The Chronicles of Life. (Complete)

Just won't get it.

All her life, Mariska had been very popular. She'd always had people in her life even when she really didn't want anyone around. She still had a lot of people in her life, even more then as she'd been back to being friends with the group. But she'd never in her life felt so lonely. She'd never in her life felt like she couldn't talk to anyone who would understand.

She was still seen as the girl who selfishly caused a mass destruction within the friendship, that ultimately caused them to all go their separate ways. Nobody actually said it to her face but she knew they'd felt it. It didn't help that she blamed herself too.

She'd managed to keep her feelings at bay for as long as she could. Dineo's situation had been tragic to say the least but it also served a good distraction. She'd put all her heart and mind into raising awareness and getting justice for her childhood friend.

Focusing on other people's situations took the attention away from her bleeding heart and she'd preferred that. She'd also managed to get away with it with hardly anyone noticing.

Anyone but Bongi that was. Because when Bongi met up with Mariska the day before, she saw the sadness right through her eyes. Sure she knew she'd been sad about Dineo, but it was more than just that. It ran deep, like she'd been like that for a while.

"Are you ok?" Bongi had asked the girl as they'd sat down to have lunch.

After they'd gotten back from the hospital, the friends had met back at Dineo's house where her mother had prepared a meal for everyone. They'd all been scattered around the beautiful garden eating.

"Yea, I'm good," the girl lied with a smile that actually reached her eyes. She'd sadly gotten too good at that. Usually people believed her after that then just let it go but Bongi did not let up because she'd then said,

"Bullshit. I know you Riska." with a wave of certainty.

Mariska oddly felt warmth in her heart at that. For a moment it felt like it was back in the day, where she didn't feel the need to suppress her feelings just so someone else could be happy. Where she was happily herself without any filters and her friends accepted her as she was. Flaws and all.

They used to be able to always tell when one of them wasn't doing well, no matter how hard they'd try to hide it. They'd then do anything to make sure that the person was ok, at whatever cost.

They'd seemed to have lost touch with that because none of the others could see she wasn't ok. Or maybe they just didn't care.

The warmth went away as soon as her thoughts lingered to Preshani. After the awkward lunch she'd had with the girl, she'd made sure to cut ties with Bruno as she did not at all approve.

She was pretty sure Bongi would judge her if she'd told her that she was in love with Preshani's first love and the reason she was sad was because they couldn't be together.

"It's just a thing with some guy I like," she'd chosen to say. That wasn't necessarily a lie, was it?
"What's the thing?" Bongi had insisted, further frustrating the girl. Could she not see she didn't want to talk about it?

"Nothing can happen between us because this guy was my friend's first love," she said deciding to tell the truth to just make her stop. She wasn't going to name any names she'd thought.

She felt horrible that she even still had feelings for Bruno after everything, but the heart wanted what it wanted right?

It certainly didn't help either that she saw the boy on a regular basis. It didn't help that he looked at her like she brought peace into his heart.

Things had partly gone back to normal with the group and they'd been meeting up as much as they could. It probably would have been much easier if she didn't see the boy at all but that wasn't the case.

And she didn't want to not meet up with them anymore, not after everything. She'd missed her friends a lot.

It was also beyond obvious that Bruno felt the same way about her. He'd even asked her on more than a few occasions to let him speak to Preshani but she'd refused. It was more than just about them and the boy didn't get it.

She'd eventually told him what had happened with Tyrone and he'd been really mad at how they'd treated her. Bottom line was that he didn't understand why she felt she couldn't be happy because of what happened. She made a silly mistake but that didn't mean she was a bad person. If they were really her friends they would understand.

Mariska felt that for what she'd done, it was a sacrifice worth making. At least that was what she'd told herself.

"Does this friend still have feelings for this guy?" Bongi had asked the girl and Mariska took a moment to think about that.

Preshani didn't care much about Bruno, romantically that was. She'd been too busy occupied with Mike and whatever their situation was to even pay any attention to the boy.

So no, she didn't still have feelings for him.

"It doesn't matter," she'd instead chosen to say. Girl code needed to still be respected.

She'd never felt for anyone else what she felt for Bruno. Not even with Tyrone because with him, she wasn't sure.

But with Bruno, she'd never felt so certain about anything before. It was like their souls were meant to be paired. But none of that mattered because nothing would ever happen between them.

A loud gasp sounded inside the house as everyone ate and conversed. They'd all turned their heads towards the house wondering what had happened but the gasp was followed by silence.

They'd then continued on with their eating figuring it was just someone getting emotional, it was still sort of a funeral after all.

About an hour later, Mrs Molefe came out of the house with a very confusing expression on her face to say,

"She woke up." Before collapsing on the floor.