- Torn; Natalie Imbruglia -
- Not Gonna Cry; Emma Steinbakken -
- Wrong Direction; Hailee Steinfeld -
- Heartbreak Girl; 5 Seconds of Summer -
- One Day; Tate McRae -

Aurora Holland

tu mérites tellement mieux que ce que tu as

My brows pushed together in confusion, hating that I'd found yet another one of these notes in my locker. I don't even know what they mean, and I don't think I'll ever find out at this rate. I've gotten myself quite a collection, something telling me to keep the neatly folded up pieces of paper with familiar handwriting as if they mean something to me.

It's probably someone messing with me. These could be insults for all I know, so I don't know why I decided to keep each and every one of these like they have any significance except to confuse me.

Realizing I needed to focus on anything but some anonymous letter, I just sighed as I shoved it in my backpack to worry about later. I continued to go through my locker for the things I'd need after, letting my thoughts drift from the note to other things.

"Rora!" A familiar voice exclaimed. It caught the attention of me and a few other students in the hall, but instead of focusing on them I just looked over to see Logan heading my way.

He wore the same beautiful smile he usually wears, his cheeks a rosy pink as he greeted people in the hallway as he walked over to me. I stayed silent, letting him greet them.

"Glad I caught you," He said softly as he stopped to the left of me. I smiled a kind smile at him as I shut my locker door, shifting the textbook in my hands from one side to the other. "Are you- are you doing anything tonight?"

I looked to see his cheeks a little pinker than they had been moments ago, almost as if he were nervous. "I don't think so. Just the usual study date with Miles after school."

"Would you- do you want to come over? After your study session of course." He asked, messing with the top of his ear. "Have a movie night or something?"

"Sure," I answered quickly.

"Cool, I'll pick you up from your house tonight then?" He asked as another soft smile covered his features.

"Sounds good," I told him. The warning bell rang, and I glanced around to see the hallways beginning to clear out. "I should probably get heading."

"Yeah, me too." He nodded, "See you later Rora."

I nodded and with one last goodbye headed toward my last class of the day. My mind ran through multiple thoughts as I walked, not really paying much attention to anything around me. It was at the point where I knew the school like the back of my hand, so I could easily walk to my classes without having to worry about turning down the wrong hallway.

Something roughly bumped into my chest, and I cursed at myself as my books went flying to the ground.

"Shit, sorry." My head snapped up at the voice, seeing Katherine rushing to help me gather my things.

She quickly realized that it was me she bumped into, and a smile covered her face. "Rory." She breathed.

"Hey," I mumbled, grabbing my belongings.

We haven't talked. Not in a while, at least. The last time we had a genuine conversation was the day I broke down when she saw Logan at my house, and she hadn't really bothered texting me back when I asked to talk on the phone after the day at the bowling alley.

She wasn't required to give me any explanation, but it'd be nice if she at least told me she wasn't interested in being Ashley's friend. Or something. It'd be better than whatever radio silence this is I've been getting lately.

"It's good to see you," She responded quietly, the both of us standing straight again.

"Yeah, same," I mumbled, feeling more than awkward.

She looked to the side for a moment before back at me, a look of sadness in her eyes. "Look, Rory-"

"I'm sorry," I spoke at the same time, our words blending together as we tried to speak.

Her brows pushed together more, her brown eyes casting to the floor before back up at my face. "You- you're sorry?" She asked, her nose scrunching up in confusion. "Why are you sorry?"

I shrugged, suddenly feeling nervous. "I don't know. I just feel like I did something. You kinda stopped talking to me after the whole conversation about Logan and Carter."

"You- you didn't do anything, Rory." She softly said, "If-if anything I should be the one apologizing to you."

I didn't say anything. I don't even really know why I said sorry in the first place, I know deep down that I didn't do anything and there's nothing to be sorry for. Even if I had done something, the only thing I could have done was hang out with Logan a lot despite her words telling me I shouldn't. Even then, that wouldn't be a reason Katherine would stop talking to me. She even said she'd be there or whatever, which only goes to show that she isn't mad or upset about that.

Maybe I'm just so used to apologizing. I'm used to always having to be sorry, and now that I know for sure I've done nothing wrong - I'm still letting the two simple words spill from my mouth.

"Katie come on! We're going to be late." The sound of another voice interrupted our conversation. I looked over to see a familiar brunette walk up, wrapping her arm around Katherine's.

I stared at their linked arms, my brows pushing together. I then looked back up at Maya Coleman, her glare enough to send shivers down my spine. My eyes then trailed to Katherine, who looked guilty.

"I need to get to class," I muttered, not wanting to be anywhere near this conversation anymore.

Although I missed my best friend dearly, I wanted nothing to do with anyone involved with Ashley Wilde. Ashley and all of her friends were horrible to even be in the same room as, the only one I'd even consider bearable being Gwen Larson. But then again she's still not someone I ever really want to be around, and so anytime I can - I avoid it.

My feelings were hurt as I didn't wait for a response and walked away. I could see Maya beginning to smirk as I passed by, and I didn't hesitate to give her a quick shoulder check.

Never have I ever been the type to confront someone. I've never been the type to take my anger out on people or show them how affected I am by them, but Ashley and her entire crew make me mad. I know one should never ever blame the other girl when a boy breaks your heart, but it's hard in this situation.

It'd be fine if Ashley wasn't horrible to me. She finds any reason to give me smug looks, bully me, and basically harass me. If she didn't do any of these, I wouldn't find a reason to dislike her so much.

My heartbeat calmed as I finished the walk to my last class of the day, my thoughts clouded by thoughts of Katherine. I was already heartbroken because Carter left me, and now Katherine's done the same. She's my best friend - the best friend I've ever had, and yet here I am alone once again.

I didn't have Paige. I didn't have Carter. I didn't have Katherine and I'm on the verge of losing Elijah in this as well. Elijah, who'd been affectionate and loving from the beginning.

I'm losing everyone in this, and I feel I've done nothing. I didn't ask for Carter to pursue me. I didn't ask for him to lead me on. Yes, I did want him to be my first kiss, but if he knew he didn't like me he should've said no. I didn't ask for Paige to do the things she did and I didn't ask for Ashley to hate me.

If I had it my way, I'd have stayed invisible. But I didn't, and here I am losing everything no matter how hard I try to keep it together.

My last class felt like forever. Maybe it was because I was ready to get out of school, or maybe it was because I was too caught up in my thoughts to care about keeping up with work. I wanted nothing more than to run and leave, but even if I could I know I wouldn't.

I'm just now getting to a point where I'm not crying every three seconds. The last thing I need is to fall back to that place and I refuse. Even if every last person in our friend group leaves me, I won't.

If not for me, for Jason.

As soon as the bell rang, I booked it out of the class. I'd gotten my things ready before the end of class so I could leave earlier and meet Miles where we usually met before our study dates, but also simply because I just wanted to get away from everything.

The talks and stares haven't stopped, especially since it's basically been confirmed that Carter and Ashley are dating again. I've been called countless names; rebound, loser, slut. Anything they can think of to insult my image.

Getting attention isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I stood by the entrance, my eyes on my Converse as I stayed silent. My thoughts were jumbled, and my head began to hurt from the different thoughts running through my mind.

"You're here early." My head shot up to see Miles standing next to me already. I hadn't even noticed him walk up, simply because my thoughts were so loud that I couldn't focus on anything else. He frowned at the look on my face, immediately noticing something was wrong. "Okay, what happened?"

I playfully rolled my eyes at him as I began walking, causing him to immediately follow. "Nothing's wrong, why do you ask?"

"I think I know you well enough to know when something's going on," Miles answered as we walked side by side.

I cuddled my jacket closer to my chest as a breeze flew by, my hair running wildly as I looked at the ground. "Just the usual," I admitted. "I don't know if I want to talk about it just yet."

"Okay," Miles said. He didn't say anything more at first, accepting and respecting that I wasn't ready to talk.

That was one thing I loved about Miles. He never pushed. Well, he did, but only if it was absolutely needed. He didn't push me to talk about my feelings, even if he knew I was overflowing with emotions from keeping them to myself. He knew he'd be here when I was ready to talk, which made talking that much easier.

Sometimes I didn't even need to talk. All I had to do was give him one look and he'd know. He'd know whether I was upset about the rumors, or Carter, or even something someone said as we walked side by side together. He knew, he was well aware of the situation, and he comforted me whether I asked or not.

It wasn't too long before we arrived at the library. We went in, said hello to the librarian, and headed up to our usual table on the second floor.

The library was deader than usual, being that it was right after school. It was almost always dead here, but I did notice that around the time of big projects and assessments, more students took up time here. I personally don't mind it being dead, as it feels more comfortable.

We sat at the table and got our work out, Miles almost immediately getting to work on some homework. I wasn't quite sure what he was working on, but I knew it had something to do with English. I didn't ask, either, as I knew I needed to catch up on some of my classes.

I'm not behind, but I don't want to fall behind either.

As Miles got started on his work, I found myself much too distracted to bother with trying. I mostly just sat at the textbook in my hands, rereading the same two sentences over and over again. I couldn't even remember 3 words of the first sentence, let alone any content I needed to study for upcoming work.

My eyes stuck to the textbook in my hands, the words jumbling together as if someone stirred them around. I could feel myself beginning to doze, despite not being sleepy. I'm just tired, physically and mentally.

"Rory," Miles said, catching my attention.

I looked from the boring textbook up to the boy sitting across from me, his light watercolored eyes looking at me in worry. "Talk to me," He said.

He's never once asked me to talk to him before, let alone told me to. He's always just mostly talked about whatever, pushing me where I needed to without forcing me to tell him anything. That being said, him stopping everything he was doing and telling me to talk to him shocked me.

"I know something's been bothering you. And I know I know bits, and you don't have to tell every little detail. But it's killing you, and I don't like it." Miles shoved his books away from me.

"I'm just not well." I admitted, "It's already bad enough I let myself fall for Carter to the point where I gave him my first kiss, but now I'm more of a talk of the school than I was when I first arrived. People are saying horrible, terrible things about me that aren't true at all - and I know the source is Carter's girlfriend. The 'girlfriend', whom I could've sworn he felt nothing but hatred for. But maybe that's why I was so blindsided, right?" I asked, letting myself vent without caring what I had to say, without caring how much I blubbered or mumbled or muttered.

"A lot of people who are obsessed or care too much about people play it off like they hate them more than anything. Either way, he left me for her - to go back to her, and it broke me and I don't know what to do. I started hanging out with Logan of all people thinking it was going to fill some void I was missing, but it's doing nothing but distracting me for only a moment's time. He makes me smile and laugh, makes me forget about everything that happened with Carter and I know it's selfish to continue seeing Logan despite not truly feeling anything for him but I'm tired of being run over. I want to be the runner."

Miles didn't say anything. He just leaned forward and rested his arms on the table, interlocking his fingers together. He frowned, his full lips pouting outward slightly at my words.

"I get it. It's not me, not who I am and it's wrong. But I'm so tired of getting hurt by everyone. Everyone I love and everyone I care about more than anything." I continued, shaking my head. Tears threatened to spill, but I just blinked them away. "Katherine's been hanging out with Ashley and her group of friends, you know that? I get it. She's dating Elijah who's best friends with Carter, but if Elijah still greets me and talks to me like nothing happened, then why can't she? Why is she ignoring my texts and calls, barely speaking to me when we happen to run into each other? I ran into her before last class today, and before much could be said Maya Coleman of all people came up and whisked her away. Since when the hell did Katherine Windsor want anything to do with people like that?"

"I don't know," Miles honestly spoke. I didn't expect him to, I'm surprised he even responded in the first place. It's shocking he's sitting here listening to me as I rant, but at the same time, I'm beyond grateful for him.

"I don't know what Katherine's deal is, but it sounds like there's more to it than we know. Call me a weirdo for thinking this, but it sounds like Ashley's holding Katherine hostage. Never once in my years of attending Riverway have I seen Ashley Wilde want to be friends with Katherine Windsor. She was just like me, if not worse. She was worse, actually." Miles spoke the last part to himself, blinking a few times.

"Look, I'm not trying to put delusional thoughts in your head. Your feelings are valid, and I don't even know how you'd held it together the way you had. You do so much and get so little. I don't blame you for feeling how you do. But I do want to say this," He stopped for a moment. He fixed his position in the chair, and I watched as he pulled his sleeves up his arms.

"You're such a special person. Any guy would be lucky to have you," He started. "Carter Jackson - God knows how - got your attention. He ruined that. You didn't lose him, he lost you. You're worth so much more than the way he treated you. Than the way any guy has ever treated you. He doesn't deserve your sadness, your tears, or your hurt. You're only seventeen. You have your entire life ahead of you, you'll find that person to treat you better than anyone has ever before, without needing to be asked."

A tear streamed down my cheek, and I felt an abundance of gratefulness for the boy sitting across from me. Nobody's ever said anything like this, not to this extent anyway. My chest hurt, and although his words didn't fix all of my problems - I felt better. He was calming me down without even trying, making me realize that despite how wrong I've been by the people around me, I still treat everyone with a certain love that's hard to do.

Realizing he was right, I realized that I'd been looking at it the wrong way. Maybe instead of using Logan to get over Carter, I just need to let things happen naturally. Whether that means slowly gaining real feelings for Logan, moving on completely, or even just staying on my own. I'm worth more than giving Carter the satisfaction of my broken heart, and Miles - the boy who claims he knows nothing about romance - gave me the perfect advice.

"You're strong, Rory. You are worth more than Carter Jackson, more than any boy in Riverway, Minnesota at that."

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Sorry for the lack of updates <3 I know I used to update daily, but lately, I've been just writing when I have the motivation and not pushing myself too far. I've been working on more the content in the chapter than how fast I get it out, and I'm liking it so far.

Remember, don't be a ghost reader!