— Aurelia Perlman :

Walking around school had always been a bit of a difficult feat for me. I had many friends and acquaintances who always stopped me for a conversation or two. When I was walking with ares however, it was different, people used to leave me alone, too scared of the god of war and what he could do if someone interrupted his trivial conversation. But people actually liked me, they wanted to talk to me and be my friend because they knew I’d always entertain them, I was nice like that. Unlike me, Ares was only respected because of his tainted reputation and his machiavellian personality. I was popular due to my seemingly good looks, my parents' immense bank account, and because I was a good person and I prided myself on that.

Even when Ares walked in with Maria Adair on his arm instead of me, people still liked me. He could take everything away from me, but not that, never that. I was popular due to my kind and caring personality, something he could never understand with his incessant thirst for disputes and arguments that he knew he'd always win. Maybe that's why he liked it, being like that, he knew he would never lose and he was right, he never did.

However, he was somehow able to steal my 'friends' away from me but deep inside I knew it was only because they were too scared of what his temper could do. I didn't care anymore, I had Talia and she wasn't like that. She was strong and her own person (she made her own choices) and that's beside the fact that she only joined the group because Ares and I were almost tied to the hip. She was my best friend, not his, he just tolerated her for me like I tolerated his best friend, Sam, for him. Despite all this tedious tolerance, we all enjoyed hanging out together even though Talia always had a desire to punch Ares mostly every time he spoke. Nevertheless, we were all friends, we got drunk for the first time together, we travelled together, partied together and we did usual teenage things together. Talia, along with myself, was not surprised that it was Ares who had to ruin it. Everyone knew he had a talent for destroying things.

"Please please please come with me to eat dinner tonight?" Talia whined during maths class, possibly one of my favourites due to the fact that in maths, everything was able to be solved. I wish life was like that, solvable with a bit of logistics. But life was more like a jigsaw puzzle, being forced to try and try again to put the pieces in their correct places but of course, failure was what met us most of the time.

Talia and I had a sort of a lenient tradition; at least one night a week we had to have dinner together at a restaurant and one at her house with her family. She hated the fact that my parents were never around so she decided that she'd be my 'new and improved' (quoted by her) family. I had no issue with this, of course, her family had always treated me better than my own.

As much as I teased her even I had to admit, Talia Cameron was gorgeous, her golden-brown skin and hazel eyes sparkled in the sunlight. Her legs were long and the sun always hit them in the right way. Her body was perfect and toned to perfection, she had freckles across her face which accentuated her beauty. Her thick brows were luscious and framed her face, needless to say, she had people mesmerised, I was one of them of course.

"We have homework Tal." was my unfortunate answer but it was true, we did have homework but honestly, I didn't feel like going out to eat. I’d rather watch a movie instead. She groaned in response and started droning on about how we had barely been hanging out and that she'll just have to take her boyfriend to the new Michelin star restaurant that had just opened instead of me as a way to make me feel jealous I supposed.

She was lying though, we had literally just been out shopping the weekend before because Talia had claimed that I was the one who needed some retail therapy but I knew that she just wanted to shop. Talia was among those who enjoyed leaving the house almost every single day. I had never been the type to do that. Ares and I used to hang out at home mostly, with or without our other friends and enjoyed watching old movies or swimming in the pool. Some nights, warm nights, we even adventured out to our, now mine, favourite place to gaze at the infinite amount of glimmering stars in the sky.

The stormy Monday morning in which he had first begun to avoid me was when I visited what used to be our place every night. It was lonely and unwelcoming without him, I missed the cold warmth that only he could provide. Admittedly, I had only started going there in hopes that one night he'd miss the beautiful view enough to visit but he didn't. It was then that I realised that it was never really our place, it was always mine. It occurred to me that he never used to be there without me whereas I used to go anytime I needed to breathe but I preferred to breathe with him.

And here I was again, patiently waiting for the candy floss colours to settle so the sky could begin to shelter constellations instead of the usual hues of purple and blue. As I laid down on the wet grass, I realised just how magnificent this place really was. Instead of being able to stare at Ares' perfectly designed face whilst he looked down at the not so big town, I stared at the sight below me and I found out just how much I genuinely loved this place. The stars shone brightly through the cloudless navy blue sky and the moon had lit up the town. Lights weren't even needed all the way up here, the moon managed to illuminate so brightly that I could see everything. This place allowed me to view the entire town and look at the stars even on a cloudy day, it allowed me to feel big in a place where I had once felt so small. and for once, I did feel tall, no longer overshadowed by ares and his mischievous recklessness.

Maybe I was slowly beginning to stop missing him so much but that didn't stop my mind from making reasons as to why he left me. I was okay when he wasn't around but when he was, I couldn't help but go over the millions of memories we made and why we couldn't make any more new ones. It felt as if we had more memories than stars in the sky, my mind would watch over them fondly and no matter how much I wanted to forget them, I couldn't. regardless of where Ares and I stood friendship wise, even I had to admit that our memories made me feel nostalgic.

But every time I walked around the school there they were. As if they wanted to torture me all of the time and it didn't help that Maria Adair was an ectomorph, her body slim as can be. She was short and petite and to kiss ares he had to pick her up off the ground. It was cute to others but not to me; it gave me more reasons to hate myself, she was short and I was tall. I didn't hate her though, how could I? She was a nice person. I just hated that she somehow managed to be with him in a couple of weeks and I was unable to in the eighteen years I had known him.

Of course, my reasonings were far-fetched, I knew that. but I was desperate for at least one reason and ares was not giving me any so I had to make up some and what other reason better than Maria Adair's body being skinnier and smaller than mine? I was set on that and researched ways to lose weight fast.

I wasn't fat. I knew I wasn't but maybe if I lost a bit of weight and became slimmer and skinner I’d be prettier somehow as if the two came hand in hand. And so I began to work out more, some may argue too much but I didn't care: I wanted results, and fast. Every week, I measured my weight on the scale as if it told me my worth, and it did. I only ate salads for dinner and only drank water to minimise my daily sugar intake. Sometimes, I did allow myself a little treat but mostly everything I had was in moderation.

I wish I knew when that had stopped.