Chapter 1 I Will Survive
Mia's POV
I climbed the concrete steps with a knot in my throat and a weight pressing down inside my chest. The sky above held the color of ash, blank and heavy, like it could not be bothered to give me even a little light. Each step echoed like a countdown, my legs numb while my heart braced for something I refused to define.
I opened the rooftop door. My best friends were already waiting. My sisters. Arms crossed with backs straight and faces perfectly unreadable. Their hair was flawless. Their jackets looked expensive. Their silence felt louder than anything I had ever heard before.
We once called ourselves the Golden Five. Every hallway belonged to us. Every birthday had our laughter. Every group selfie felt like a promise. Five girls and five charm bracelets from our first Christmas together. Five promises whispered under fairy lights and pillow forts.
We will always be together. And I believed in it.
Even when my shoes started to fray and my notebooks came from thrift shops. Even when I could not afford the trendy lip gloss they all loved. Even when my father died and my home went dark without electricity. When the sleepovers stopped. When they never showed up anymore.
Still, I held on to the hope that love was stronger than circumstance.
I had been wrong. Now I stood there like someone summoned before a judge. The way they exchanged careful glances made it feel like the verdict had been scripted long before I arrived.
I wrapped my arms around myself. My hoodie sleeves were frayed at the wrists, threads curling like promises that had already fallen apart. My chest rose and fell faster than I wanted them to notice.
"Hey," I managed to whisper. "What is going on."
Chloe stepped forward first. She was the one gifted with flawless eyeliner, a flawless life, and a flawless ability to turn every sentence into a blade.
"We have been talking," Chloe began, her tone smooth but sharp. "And Mia, this is not easy to say."
I swallowed. "Then do not say it." For one tiny second, Chloe flinched.
Trish stepped in before anything else could soften. "We have to. You are not who you used to be."
I felt my stomach twist. "What is that supposed to mean."
"You are always tired," Kim said, as if it were a sin. "You miss mall nights. You barely reply in the group chat."
"I work two jobs," I whispered. "You know that."
Trish shrugged like that excuse was too small to matter. "Yeah but we are juniors. This year matters. Colleges are watching. And we cannot be seen with someone who—"
She cut herself short.
"Someone who what." I pushed, voice sharp from the ache.
Kim looked away for one second before saying it anyway. "You used to be the smart one. You helped us with everything. Now your grades are slipping. You do not have anything to offer anymore."
My breath faltered as Chloe delivered the final wound. "And if we keep hanging out with you people might think we are failing too."
That was it, I was no longer seen as a friend. I had become a risk. And not one of them looked at me. Not even Belle.
The same girl who used to braid my hair before tests because she knew I always got nervous. The same girl who held me through grief after the funeral. The girl who once said "I will never hurt you not for anything or anyone."
Belle stared at the ground instead, twisting her charm bracelet. She did not even try to look sorry.
"I am with Daniel now," she said in a small voice. I felt my pulse stop.
Daniel was the boy I liked quietly for years. The one I never told anyone about except Belle.
"You knew how I felt," I whispered.
Belle nodded without lifting her gaze. "I know. But Mia he was never going to like you. Not the way you wanted."
The words did not punch. They sliced as truths that had always been there. Cruel truths that felt worse than lies.
"You are sweet and loyal. Always good to us," Belle continued. "But he was never looking at you. He looked at me. Maybe you did not want to see that."
I had not just been betrayed. I had been humiliated.
"You took him," I said, barely breathing.
Belle's reply came soft. "I did not take him. He chose me." And something inside me finally snapped. The last fragile illusion I held turned to dust.
Wind clawed at my hoodie while my lips trembled. I bit them shut.
"We were a family," I said. My voice cracked at the edges. "I fixed your essays. I took the blame when Kim missed practice. I lied to Chloe's mom when she snuck out. I gave everything."
My hands shook. “I cared about you," I said. "All of you."
Then Chloe ended it with five simple words.
"People grow apart, Mia. You will understand someday."
That was the final cut, and the Golden Five became Four.
They walked past me with shoulders high and hair perfect, unmoved, untouched. They left like I was a stranger. Like I had never mattered in their lives.
I stayed rooted on the rooftop while the city stretched out below me. The wind stole whatever warmth I still had left. I did not cry. I simply stood there, silent and shattered.
The door clicked closed behind them.
By the time I stepped out of school, the rain had already begun. It came down fast and cold, as if the sky itself had opened up to grieve with me. As if the world wanted to drown out the betrayal echoing against my ribs.
I did not have an umbrella. My hoodie became soaked in seconds, water dripping from my sleeves while the straps of my bag dug painfully into my skin. I pushed forward anyway, my shoes squelching with every step as I walked down the familiar cracked sidewalks of our neighborhood.
The girls who once swore they were a family had left without a glance back. All I had was the rain.
When I reached the apartment I shared with two coworkers from the restaurant, I unlocked the door and stepped into a silence that felt louder than the storm raging outside. The lights flickered slightly above me and the air felt stale and unfamiliar.
It had not always been like this. I could still remember the warm scent of fresh bread on Sunday mornings and the comforting trace of my father's cologne lingering in the hallways. I could still picture birthdays with homemade cakes, pillow fights on weekends, and the kind of laughter that lived in every room and every corner.
But when he died, everything changed. My mother could not bear the memories anymore. She started selling the furniture little by little, claiming we did not need so many reminders. And then one day even the house was gone.
"It hurts too much here," my mother had said.
But I had stayed. I had no choice.
I let my bag fall by the door and sank to the cold tiled floor. My drenched clothes clung to my skin. My teeth chattered. The ache in my chest tightened with every breath until it hurt to even inhale.
The tears finally came. They came quietly as if my heart did not want the world to know how much it was breaking. I curled into myself, hugging my knees like that was the only way to keep the pieces of me together.
I held Snowy close. The stray cat I saved months ago. I needed something to hold on to. Anything. Because right now everything else had walked away.
I gathered her in my arms and slowly stood. The cat's tiny paws pressed against my chest as I walked down the dim hallway to my room. The light above flickered, humming faintly, like it was trying its best not to give up on me too.
I sat at my small desk where an old diary lay waiting. The faded cover looked worn and tired, like it had been holding memories for too long. I opened it carefully.
My handwriting filled the pages. Notes from late night study sessions. Lists for my siblings' birthdays. Lyrics I once loved. A lipstick mark from Chloe on a page where we once laughed at a joke no one else would understand. A small drawing from my brother tucked into the back pocket of the diary.
Every line and scribble held a piece of the life I had lived. A life I loved once. A life I fought for.
I traced a heart sticker my sister pressed into a photo of us years ago. It hurt to remember how much I used to have. It hurt to remember how easily it was taken.
I missed my brother's giggles and my sister's curious questions. I missed my mother's voice singing our favorite song while cooking. I missed the version of myself who believed family was forever.
That version had been forced to grow up.
My sister had only been thirteen when they left. She cried so hard as she hugged me at the door that her shoulders shook. My brother had only been ten. He wrapped his little arms around me and whispered "do not cry. I will miss you."
But my mother did not hug me. She did not even look me in the eye when she said it.
"Mia, I cannot bring you with us. You will manage. You are strong. I will call. I will send money."
She did neither. She never called or visited. No checking in. I stopped hoping the moment I saw my mother’s new life online. They lived in a bigger house, with a smiling husband. Friends in expensive clothes. A baby shower filled with balloons and gifts. And I was no longer part of that picture.
My father had been ten years older than my mother, but he was everything my mother was not. He was steady, kind, and always present. He came home smelling faintly of old wood and soap. He fixed broken chairs and broken hearts.
He used to say "you are my sunshine kid. You always light up the darkest days."
But even the brightest lights burn out. One night he went to sleep and never woke up. His absence was the kind of silence that broke a home from the inside out.
I closed the diary gently, and I took a long shaky breath. There was always sunshine after the rain. My father told me that.
My voice trembled but I spoke the truth aloud for the first time. "I will survive." I blinked away the tears and lifted my chin. "For you Dad. I will survive."
And maybe I would learn to shine again even if no one came back to see it.