word, surprising both Sabrina and Chloe. Chloe gave Sabrina a look that meant, 'she's not our friend anymore.' And Sabrina nodded.

"Hey," Lila took a seat right next to Adrien. Though he wanted her to move, Adrien didn't say anything, and instead focused on his phone, scrolling through the internet, searching for interesting stuff.

"Hi," Lila said again, but Adrien ignored her. "Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?" But Adrien didn't answer, and when he didn't, Lila looked over at Chloe. Surprisingly Chloe was looking back at her, and the blonde gave Lila a look that seemed to mean, 'are you hitting on him?'

'No, of course not.' Lila replied back with just her eyes. Chloe seemed to understand the look, but she didn't look all too convinced. She gave Lila another look.

'You like him.'

Lila could see the suspicion in Chloe's eyes so she glared at Chloe with a look of, 'no! Shut up!' and then looked away.

The door opened again and the teacher walked in. "Alright, I'm back, and I've got news. I wasn't notified of it until later, but I just found out that we have a new student joining our class."

Chloe gritted her teeth. Dang it, she thought. So Alya really is joining the school again. I thought she'd learn to back off!

But the girl who came inside the class was not Alya. Instead she was a new girl whom no one seemed to have met before. Chloe could hear herself gasping, gazing at the girl's beauty, no matter how hard she tried to look away. When she turned around, she could also notice Adrien staring at her, which made her pissed off.

The girl looked around the room. She didn't look shy, but she didn't utter a word. Then she turned to the teacher with a small smile and spoke, "you're actually mistaken. I'm not a new girl," She turned back to the class. "I'm Marinette."

~

"She's changed!" Chloe could hear herself gasping for the millionth time. "Marinette has changed. She looks different. She looks. . .better!" Never had she thought she'd say such words about Marinette, but here she was now, sitting at her table in the cafeteria. She made sure to keep her voice down so no one but her friends could hear her words.

The doors of the cafeteria opened and Chloe groaned to see her father come in. Her father had really done it. After he had announced that he would be shutting the school down, he got so many complaints that it was a bad idea, so he fired the previous principal and became the new principal. It embarrassed Chloe to the core, but now she had to deal with it.

"Chloe, obviously Adrien is going to be trying to get to Marinette," Sabrina spoke up, interrupting her from her thoughts. "Are you going to try to stop him? Or stop her?"

"But you know what happened before," One of the girls said. "Everyone hates you now because of it, and one of the girls who did it with us even betrayed us and told Adrien about it. We still don't know who it was."

"Lila," Chloe had already figured it out. "Lila is gaining feelings for Adrien and told him of what we did. And no- I'm not going to try anything. Why would I when there's an interesting show I need to watch."

"What?" Sabrina frowned.

"Marinette is back now, so that means Lila has got a rival," Chloe explained.

"But Adrien and Marinette don't even like each other."

"That's what you think, but why else would Adrien stick up for her?" Chloe shook her head slowly. "I don't why, but I have a feeling he likes her. There must be something wrong with his mind!"

Just while they were talking about them, Marinette entered the cafeteria with Adrien following behind her. Lila, who was sitting at another table, even looked up and frowned a little to see them together.

"I need to talk to you," Adrien muttered, hoping Marinette heard him.

"Why?"

"I have a ton of questions-"

"I'm not willing to answer any of them." Marinette stopped walking and turned around. "I don't want to make the same mistake as I did the last time."

"I was a mistake?" Adrien had an unbelievable look on his face.

"Befriending you was," Marinette whispered back. "You were the reason Chloe targeted me. I don't want that anymore. I came here to restart and so far, you're already ruining that!"

Adrien watched as she walked off, going to sit alone at a small table at the back. He gulped when he saw a couple of girls sitting next to her at the table, but only saw that they actually wanted to be friends with her. Instead of finding a table for himself, Adrien turned around and started leaving. Her words hurt, no doubt. He had expected something different.

Was it so wrong that he had expected her to be happy to see him?