Alessia wasn't stupid. She knew that she wouldn't be any safer with Lizzie's offer. Lizzie was proposing that she'd delete the photo, but only if Alessia gives more proof by actually getting with Dylan. It made no sense.

"We'll deflect any rumours until you're ready, and then it'll be the only thing talked about for what's left of our miserable year," Lizzie said after Alessia had brought up the aforementioned issue.

"What you're saying is, you'll protect me until what? May? June? That's still not good enough." Alessia said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Oh, loosen up, Less," Katy said, stepping forward, "we're bored, and you're the bait. By the time we get to June, everyone will be gone anyway; you'll be safe."

"Yes, I'll be safe after everyone goes—but you want this to all blow up with everyone there. I'm sorry, but no." Alessia said, shaking her head at the girls.

"Then we share the picture," Lizzie said smugly.

Alessia sighed, "Do whatever you want with the picture." She said, turning to leave.

"Wait," Alessia recognised that the voice was someone new, a girl in the group who hadn't spoken yet. She turned, seeing Ashley walk over to Katy and Lizzie, where Alessia had just been stood.

"I'll put a word in for you to get you back on the dance team, and I'll get you Olivia's favourite perfume, and I'll get Olivia distracted for you—for the whole three months." She proposed, making Lizzie and Katy exchange glances.

Alessia pursed her lips, thinking about this for a moment. "Okay," she said, making Katy and Lizzie grin at each other. "But on my terms," Alessia continued, making the grins fall slightly. "You cover my back with Olivia and Kiara, but I want the whole school to know that it's Alessia and Dylan now; not Olivia and Dylan. Get Olivia completely out of the picture, and you'll get your scandal."

Katy and Lizzie exchanged looks.

"Done," Katy said.

"And done." Lizzie put in, and Alessia watched as she tapped around on her phone before turning it around so that Alessia could see that the photo was gone.

And that was it. The girls only wanted something exciting, one last bomb to go off before they left the school. But Alessia wanted something bigger. She wanted love, and she wanted me gone.

That was fuel enough; the girls had just made a bet to drive a wedge between me and Dylan.

When Alessia got home from school, she walked into a cloud of smoke, realising her dad had friends round, before sprinting up the stairs in fear.

She slammed her door behind her, locking it and throwing her bag on the floor, letting her blazer follow in suit. She stood in the corner of her room for a few moments, just pondering what to do next. Then, Alessia walked over to her full-length mirror, peering at her reflection. She sighed at her short hair and mascara that bled down onto her under-eye bags.

When she was done criticising her appearance, she quickly changed into comfortable clothes, before pulling out her sketchpad from her under her bed. She sat upon her duvet, pulling out her pencils from her drawers before she flipped through her many sketches, finding the one of Dylan.

She had yet to finish it, even though she had been working on it for quite a while now. I noted that Alessia believed that drawing helped her to think. It was like sketch-therapy.

She pulled up the picture of Dylan that she had been sketching from, finishing his lips, drawing on his neck, and adding final touches and shades.

When she was done, Alessia had a plan.

The girls would get Olivia—me—away from Dylan, and so the only girl in Dylan's life would be Alessia. That made it a lot easier for Alessia, who was already nervous enough about vocally expressing her feelings.

Alessia planned to tell him at his house, in his room, on his bed. She would spend the night again, somehow. She would show him her drawing, tell him how she felt, and then kiss him.

With her feelings put so explicitly, Alessia hoped that Dylan would take this kiss more seriously than the first and second—of which he seemed to have forgotten about.

I disliked her plan. It made Dylan a pawn in a very wicked game. Then again, maybe Dylan was the prize, though that still didn't make me feel any better. The whole thing made me feel all kinds of weird; Alessia was basically planning an American high-school movie-type takedown. She would just dangle everything Dylan and I had in front of us as if we were just extras in her orchestrated production.

She smiled down at her sketch, proud of it, before deciding to start another. Instead of using Dylan's Instagram, as she had done for the first one, Alessia found mine. I watched through her eyes as my posts were displayed on her phone screen.

Whilst I felt as though I'd sunk to the bottom of a sea of sadness from seeing all that I had lost, Alessia felt both envious and infuriated by what she saw. She found me annoying, but she didn't know why. Deep, deep down, though, I think she did; she was just jealous.

I'll never know exactly what of, but Alessia is jealous of me, and always has been.

She found the perfect picture. It was a selfie I had taken of me and Dylan, and we looked so, so happy. As though we couldn't have foreseen how ruined our lives would become. As though I couldn't have foreseen for a minute that I would next see this photo through the eyes of someone else.

Alessia only cared for how pretty Dylan appeared in the photo she had chosen, instantly beginning her work. But as I stared down at the photo, I realised how much I had lost. My body, my mind, my life. And now Olivia Clark was nothing more to me than a myth, and Dylan a talisman of a good life—now just a dream.

Now, in her life, all I am to Dylan is Alessia Trent, the weird girl that no one seems to like.

I watched as Alessia poured herself over her drawing, finishing it when it was pitch black. She left her drawing on her bed to sneak downstairs to make some food, and when she came back, there he was. Dylan was on her bed, at last, but just a sketch. Not the real Dylan.

She smiled, biting into her pizza and gazing down at her drawing. She sighed, tracing the sketch with her index finger before closing the book and returning to my Instagram.

Alessia started by looking only for photos with Dylan in, but she soon found herself looking at ones of just me, or me with my friends. She was jealous of every detail, but she told herself that I annoyed her so that it wouldn't hurt as much.

She thought that my hair was somehow shinier and silkier than hers, although they were practically the same. She thought my chocolate brown eyes were much easier to look at than her striking green ones, and that my facial features were beautiful and petite. She thought that my figure was better than hers, that I was small, yet not lacking, whereas she was simply skin and bones. She thought that I was much calmer and more collected; cool, whereas she was haphazard and awkward. Lastly, she thought Dylan loved me, and not her.

In my life, I would've never known the way Alessia thinks about me, but in her life, I do.

________________________________

this new update is wild

I have a mock tomorrow and I'm really and truly not revising I hate myself

yayyyyy

anyway early update to make me feel better

yayyyyy x2

this was quite a sad chapter I'm sorry

better luck next time!!!

-shut up u optimist

update: WE'VE REACHED 500 READS!!!

FABULOUS SONGS

Songs that played when I was writing this chapter (in order):
Start Of Time - Gabrielle Aplin
Secrets and Lies - Ruelle
Stay - Gabrielle Aplin
iT's YoU - ZAYN
Make Up Your Mind - Florence + The Machine
Wicked Game - Lauren Aquilina
The Power of Love - Gabrielle Aplin
Wanna Know - Sabrina Claudio
Louder - Neon Jungle

END OF FABULOUS SONGS

Date written:
29/09/18
30/09/18

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Next update: Saturday (aka my theory test which I'm gonna fail)
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CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN SPOILER:

As the GCSE exams begin, Olivia learns the art of breaking a heart.

But it wasn't her that broke it.

Olivia soon runs into an old foe, who is just as slimy as she remembers.

🕊