Hello! Guess what? I'm uploading early because... *DRUM ROLL* Serenity Falls got 100,000 READS! Oh my God, I can't believe it :D I'm so excited. Thank you to everyone who was ever clicked on this. Because you made me a very happy person :)

-----------------------------------------

"Have you got a dress for the dance?"

Chelsie looked at Olivia expectantly, unable to stop a small smile from spreading onto her face. There was no hiding the fact that she was excited for the school dance, which was happening at the end of the week.

Olivia paused, glancing at her best friend. The two of them were lounging around Olivia’s bedroom, studying while chatting randomly to each other. It was already Tuesday, and the number of days until the end of the week was quickly diminishing, causing the excitement levels at Serenity Falls to raise significantly with every day that passed.

"Uh... I don’t think I’m going to go."

"What?!" Chelsie threw her a disbelieving look. "You’re not going?"

Olivia looked at her, somewhat taken aback by her startled reaction. She had expected Chelsie to be a little disappointed, but the way she was looking at her as if she was some sort of alien was slightly unnerving.

To tell the truth, she really didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Even if it was her first dance at Serenity Falls, it would still be all of the same people she saw and ignored every day in the hallways, overdressed and crowded into a stuffy gymnasium and decorated lamely by whatever poor souls happened to be on the dance committee. Sure, this was a grand private school with stacks of money to spare, but that still didn’t make the idea any more appealing for her.

"Probably not. Why, are you?"

"Of course I’m going!" Chelsie said. Her expression softened and she widened her eyes, looking longingly at Olivia. "You have to come. It’ll be no fun without you."

"You’ll be going with Fred, though, won’t you?"

"Well, yeah," Chelsie shrugged. "I mean, he hasn’t officially asked me yet, but there’s no reason why he wouldn’t. It doesn’t matter though, does it? We can still go together."

"I don’t want to be a third wheel," Olivia said, sighing. She was happy about her two best friends’ relationship, but at the same time it did mean that she often felt somewhat left out. She supposed it could be worse – the two of them could be constantly sticking their tongues down each other’s throats in her presence, which they definitely didn’t – but that still didn’t make her feel much better. Especially in a setting like a school dance, she didn’t want to be hanging around them feeling uncomfortable, even if they were her best friends.

"You won’t be!" Chelsie assured her. "Anyway, I’m sure someone will ask you."

Olivia raised her eyebrows. "I know you’re just trying to be nice, but seriously? Who would even consider asking me to the dance?"

"Ethan?"

Olivia rolled her eyes. "You know full well that’s out of the question."

"It doesn’t have to be."

"But it is."

"I don’t know. Ethan seemed like he was really sorry."

"Well, that doesn’t make up for what he’s done. Even if he asks me, I’m not going with him, okay? Finished. Done."

Chelsie sighed in defeat. "Even so. You’re still coming. I swear, it’ll be no fun without you. I’ll even come shopping with you, and we can pick out dresses."

"You’re really not going to give up, are you?"

"No!" Chelsie grinned back at her. "I’m not letting my best friend stay at home on the night of the dance. I wouldn’t be doing my job properly, would I?"

"You’re not going to be all lovey-dovey and mushy with Fred though, are you? I don’t want to feel left out," Olivia said, pouting slightly. "And you have to help me pick a dress. You know I’m hopeless with that kind of stuff, especially without Alyssa to pick them out for me."

"Yeah, of course," Chelsie said, nodding eagerly as a smile found its way onto her face. "And don’t worry, Fred’s not exactly one for all of that mushy romantic stuff, is he? I wonder if he’ll even want to dance with me."

Olivia smiled. "He will. It might take a bit of persuading and dragging him to the dance floor, but he will." She paused, the thought entering her head properly. "You guys are so cute together."

Chelsie laughed, dismissing Olivia’s statement with a wave of her hand. "Don’t let him hear you say that."

"Hey," Olivia said suddenly, as the thought occurred to her. "Did you hear anything about the whole Alyssa situation?" Her mind traced back to the previous day, where the last they had seen of her was her being dragged off the stage and sent to Mr Delmar’s office.

"Nope." Chelsie shrugged. "I bet her Dad’s pretty angry with her, though."

"No kidding. Can you imagine how pissed off my Dad would be if he found out I was having a relationship with a teacher?" She shook her head vigorously. "He’d probably kick me out of the house."

"Being thrown out wouldn’t be much of a punishment for Alyssa, mind you. All she’d have to do was rent out some expensive city apartment on one of her credit cards."

"What about Mr Hammond? Can’t he get arrested for doing something like that?"

Olivia pondered on the thought. She wasn’t exactly an expert on the law regarding student teacher relationships, but she knew enough to be aware that both Alyssa and Mr Hammond were in serious trouble. The whole thing had come as a huge shock to her, anyway. Although she knew that Alyssa and some of the other, more confident girls flirted with Mr Hammond on a regular basis, she hadn’t thought that any of them would be so stupid as to take it any further.

As her mind backtracked on events since she had started Serenity Falls, she began to remember things that hinted at what had been going on. The few too many glances at Alyssa in class, the permanent smirk on Mr Hammond’s face whenever she was around, and the unnatural amount of detentions he handed out.

Of course... how could she not have noticed before?

"I don’t know." Chelsie shrugged loosely. "Although, knowing Mr Delmar, he’ll do whatever he can to keep any bad publicity off the school. Having a teacher getting arrested for a relationship with a student is not exactly the kind of thing he wants going around."

"I suppose."

"On second thoughts, why don’t we go to the mall now?" Chelsie said suddenly, rising from her seat and glancing at the clock on the wall. "We’ve still got time."

"Now?" Olivia raised her eyebrows. "But we’ve still got so much homework to do..."

"We can do it later," she dismissed, grabbing Olivia’s wrist and yanking her upwards into a standing position. "We’ve still got another couple of hours until closing. That’s loads of time to find our dresses."

***

"I’m starting to have second thoughts about going to this dance now..." Olivia said, sighing deeply as she ran her fingers over what felt like the hundredth rack of dresses today.

They had been shopping for over two hours now, and there wasn’t long until the stores would start closing for the night. Neither of them had even come close to finding an outfit, and the thought of trailing round endless more stores searching filled Olivia with dread.

She had never liked shopping to start with, but this was worse than normal. Sure, she wanted to look cute for the dance, but did it have to be so much effort? No wonder Alyssa was so skinny – the amount of time she spent in the mall was probably equivalent to an everyday workout at the gym.

"We can grab something to eat soon," Chelsie reassured her, pulling out another dress hidden between the other outfits and holding it in front of herself to examine. She stared at it for a few seconds before wrinkling her nose and placing it back where she found it. "I didn’t know this was going to be so difficult," she admitted with a sigh.

"Maybe we should just give up..." Olivia suggested, glancing at Chelsie to check her reaction. "We have been here for a long time."

"Only two hours," she pointed out, but she turned away from the rack to face her friend. "But I suppose you’re right. We can always try somewhere else tomorrow."

Olivia sighed in relief as Chelsie began to make her way towards the exit of the store. Passing through the store alarms before exiting completely, she looked back quickly in the hope that the perfect dress would suddenly jump out at her. Much to her dismay, it didn’t, and she turned her head back to the front.

Unfortunately, she didn’t do this quickly enough, and before she could even comprehend what had happened, she had collided with another person and was sprawled uncomfortably on the cold tiled floor.

"Sorry!"

An outstretched hand suddenly made its way into Olivia’s line of sight and she tilted her head upwards, reaching out to take it as the person pulled her onto her feet again.

"Are you okay?"

Wait... why did that voice sound familiar? She froze as the information processed in her brain. She almost didn’t want to look upwards, to meet with their gaze, but she knew that it would be strange for her to continue staring at the floor as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.

Eventually forcing herself to tilt her head up to a normal angle, she froze as her eyes locked onto the person in front of her. And sure enough, her suspicions were confirmed when she found herself looking straight at Ethan Shaw.

Oh, crap.

"Oh! Hey, Olivia," he said, brightly, as he recognised her.

His tone of voice confused her – why was he talking so cheerfully, as if nothing was wrong between them? It was impossible to have completely forgotten the whole situation, unless he had bumped his head harder than she thought when he fell down. Maybe it was his attempt to try and get them on good terms again. But whatever it was, Olivia was determined for his plan not to work.

She mumbled something incomprehensible in response, averting her gaze to the floor quickly to avoid unnecessary eye contact. Despite the fact that she was still mega pissed off with him, she knew that prolonged glances at him would only cause a red blush to rise to her cheeks, and there was no way she was going to give him the satisfaction of seeing that.

"Sorry for running into you like that," he continued, oblivious to her somewhat moody responses.

"I wasn’t looking where I was going," she murmured to the ground. "We have to go."

Shooting a look at Chelsie, she grabbed hold of her arm and started pulling her in the opposite direction. Her head was buzzing and she could not think straight – all she knew was that she had to get away from this now.

His upbeat tone was unnerving, and she knew that if she stuck around long enough, she would begin to start falling for it, and before she would even realise, she would forgive him for all that he had done. Bam. She’d be right back where she started – head over heels, just sitting in a waiting room, ready for her name to be called so she could be hurt once again.

"What did you do that for?" Chelsie said incredulously, when the pair were a safe enough distance away from where the collision had occurred. Making sure Ethan was out of earshot, she shot a look at Olivia to express her disbelief.

"What do you think? I told you I’m not going to forgive him."

"But you practically ran off!" Chelsie exclaimed, craning her neck slightly to see if Ethan was still in view – which he wasn’t. It was unclear where he had disappeared off to, but it definitely wasn’t anywhere in their line of sight. That was probably a good thing.

"Can we just not talk about this?" Olivia sighed. "Let’s go get something to eat. I’m starving."

"Are you not even going to consider accepting Ethan’s apology?"

"No," she said pointedly, trying to scoot round Chelsie. However, the redhead wasn’t about to give up easily. She placed her hands on her hips, mirroring Olivia’s movements so she was unable to get past her. Olivia sighed, a hint of irritation present in her voice. "Come on, let me eat."

"Why are you doing this?"

"I told you why."

"I think Ethan’s genuinely sorry. Maybe he’s having second thoughts about making your relationship public," Chelsie suggested, lifting her shoulders slightly and looking expectantly at Olivia.

She wasn’t completely sure why, but she couldn’t help but want Olivia and Ethan to get together. Olivia was one of her best friends, and she wanted her to be happy. Plus, in these last few weeks, Ethan had proved that he was a good guy, even if he had made some bad decisions closer to the present. They made a good couple, everyone could see it – apparently, apart from Olivia.

Plus, after the rough time she’d had since she started Serenity Falls, she deserved something good to happen to her. Chelsie had noticed the change in her friend when she had been hanging out with Ethan, even if she hadn’t been mentioning it to them at the time. Altogether she had seemed happier, and just generally brighter in herself, and that was the Olivia that she liked to see.

Olivia paused, taking in her words. For a second, she almost looked like she was about to give in, but she shook her head vigorously. "I don’t care. Please, Chelsie... can you just drop it? I honestly don’t want to talk about it."

Chelsie sighed in defeat, removing herself from Olivia’s way so the both of them could continue walking in the direction of the food court. "Fine," she murmured. "Just promise me you’ll think about it, okay?"

"Okay." Olivia sighed, before nodding in agreement.

Thinking about it didn’t mean that she had to follow Chelsie’s orders. It just meant to consider them... and then to make the decision of trying to keep as far away from Ethan as possible during the school day.

She would think about it. In fact, it would be impossible not to think about it from this moment on. She had finally begun to move on, but seeing Ethan again had just thrown her right back to square one, and she knew that he would be glued to her thoughts from now on.

Thanks for that, Ethan.

-------------------------

So here you go! An early update :) I think I might start doing 3 day updates on this story because I want to get it completed and concentrate on other stuff. Now I have to get back to revision for the mock exams, FML. I have a 2 hour 15 minute English Language paper tomorrow -.- At least it's got one part creative writing on it! That's the only okay thing about it.

Remember to vote if you liked it :D And don't forget to comment for the chance of a dedication :)