A Dream, A Destiny

Note passing

Serena POV

I stopped right outside the closed Science class door, swung the strap of my bag over my shoulder and drew in a deep, bracing breath. Time for a pep talk, Serena.

Leaning against the wall next to the class, I ignored the weird looks people pushing past me were shooting me, focusing instead on looking and acting normal when I walked into class.

Be cool girl.

You might be wondering why I was trying to calm myself down when all I felt like doing was backtracking in the opposite direction. Well, this was the first time I would be in the same room as Ash since the gala, so you can imagine I had a right to be nervous.

To make matters worse, after I had told them what went down at the gala, May and Dawn had done their best to blow things way out of proportion.

Things like 'whipped', 'he loooves you', 'somebody's in denial' and 'you're so into the guy' had been said, leading me to threaten to stop talking to them if they even mentioned anything about the kiss to Ash.

I wasn't worried that May would say anything to him, mostly because she's the most sensible person I knew. But Dawn- she was another, looser lipped story. Plus which, something that Dawn had said to me offhandedly had stuck and was currently making my head whirl.

"A kiss isn't something you can put behind you that easily."

Damn her for being crazy enough to figure out the real thing that was troubling me with this situation about Ash.

Did I handle everything okay?

Because let's face it, the gala night was the first time something like that had happened to me. As in the first time a guy had just randomly decided to kiss me.

Did I over-react when I backed away? What were you supposed to do, kiss him back? In the hallway of a hotel? Mental head shake. I don't think so, Serena Yvonne. You handled it just fine.

I rubbed my nose, sighing. Maybe I did. I just hoped that things between Ash and I wouldn't be different due to the kiss debacle.

It was all his fault!

But I had read enough books to know that one single, accidental kiss had the potential to cause a whole lot of problems. Yes, I am aware that I read far too much. Unfortunately, poor little unworldly me had absolutely no experience with things like- romance. At all.

Unfortunately, the untimely arrival of our gruff Science teacher meant that I had to cut my internal musings short and I followed her into class, my heart beating irrationally fast. Just chill, Serena. Don't even look at him.

Well, that was going to be pretty difficult, since Ash was lounging right in the back of the class, his woolly red cap pulled low over his dark, raven hair, chewing gum as he laughed at something with the cute girl next to him. And he was sitting a couple of rows behind me, which was unnerving, to say the least.

As I slowly walked to my seat, focusing on my feet so that I didn't have to look in front of me, and ultimately at Ash. I was sure that I could feel his eyes on me.

He probably hadn't even noticed I had walked in the room.

I got to my seat without doing anything stupid like falling over my feet, dropping my bag, bumping into tables. I sat down, still breathing deep. Sitting comfortably.

Why was I still so shook up over this? I'm pretty sure that Ash had forgotten about it, so why couldn't I? It happened three days ago; shouldn't I be over it by now? Were Dawn and May right? Was I sprung?