Serenity Falls

Chapter 23

This chapter is slightly shorter, but don't worry - the next chapter will be exciting and there will be a NEW CHARACTER :D I'm not giving you any hints though. Vote, comment and enjoy :)

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"You’re on scholarship?" Olivia could barely believe what she was hearing. Ethan Shaw, one of the most popular guys in school, was a scholarship nerd?

They were now sat on the edge of the sidewalk, feet down on the road, next to each other. The houses that surrounded them were neglected, and there were two in Olivia’s eyesight that had boarded up windows. A young girl pushing a baby stroller was walking on the opposite sidewalk, a small child strapped inside, sleeping soundly under a blue blanket. The stroller was weighed down with countless bags – undoubtedly full of baby stuff – and was clearly a struggle to push.

It wasn’t the most comfortable or inviting place to be, but it didn’t matter. The only thing that Olivia was fully concentrating on was what Ethan had just told her. Everything else in the entire world was just a distorted blur at that moment in time.

"Believe it or not." Ethan sighed, looking up at Olivia, meeting her intense yet unreadable gaze. "No one else knows."

Through the shock, Olivia couldn’t help but feel sort of... touched that Ethan had told her. No one else had a clue, through the whole time that he had attended that school. He had never felt that he could trust anyone enough to tell them, and yet here he was, spilling his secrets to her when they barely knew each other. It was confusing, and yet at the same time she felt flattered.

"Not even Carter? I thought he was your best friend. Or anyone else?"

"Are you kidding me? If they knew, I… I don’t even know. They’d ditch me straight away. They wouldn’t want me damaging their precious reputation. I can’t risk that happening. I just finally got settled into a school, you know? Where people actually like me, and know who I am."

He looked down at the floor, picking up a small rock and rolling it into the road. It went quite far, until friction got the better of it and it stopped in the middle of the street, just waiting for a car to come along and run it over.

"And you’ve never told anyone, all this time?"

"Not a soul."

"And you told me?" Olivia couldn’t help but smile in Ethan’s direction. The obvious fact was hanging between them, and yet Olivia still couldn’t work out why Ethan had spilled his deepest secret to her. They knew nothing about each other, had only spoken minimal times.

She studied his expression, letting her eyes scrape over each detail of his face, capturing a perfect mental image. The tanned skin, piercing green eyes that gazed right into her, the soft brown hair that fell over his face every so often, causing him to swing his head back to realign it. Her eyes lingered on his lips, soft and supple, and she found herself wondering what they would feel like... kissing him...

She was jolted back to reality at the sound of Ethan’s response.

"Yeah…" Ethan’s voice trailed off, the hint of a blush finding its way onto his cheeks, something which Olivia found incredibly cute, although she would never admit this to him. "I just kind of… knew I could trust you."

"How do you know I’m not going to sell the story to the school newspaper?" she smirked.

The panic in his eyes was visible as he studied her expression worriedly. "I’m kidding!" she said, punching his arm gently. "You really think I’m going to do that?"

He smiled again, letting out a deep breath he hadn’t even been aware he was holding. "God, don’t scare me like that."

"Ethan Shaw is scared?" Olivia raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah, well, I’m a nerd, remember? Not the big tough jock everyone thinks I am. Maybe I’m petrified all the time. You wouldn’t know," he responded playfully.

"Do I scare you? I’m a pretty terrifying person, don’t you think?"

The pretty part’s right, Ethan thought to himself, on the brink of blushing as he caught Olivia’s eye, even though there was no way she could be a mind-reader."Yeah, you’re pretty scary." He grinned.

"Oh shut up!" she said, poking her tongue out, before her expression changed to something more serious. "Seems like I’m the only genuine person at Serenity Falls, huh?" Olivia shrugged, picking up a rock herself and rolling hers in the same direction, watching as it skidded past Ethan’s and landed a couple of inches further away. "Yes! You see that? Pure skill, right there."

"Pure luck, right there," Ethan scoffed playfully.

"Is that a challenge?"

"I don’t know. Is it?" Ethan raised his eyebrows, but reached for a rock all the same. He rolled his with more force this time, determined to beat Olivia, who was sat on the sidewalk with a smug look on her face. However, despite his efforts, the rock stopped a few centimetres behind hers.

"You know, you just can’t beat me," she smiled, sticking her tongue out cheekily.

The sun was now quite low in the sky, reflecting off the fluffy white clouds and transforming the whole town into a pleasant, glowing orange colour. The air was warm, a definite sign that better weather was approaching after the harsh, cold winter they had just experienced, and the street was quiet – not so silent that it was eerie, but quiet enough so that they could hear properly, hear every movement that the other made.

"Come on," Ethan said, jumping up to his feet when the realisation of what the time was came to him. "Isn’t your dad going to be wondering where you’ve got to?"

"Oh, he won’t be back for ages yet. And anyway…" Olivia said, taking Ethan’s outstretched hand as he helped her up. "I’m with a friend."

Ethan did his best to contain the joy that he felt inside. This girl was really something. She was like no one he’d ever met before, in the best possible way. She was the first trustworthy person he’d met in a long time – those kind of people rarely existed at a school like Serenity Falls, especially when hanging out with the A-list crowd. But Olivia was different. Real. Genuine. Honest. Beautiful.

"Still. Let me walk you home."

"And how are you going to do that when you don’t have the faintest idea where I live?" Olivia raised her eyebrows, tilting her head innocently.

"Sure I do, you told me. Somewhere in that direction, right?" Ethan pointed to where Olivia had mentioned vaguely, just a few minutes ago, as a grin spread across his face.

"Well… I suppose I can’t argue with that," Olivia shrugged, smiling back.

And, as they started walking, Ethan’s hand slipped into hers, their fingers interlocking perfectly like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, in a hold that felt like the most natural thing in the world.