Serenity Falls

Chapter 27

I'm a little late on uploading... sorry! But here's the next chapter, and I hope you like it!

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

The next few days were... tense, to say the least. No one seemed to be speaking to each other, despite the constant chatter in the hallways and classrooms, and the atmosphere could’ve been cut with a knife.

Courtney and Carter were now an official couple, and, with the pressure of keeping a secret from Alyssa lifted, Courtney had no shame with regards to their public displays of affection. She was all over him any chance she could get, especially when Alyssa was around.

It seemed like she no longer cared that she wasn’t in Alyssa’s clique, and she would go out of her way to irritate her former friend. After all, it was unlikely that Alyssa would start on her in school, with so many people around. She was much too scared of getting her ass kicked in front of everyone.

Olivia, however, was no longer so happy. She hadn’t talked to Ethan since her confrontation with Sammi and, to tell the truth, she was scared to. Sammi was not the kind of girl she would like to get on the wrong side of, and she had decided that it was probably better to stay away from Ethan. It wasn’t like she needed any more enemies, anyway. She had enough without adding Sammi to the numbers.

And plus, it was unlikely that someone like Ethan would be interested in Olivia, especially now Sammi had arrived. She was so dainty, so pretty, everything that Olivia was not. And Sammi had said they had history... it was obvious that there was no competition between them. No one in their right mind would choose Olivia when Sammi was on offer. That was why, she had decided, to keep away.

Friday morning was fairly warm, and the sun was shining from beneath a layer of thin, wispy cloud. The weekend ahead promised to be a good one, but as usual, Olivia had no particular plans, aside from to start studying hard for her fast approaching exams. After all the trouble she had gotten in recently, the best thing she could do was study hard and give Mr Delmar a reason to keep her in the school.

"Hey!" Olivia heard a high pitched voice greet her cheerfully as she closed her locker.

Turning round to investigate the owner of the voice, her face fell, although she tried to hide it as best she could. To be honest, it wasn’t a face she wanted to see, especially after their last encounter. "Oh, um, hi."

Sammi smiled at her warmly, friendlier than before, although the glitter in her eyes was still not completely gone. There was still no way she was trustworthy. "How are you?"

"Uh... good, I guess, thanks..." Olivia said awkwardly, shutting her locker after her books had been placed inside. Was this some kind of practical joke? Last time something like this had happened, it was with Alyssa, and look where that had got her. It was understandable that she was reluctant to get involved with Sammi.

"Listen," Sammi said, tilting her head to one side as she spoke. "I’m sorry we got off to a bad start the other day. I didn’t mean to be so bitchy to you."

Olivia bit her lip, unsure of what to say. She always experienced this when in conversation with Sammi, as she was never sure of how to respond in a way that would not cause Sammi to ridicule her – whether directly or not.

"I guess I was just kind of... protective over Ethan, you know?" Sammi sighed, looking down at the floor as if genuinely sorry – it was extremely difficult to tell whether it was real or fake. After all, Sammi was a good actress and one could never be sure of her true emotions behind her dazzling smile. "I guess I’ve been away longer than I thought, right?"

"Um..."

"Anyway, I felt really bad and everything afterwards," she continued, her smile still permanently fixed to her face. "So I’m going to make it up to you."