Content warning for fatshaming/bullying/brief reference of suicide
Silence and concentration filled connie's ears and mind-and a sea of rippling, sparkling cobalt patiently waited for connie as the Indian girl steadily stood atop the high diving board.
"Shark!"
The voice that sounded through the gym was an annoying sound belong to that of a screechy teenaged girl, so high-pitched and condensing as it could be in all its glory that it could almost shatter glass in one standing if she ever screamed.
Disregarding the shout, rolling her eyes at the now cruel laughter of the girls connie immediately jumped off the board, her body later driving itself right into the water.
Even as she leapt in perfectly-the laughter of half the diving team-predominately the girls from earlier could still be heard. For a while she unanimously submerged herself into the cerulean darkness. The water was usually room temperature-cold, enough to make her teeth ache as usual. The locks of her curly hair flowed gracefully behind her as she silently idled in her place-but she immediately knew and understood that she couldn't stick around forever.
Connie immediately rose from the water, flipping her hair away from her face as her bangs clung to her forehead from the water.
"Superb!" Sofia mocked, clapping her hands as savannah and a few other cronies of theirs joined her. "How absolutely superb, Maheswaran."
"Yeah, like how can we ever even compete?" savannah giggled.
Simmering, connie swam up to the surface as she silently evaded the venomous whispers and smug stares of her peers with boiling blood all the way. Wrapping a white towel around her, a trail of wet footsteps followed her as she immediately chose to make a b-line for the girls' lockers.
She had an intuition to stay calm and to just try to "stand tall" on her own, and not to ever allow anyone that stands in her way to ever think otherwise for her. She always trusted that instinct, having known and understood to herself not to let others like her tormentors respectively hurt her every random chance they always get.
Trying to calm herself down as much as she can, connie sighed as she later arrived at the lockers. Walking over to the mirror she unwrapped her towel, using it to wipe through her damp curls-ignoring the sight of sofia and savannah along with their posse over on the other side, the sisters simultaneously brushing their hair.
Sofia's icy blue eyes were later pointed down to her hairbrush as she acknowledged a patch of hair through the bristles.
"Ew...it looks like I got pubic hair on my brush..." she gestured over to savannah who also regarded the sight with disgust. The sisters later turned their eyes over to connie who almost half-heartedly retrieved her uniform from her open locker.
"Oh wait..of course. I guess it's not d.w.'s today...what a surprise. It's just only maheswaran's." sofia smirked evilly.
"Eww....i think it's caught into my brush too sissy?" savannah piped up, holding her brush for proof-and by coincidence, strangely enough, a lock her her own hair was caught into her own brush as well.
The muscles in connie's neck considerably tightened at those comments, the Indian girl's fists clenched in a way where the palms of her hands threatened to draw blood if she'd pushed the limit any further. Her teeth had clenched from behind her closed mouth as she stared down at her locker.
An unexpected side of connie had immediately thought it's back to life as it swarmed her wild, uncharacteristically venomous thoughts-it initially badgered her with a major urge to just drop what she's doing immediately to gang up on sofia and pull her hair out, or to get steven to do that for her-since she'd know that he'll gladly go above and beyond the limits for his girl. But she knew very well that she absolutely couldn't. That level of violence even out of vengeance was absolutely beneath her and would definitely put a major stain on her good-girl reputation.
Connie really didn't want to be a vindictive person at all. That was the farthest thing she wanted to be-but a side of her constantly made it seem otherwise.
She slowly turned over to the sofia, unexpectedly making her anger known as she slammed her locker shut-unnerving her bully a little. She walked to at least a respectful distance towards sofia, where savannah along with the rest of their cronies defensively backed her up.
"Why are you doing this to me, sofia?" frustration was laced in her voice as soon as she looked at her, straight in the eye.
Sofia's glossy pink wicked smirk later transformed to a cold, straight-to the-point one.
"It's just because I just don't like people who are friends with fat, disgusting cows." she confirmed for her-her icy gaze piercing into connie's all the way. Connie immediately realised that she must;ve been referring to darcy-which made her anger magnify into pure rage. "Your stupid boyfriend and that Sabrina bitch qualify. That pathetic transfer student does too. Since you're the school nerd-I suggest you do the math."
Connie just seethed at sofia's response, too immersed her anger to even acknowledge the idle giggling of her posse as they respectively pushed past her.
The darkskinned girl stood there for a while. She felt like breaking down and crying-
Up until the convenient moment where she realised that this really wasn't something a girl like her should do.
Right now was time for her to do something about this-and she knew just where to turn.
The thick pitter-patter of rain resounded outside of the house were raindrops dominated the glass windows.
The school day had eventually came to a close, and even as she was upstairs in the solitude of her new room marinette still fought inside herself as her mind kept going back and forth as she constantly found herself remembering the sudden encounter she had with lila earlier.
A storm of self-loathing and fear swallowed her up as she Lila was back to make her life hell all over again and she thought she finally had a break to get away from the stress of losing everything to her after gina took under her care.
She knew and understood at that moment that everything was fine. The world was fine. Everyone in it was fine. Her granny was fine. That scheming bitch lila was fine. Those traitors were all fine. And as far as she knew, the last time she ever had any face-to-face contact with them she knew that the circle was not exactly fine too-even though things have been more frigid than usual between them lately. Everyone in her life was fine-excluding herself. She was the main problem. She had since established to herself about how pathetic and useless she was-and that the world would be a much better place if she wasn't around. And she didn't exactly blame everyone for leaving her behind and for Steven to treat her the way she did.
At that moment a voice talked itself back to life when she noticed that; *you've already tried that. You've already tried offing yourself. But even then, you couldn't even do that right.*
Hugging her knees as she continued ignoring the loud howling of the storm that sounded through the windows marinette just chose to envelope herself into the solitude of her dark, gloomy room.
With a silent sigh, steven halfheartedly pulled the darkcoloured umbrella over his head to try to protect himself from the wild storm as soon as he stepped out of the front of his car that was neatly parked in the driveway.
Grabbing his house key he walked to the front door of pink's house, where he opened the door. Stepping inside steven closed the door behind him, throwing the umbrella inside the empty basket that stood aside from the door, leaving it inside to soak.
Without warning steven casually immersed himself in his thoughts as soon as he made his way inside. He always considered himself to deserve more better than the constantly changing life he was forced to live now. He prayed to himself that maybe one day the magic will work for him. Then, everything he's going through now wouldn't matter anymore.
As steven walked inside the house, he later peered a bit inside the now dimly-lit sitting room, only to be met with a surprising sight-pink wasn't on her phone as always but it was just her getting cosy with an unidentified man who definitely didn't look anywhere like his father with his arm around her shoulders. Two skinny champagne flutes sat atop the sleek coffee table as the flatscreen tv played silently in the background. The man however chose to break the silence as he suddenly asked pink about steven's sudden presence where pink disregarded the question nonchalantly, saying "oh that was just my stepson". She left it at that, where she proceeded to canoodle with the man where airy giggles filled the room afterwards.
Shaking his head at what he heard and saw before him steven pulled himself back in the hall, wiping any remaining water from the storm away from his face as he escorted himself to his room.