— Aurelia Perlman :

Sunlight softly flowed through my sheer white, floor-length curtains signalling that morning had quickly arrived. The party had gifted me with an irritating headache that wouldn't leave no matter how much ibuprofen I swallowed. Just like Talia wanted, I stayed over at her house in the spare room, it was basically my room seeing as I stayed at her place multiple times a month. I even got to decorate it however I wanted and had clothes in here that wouldn't fit into my closet at my house.

When I was able to muster enough strength to lift myself out of bed, I decided against taking a shower and instead wore clothes suitable to work out in. Stumbling out of Talia's room, her boyfriend Noah locked eyes with me and gave me a sheepish smile; he looked like a child who had been caught stealing a cookie. Of course, I politely smiled back and then began to walk downstairs to the gym where I worked out to the angelic voice of Harry Styles.

"You're glowing,'' I smirked and sat down next to Talia on her comfortable sofa, her wet hair dripped slightly down my sweaty arm caused a weird sensation making me jerk away as a reflex. I knew what had occurred the night before between her and Noah but I wanted to infuriate her first. Torturing Talia had to have been one of my favourite pastimes. She was extremely easy to annoy as she was the type to become angry very quickly.

"And you're sweaty." She pushed me further away from her and I laughed knowing that my statement had annoyed her a lot. Soon enough, she began to gush about Noah and how he had made her pancakes for breakfast and, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't help but to be sad. Ares used to do that for me, of course not in a romantic way but he did do it nonetheless. I missed him, I knew I shouldn't have missed him but I did. We had been best friends for our whole lives and he threw that away like we didn't matter. like I didn't matter and maybe I didn't.

I knew I didn't love him anymore, it had been six months since he walked into school holding Maria Adair's hand instead of mine. Romantically, I had gotten over him but platonically, I still missed him dearly as a friend. I was ashamed of that and lied whenever Talia randomly asked me about him, assuring her that I had barely thought about him. But how could I not think of him when we always did everything together? Everything from our first bath to our first school ball we did together. How was I supposed to graduate without him screaming my name and cheering me on like he promised he would? How was I supposed to be okay without him? How?

But I was okay, well that's subjective to whoever saw me and at what time but truthfully, I had never felt better. I was almost five pounds lighter and even though my hair was shedding a little, I looked great. so this is what skinny girls felt like I thought.

Oh, how wrong I was.

The week slowly passed me by and I found myself in art class on a rainy Friday afternoon. The raindrops crashing gently against the triple hung windows provided a calming ambience to the disorderly art room. The sun partnered with the reckless rain provided a beautiful rainbow to emerge from the clouds. I had never been the one to be so mesmerised by something as natural as a rainbow, I was changing and hopefully for the better. The canvas ahead of me was blank as I pondered over what to paint; however, that issue was resolved almost immediately when my teacher, Miss Hunter, yelled that we'd be doing portraits of other class members. The other students groaned in annoyance about having to work with different people not of their choosing but I didn't mind, I liked talking to new people.

A smile reached my face as my mind couldn't help but to subconsciously run over fond memories of Ares who used to bully the teacher into allowing him to work with me. I shook my head and rid my face of the smile by replacing it with a small frown, not wanting to think of him any longer. It seemed that Ares should have paid rent for the number of times he lived in my head.

Miss Hunter, after arguing with a few of the pupils, told us that we would have to choose our own partners, a feat I despised due to the fact that a lot of people always wanted to work with me and it was impossible for me to choose. Along with the fact that I was a people pleaser, it made it incredibly difficult for me to make a choice of who to partner with. As soon as those words left her mouth, a group of boys and girls hurriedly rushed over to me and I tried my hardest to put my fakest smile on, ready to decline quite a few people. Except I didn't have to as Romeo Sinclair confidently walked up to where I was seated and faced the group of people who desired to work with me, towered over them more like, and told them that I had already promised to work with him. That was a lie of course, but it seemed that lies were regularly spilling out of my tongue.

"Do you mind that I did that?" Romeo asked me as he took a seat opposite me. "Because you kinda looked rather panicked with those lot surrounding you," I assured him that it was completely fine and told him that he practically saved me from the horrible feeling I never failed to procure when declining multiple people at a time.

It appeared as if fate had a plan for us due to the number of times we had been bumping into each other in the recent week after Talia's infamous birthday party. We had always conversed happily when we were together and we had become more than acquaintances but not close friends just yet. Maybe this project would change that. I would like to have more friends than just Talia. Of course, Talia was my best friend but, because she had a boyfriend, it meant that she was unable to hang out with me every single time I wished so it would have been nice for me to have someone else to talk to.

And there I was, at lunch sitting across from Romeo Sinclair in the art room whilst he finished his enchanting portrait of me. In addition to being one of the best basketball players on the team, he was also an amazing painter even though he didn't think so. I did try to convince him that he indeed was a mesmerising artist but he was firm on his beliefs. Even when Miss Hunter was enthralled by his work, he bashfully thanked her and carried on, not fully believing the compliments he had just received. I knew I had to change that.

We had laughed, made multiple jokes and really bonded. We were becoming fast friends and I was grateful for him. He made me feel better and less lonely. It was hard, everyone wanting to be your friend only because of your popularity but wasn't like that with Romeo, he was already quite high on the social ladder of Lincoln Private School and so I had no reason to worry about him using me. In fact, it seemed to Talia that I was using him as a distraction from Ares. This was untrue; When I was with Romeo, thoughts of Ares never hit my mind but truth be told, now the memories only hit me whenever I had the unlucky chance of seeing him or was reminded about him by others. Romeo Sinclair was a beautiful person, inside and out. I’d be lying if I said he wasn't someone I would date. But we were just friends and for now, I wanted to keep it that way.

"Let's go eat lunch," he announced and I quickly refused, telling him that I was too full from the food I had eaten during the morning lessons. Romeo slanted his head sideways and looked at me with a piercing stare like he was trying to work me out but what was there to work out? he begrudgingly shrugged it off and gave me a quick goodbye hug which I graciously accepted, his hugs were warm and left my cold figure wishing that he wouldn't let go. But he did of course.

And there I was, sitting in the cold art room desperately hoping, praying, for someone, anyone, to walk in and distract me from my thoughts, my hateful thoughts about myself and my weight. The issue was though, that no one ever came to help and I knew I'd just have to begin to get used to that.