Chapter Text
Marinette was heartbroken. Lila kept lying and almost everyone in her class seemed to believe Lila.
Even ALYA believed her.
They were supposed to be best friends, but Alya, who wanted to be a journalist, didn't even doubt Lila's lies, didn't even fact check them.
It hurt, but Adrien hurt her more. Today, he'd found her bleeding and crying and told her to do what he did, to PRETEND to believe her. He said "Take the high road, Marinette. Her lies aren't hurting anyone. God, you're so selfish." Lila's lies hurt Marinette, but he didn't see that. He ignored the bruises and cuts, pretending they were just because she was clumsy while knowing that it was being done to her. Didn't he care about her at all?
Well, if he didn't care about her, then she wouldn't care about him. He had shattered her, but she would reform stronger than ever, and she would start by growing up.
It was time to throw off the trappings of childhood and don the beautiful chains of adulthood.
Mari climbed up to her bed and tore down her pictures of Adrien and backstabbing friends, putting them in a box as she couldn't bring herself to throw away the days before Lila. She left the pictures of her true friends, her parents, her older sister Monica, and her childhood best friends.
Next, she tore down all of her posters of Adrien in modeling outfits, replacing them with posters of his sister, Isadora Agreste, Jagged Stone, Monica, and Clara Nightingale.
That was all she was currently able to do, but she'd go shopping tomorrow with the funds from her fashion website, MDC fashion. She had tried making Marinette Fashion, but when her classmates found out, they left hateful comments and bad reviews, sabotaging her in every way they knew how, so she took down that website and created a new company with her initials so she could sell fashion without dealing with their shit.
Marinette shook her head really fast to refocus herself. Ok, now that she had done what she could for her room, it was time to fix her fashion. She had been wearing the same outfit for as long as she could remember, just making it in a larger size when she outgrew it and making multiple, and yeah that made getting dressed easier, but the outfit was kind of childish and wearing the same outfit every day meant that she felt like her identity was slowly fading.
Why did she even do this? Why did ANY of them do this? She didn't know, and she didn't really care, she was just done.
Marinette was donating all of that outfit to Emmaus (A.N: A reader reminded me France doesn't have Goodwill and recommended using Emmaus instead), along with everything she had bought off the rack except for her hoodies, sweaters, sweatshirts, and flannels because those were just so comfy. Slowly, deliberately, she went through her closet and put all of her store-bought things, other than the afore mentioned, into a trash bag labeled Emmaus. Next, she did the same, going through her purses and shoes.
Now it was time for the final touch: Picking out an outfit for tomorrow. This outfit would change her image in some way, as it would be the first time in a long time that she didn't wear her signature outfit, so she had to make sure it sent the right message. It would make a statement, a statement saying she wouldn't be bullied any longer, that she was proud of who she was and what she'd done, that she was no longer going to make herself small for their amusement.
For the next twenty minutes, she went through her closet slowly, meticulously, finding outfits and discarding them, mixing and matching shoes and shirts, dresses and jewelry, until she found the perfect outfit. An outfit that said, "I am done letting you walk all over me, from now on I bite back."
She smiled. They had no idea what was coming for them.