Serenity Falls

Chapter 28

Wattpad has been messing up lately, so I don't know if this upload will work or not... but hopefully it will :) Here's the next chapter!

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Olivia stared at the scrawl on her arm for the hundredth time as she sat in her room on Saturday afternoon. The pen had faded from the shower and the writing was barely visible, but the words could still be roughly made out. Her mind still wasn’t made up about whether she was going to show her face or not.

Part of her wanted to go, the part that was telling her to lighten up and stop being so sceptical about Sammi. Maybe she did really want to be friends. But the other part was screaming at the top of its voice, telling her that this was a really, really bad idea.

And quite frankly, she didn’t know which voice to listen to.

She was sat on her bed, staring at her reflection in the mirror, when her cell phone buzzed into life next to her. It vibrated furiously, moving itself towards the edge of the bedside cabinet by itself. Checking the caller ID, her pulse increased rapidly.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it’s me." Ethan’s voice sounded calm and friendly, and was refreshing to hear. She exhaled slowly, feeling a blush creep onto her cheeks at the sound of his voice in her ear. It was nice to know they could have a conversation without the risk of Sammi barging in and killing her, although she still wouldn’t put it past her to be listening at the window.

"Yeah, I saw. What’s up?" she asked, sinking back on her pillows.

"Oh, not much, I was just wondering if you were going to Sammi’s tonight. You know, for the party."

"Uh..." Olivia sighed. "I don’t know. I’m still kind of... undecided. Are you?"

"I was planning to," said Ethan, but his voice sounded far from enthusiastic. "I mean, Sammi’s kind of forced me into it. I suppose it would be mean not to come, after we’ve known each other for so long." He paused.

It was difficult to make out his emotions. She couldn’t tell whether he still liked Sammi or not – he certainly didn’t act like he was madly in love with her, but why had Sammi been so possessive over him? She didn’t seem like the type of girl who would stay hung up on some guy who didn’t want her back, especially when she was probably able to have any other guy she wanted at Serenity Falls.

"I guess," Olivia said. "Well, if you’re going to be there, then I guess it won’t be so bad. Maybe we should both let our hair down a bit, have a bit of fun."

Ethan laughed. "I haven’t got much hair to let down, but okay. That sounds good. Do you need a ride?"

"Yeah, that’d be great."

"Cool. I’ll pick you up at eight."

Olivia couldn’t help but smile as she hung up the phone. Ethan was so sweet, so funny. She wondered why she had ever been so scared of Sammi. What was the worst she could do to her, anyway? If she wanted Ethan, she certainly wasn’t going to let a little jealous ex-girlfriend get in the way.

Glancing at her clock, she saw she only had just over an hour and a half to get ready. Crap, that was nowhere near enough time. She jumped in the shower quickly, washing her long brown hair and even getting out the box of wax strips that had sat untouched in the bathroom cabinet for weeks now to de-fuzz her legs.

The next problem was the wardrobe. Everything still wasn’t properly unpacked, even though they’d been in the house for over three weeks now, and there were still random items of clothing everywhere in her bedroom. She stared in her closet, almost willing something to magically appear from thin air, but there was nothing she could find.