Of Broken Plates and Crumpled Paper

How it came to this Marinette had no idea. Here she was having a normal morning. Get up slightly late, rush to get to school, expect a few lies from Lila and some name calling from her classmates.

What she did not expect was the pleading eyes of almost everyone watching her every move as soon as she entered the classroom. Lila was not in her usual spot next to Alya in the second row, so Marinette thought that she must be away.

When the bluenette looked up to her seat in the back row she saw a scared Lila sitting there. Rage immediately bubbled up inside her. What was she doing in her seat? Marinette was about to speak up when Alya spoke.

"We're sorry we didn't believe you."

At once the outcasted girl turned around to see remorseful expressions on her classmates faces.

"I'm sorry but what was that?" she asked, surprised.

"We're sorry we didn't believe you about Lila."

"Took you long enough to catch up. What made you guys change your minds? You know what don't answer that." Here she spun around and glared at Lila, "and I want my seat back."

"You can have your seat back. Can't you see no one is sitting in your seat next to Alya." Lila had spoken so quietly it was barely a whisper.

Marinette continued to glare at her, "that's not my seat, that's yours. You are currently sitting in mine."

Alya stood up, "But Marinette don't you want to sit with us again?"

"Now why would I want to sit with a bunch of traitors. My seat is in the back. Besides why should Lila get to hide back there? You can all sit together all buddy-buddy and deal with the truth yourselves." Marinette turned back to the cowering liar, "Now if you wont mind please get out of my seat and go sit with your bestie."

Lila did as she was told and went and sat next to Alya, who glared at her. Marinette continued her up to the back of the classroom and sat down.

Alya stood up and moved closer to Marinette.

"Don't you want to be friends with us again? We said sorry."

"We? I only heard one person say sorry. As for being friends," she looked around at all her classmates, who were watching the entire confrontation. "You all broke off our friendships."

"Don't you want to fix them?" asked Rose hopefully.

"Since when did saying sorry fix a broken plate?" Marinette asked.

Just then the bell rang and Miss Bustier came in signalling the start of the lesson. At once Marinette faced the front and the others knew they weren't getting anything else out of her. The class sadly turned around and faced the front.

When the bell rang for lunch more than half the class tied to sit at the same table as Marinette. While they were busy fighting over who sat closest to girl, she quietly slipped away to eat her lunch at another table. Turns out that she, and Lila who sat in the far corner by herself, were the only two in the class to finish their lunch that day. All day the class competed for her attention and forgiveness. But she slipped away or ignored them each time.

Study period rolled around and Marinette found herself once more in the middle of a battle for her friendship. Finally, sick of it she stood up.

"Stop it! All of you. Just stop it, I've had enough of you acting like children, this is no way to regain my trust."

Her peers stopped their squabbling at once and bowed their heads looking ashamed.

"Then how can we regain your trust?" Asked a timid Nino.

"Everyone, go find a fresh piece of paper." Everyone rushed to fulfill her strange request, no one dared question it. Once everyone had returned with a crisp white piece of paper in hand she continued.

"Now crumple it into a ball," everyone did. "These pieces of paper represent my trust in each and everyone of you. If you can smooth out your piece completely then things will go back to how they were."

At once the class tried to smooth the paper out, not one of them succeeded. "It's impossible." Max spoke up.

"Exactly, you may try to patch things up and smooth things over. But the memory is always there, you will not receive a new bit of paper until I am ready to give it to you. The moment you threw out my piece of trust paper I threw out yours. Just because you dig mine out of the trash doesn't mean I will."

And with that she turned and left, leaving behind her dumbfounded classmates. Even Adrien would have to work to regain her trust.

Over the next few years most of Marinette's classmates found a crisp white piece of paper on their desks. One by one they had all regained her trust. Funnily enough some even found broken plates that had been glued back together. Signalling that they were the bluenette's friends once more.

Marinette eventually went back to sitting next to Alya. Mostly to get rid of the tension having Lila in the middle of the room caused.

And Lila? Well let's just say that her pieces of paper went up in smoke.

A.N. I know it's short but I've been reading lots of salt and angsty stuff lately. I needed to get this out of my head. Hope you enjoyed. Please leave a review.