What Once Was

It didn't feel like home. She wasn't sure if it ever would again.

Star laid heaped upon her bed like she had many times before though this was no ordinary day. Today was the day that her life came to a grinding halt. Her blue eyes narrowed slightly, mouth twisting into a frown. Okay, maybe that was a bit melodramatic. She wasn't dead...even if it did feel like her heart was crushed. Ever since coming to Earth nearly a year ago, everything had changed for her. Living on another planet, one with entirely different customs and expectations, was nerve-wracking to say the least but she'd taken it all in stride. In typical Star fashion, she'd barreled in headfirst and given it her best shot. Sure, the road was bumpy, but she fought monsters on a near daily basis. As far as she was concerned, it would be a piece of cake. Unfortunately, she struggled. A lot. Making friends was slow-going and the most aggravating challenge was getting through to Marco. The Diaz's were kind enough to become her pseudo-family, welcoming her in with open arms...with the exception of Marco. He didn't enjoy her magic and he clearly found her enthusiastic personality to be annoying rather than endearing. She'd done everything in her power to get him to come around and none of it worked. She was sure that she'd have to return home, defeated, but that's not how things happened. Who knew battling a group of monsters could bring them closer together?

They became fast friends and, soon, they were inseparable. They lived together, went to school together, hung out together. She'd never had a best friend that she felt so...connected to. Marco was her polar opposite: studious, quiet, and easily annoyed. And yet, they still had so much in common. From music to TV to food, they agreed on nearly all of it. Marco taught her everything that she knew about Earth and, in turn, she taught him more about Mewni - including her royal lineage. Marco was the first person that didn't expect her to 'behave like a princess'. He took her as she was: loud, excitable, and strange. He never judged her or made her feel stupid, like so many other people in her life. He understood her. She supposed it was only natural for her feelings to change into much more but she tried her damnedest to keep things from heading in that direction. They were best friends and it had to stay that way.

Truthfully, she was terrified of what could happen if she admitted her true feelings. There was outright rejection, which would make things unbearably awkward and painful, but she was more worried about the opposite. What if they did decide to date? What if things crashed and burned? What if they could never be friends again? She'd dealt with it once before and she vowed to never have it happen again. Tom was her best friend, at a point, but everything got turned upside down as soon as they decided to become an item. He proved himself to be incredibly possessive and it was clear that it would never work. She called things off but all that did was make him angry. Things were starting to get better but it had taken ages for them to even be cordial to each other again. She couldn't imagine what she'd do if that happened with Marco. No, she resigned herself to never tell him the truth. Ever.

She rolled over onto her side, focusing her attention on the cloudless blue sky outside her window. A part of her considered taking a walk but, after the debacle that was Song Day, she decided that would be a terrible idea. It was crazy to her, how quickly everything could devolve. Life was good before and now...now it was confusing and scary. Some of it started weeks ago, the beginnings of uncertainty and anxiety forming after Jackie stepped into the picture. She'd been determined to save face, telling herself and everyone around her that she was fine. She didn't care that Marco and Jackie were dating now. Jackie was a great person, funny and cool, and Marco had his eye on her for so long. If he was happy then she was happy. She forced herself to keep everything together, quickly working to cement herself in this new dynamic. Marco's relationship with Jackie didn't mean that she couldn't still have her best friend...right? She was so sure that all three of them could get along, that she could prevent things from changing but she was wrong. The Love Sentence concert forced her to see things for what they really were. She was a third wheel, an annoyance. She didn't fit anymore. It stung to see the two of them, kissing and happy, while she felt so...alone. It was as if part of her had been severed and she left that night feeling defeated.

Remembering how she'd lost Glossaryck just added regret into the mix and then came the self-doubt, the disappointment. She'd let Glossaryck down, she'd let her parents down, she'd let Mewni down, she'd let herself down. What would she do without her spell book? She tried to make her own but every time she wrote down a new spell, she couldn't help but think about generations of family history that she'd never be able to recover. She'd be remembered as the princess that lost one of the Butterfly families most precious possessions. It was failure after failure after bitter failure...it didn't seem fair. She'd tried so hard and it still wasn't enough to save things. It wasn't enough to get Glossaryck back and it was because of her screw-up that Toffee had re-emerged.

Thinking about him only made her stomach twist into impossible knots. The haunted look on her mom's normally picture perfect face was enough to let her know that things were bad. Very bad. She'd been so caught up in her own personal drama that she'd forgotten about the grave danger that she was in. It was easy to dismiss Ludo as nothing more than a nuisance and she'd gotten lax in her training since Glossaryck wasn't around to subtlety steer her in the right direction. She wasted time hanging out with Janna, playing videogames, going to the mall. She goofed off constantly, not even bothering to do homework. She almost started to believe that she was just an average teenager, not a future Queen. It was easy to forget when she was on Earth, away from the trappings of Mewni and all of the responsibility that her mother onto her. She could choose what she wanted to do and having that freedom was both a blessing and a curse. She was starting to see that being left to her own devices wasn't exactly doing her any favor. Last night, she'd been so down. The party was supposed to be the kick-off to summer, it was supposed to be fun and she should've been downstairs enjoying all of the festivities. All she could think about was how screwed up things were between she, Jackie, and Marco. How could she be expected to waltz down there like everything was okay? How could she look at them without feeling that slow bloom of jealousy in her chest?

She was determined to fix it, somehow, but she was still hurt. Marco had been avoiding her ever since her princess song revealed all of her secrets and she couldn't blame him; she'd blindsided him. He was probably just as confused as she was and it wasn't fair for her to expect him to let it go. It wasn't something that could be swept under the rug. She wanted to speak with him but she was embarrassed. She liked him, she thought he was cute and sweet and caring, but she couldn't let herself admit it. She had to keep at least one thing in her life the same. The friendship she had with Marco was the one thing that she could always count on, even when the rest of the world got too insane for her to handle. They'd been through worse before and they'd come back stronger than ever. This would be no different. They lived in the same house and yet they managed to maintain their distance for the better half of a week. She thought about buying him a gift but she knew that the friendly gesture could be misconstrued as something else entirely. Everything had the potential for disaster. She called her closest friends for help and their insistence that she enjoy herself fell on deaf ears. Even spending time with Oskar couldn't make her feel any better. The crush that she'd had on him was based on looks and nothing more. She liked the idea of Oskar but the thought of actually dating him never crossed her mind. Being around him again only reminded her of how things were in the beginning, before everything was ruined. His good-nature cheered her up a little but it wasn't enough. She tried to tell herself that spending a whole summer with him was what she needed. Maybe a distraction would take her mind off of the mess she'd made. Maybe something good would happen. She had to lie to Marco if she wanted to move on; she had to. Looking him in the eye while she told him that she didn't like him was like a punch to the gut. There he was, right in front of her, listening intently and all she had to do was say it. This was her best friend, her partner-in-crime, the person she trusted the most. And she couldn't tell him the truth. She'd tried to tell herself that it was for the best but that was before her mom came to uproot her all over again.

It would've been easy to leave without another word. She could've disappeared and left him guessing. Maybe he would've been angry. No, she knew he would've been angry, but maybe he would've taken it better. Maybe. The thought crossed her mind but she couldn't follow through. It was possibly the last time she'd see him, at least for only god knew how long, and she didn't want their last conversation to be a complete lie. She owed it to him. She was so mixed up that she didn't even care that she admitted her feelings in front of a room full of her peers. They weren't important; all that mattered at that second was making sure Marco knew exactly how she felt. She could still see the way his dark eyes widened as he reached for her, mouth hung open in shock. She ran before he could say anything, before his fingers could even brush her arm. She heard him calling for her as she rushed into her room...not her room anymore...but she didn't stop. She didn't want to hear what he was going to tell her. If he rejected her, she'd have to add that on top of the pile of crap that was already threatening to topple over at any moment. If he reciprocated, she'd have to leave knowing that nothing would ever come of it. No matter what, she'd lose. Again. She followed her mom into that portal and that was it.

She didn't realize that she was crying until she noticed the dampness on her pillow. It was all over now. There was no telling what Toffee was planning or what she'd have to face. She'd made so many mistakes, ruined so much, and she couldn't afford to do any more damage. She needed to be a princess.