Our Toxic Love

Chapter Thirty One

*Ariana's POV*

I haven't talked to Ethan ever since our argument. The announcement the teacher was talking about was the annual ski trip. It's in about two days.

I finally came home two weeks ago after sleeping over at Danielle's for five days. My father and I are still not on speaking terms quite yet but at least I don't feel hatred boiling inside me when I see him now.

I'm packing my clothes for the ski trip. Honestly, I'm pretty excited. I don't know who's going exactly but I do know that Danielle is.

As if on cue, my phone rings and her name appears on the screen. I swipe the it and put her on loudspeaker.

"What are you packing? I don't know what to pack." She starts.

"Just some clothes to last me five days and my phone charger and-"

"You're useless, I already thought of those."

I roll my eyes at the phone as I fold my shirt and place it in my suitcase.

"Hey, Ari?" She says.

"Yeah?"

"How long haven't you talked to Ethan?"

My heart leaps at the sound of his name.

"A couple of weeks," I reply.

"Are you still mad at him for spreading that rumor?"

"I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. I thought he changed, you know?"

I already told Danielle everything that happened between Ethan and me that weekend. But I didn't tell her about my feelings towards him. Yet.

"Is the plan still on then?" She questions.

That damn plan.

"Yes." I mean, I think so.

"Good," she says. "Look, I know this is getting stupid and it's taking a lot of time but he's obviously into you now and it'll end the way we wanted it to."

I really don't think Ethan likes me. If he did, he wouldn't have done half the things he's already done to me. But I'm not going to argue with Danielle-I know better than to do that.

"Ari, I have to to," she says. "See you on Monday?"

"Sure," I say.

The line goes off.

*Ethan's POV*

Ariana hasn't talked to me for days and I'm not ashamed to say I pretty much miss her eye-rolling and the way she'd whine: Ethan whenever I attempt to make a move on her.

Our relationship is extremely complicated.

I still don't know what to do. I'm a hundred percent sure she likes Matt. She does. She kissed him several times and called herself his girlfriend. I cringe at the thought of the two of them together.

I'm sitting in the bus next to Matt. We're on our way to the ski resort. I should be excited-I've been looking forward for this for months. But with all the shit that's been going on these days, it's kinda hard.

I hate Matt. He's been my best friend for a really long time but the way he's starting to act these days is seriously annoying the fuck out of me.

Every time he sees Ariana, he shoots her kissy faces then laughs at my disgust. She usually ignores him-which I'm totally fine with. But he still needs someone to shove a skyscraper down his throat.

When the bus finally pulls over, I'm the first one to get out.

Everyone gathers around in the lobby. When I see Ariana, my stomach turns. Her hair just looks so soft and her body's as curvy as always and her lips just-

"May I have your attention please?" The hotel manager says. "You are all assigned to your rooms. The paper is on the bulletin board over there. Remember, females with females and males with males."

A lot of the guys groan in disappointment and the girls giggle but they all go to check their room numbers anyway.

I sit on an armchair, waiting for the throng around the board to lessen.

Matt walks over to me.

"Hey, dude," he says, "I'm rooming with some loser."

"Good for you," I tell him.

"Can we switch roommates?" He asks.

"I don't even know who my roommate is," I note.

"He's still got to be better than mine."

"I think they'd give us detention for a month or something if we do that," I say. "But yeah, go ahead and switch anyway."

He laughs.

The last time people tried to swap roommates, it was a complete mess and there were fights... Well, shit happened, basically. To guarantee this doesn't happen again, the employees and teachers made several copies of that paper on the bulletin board and are going to check the rooms every night or something.

"Who am I rooming with?" I ask. "Check for me."

Matt obliges. Moments later, he walks back. "Uh, dude, your name isn't on there."

I frown. "What?"

I get up and scan the paper. Every single name is on there except mine. I'm just about to start cussing when the manager walks back into the full room.

"There's been a slight mix up," he says loudly.

The room falls silent.

"We've made a mistake with the count of males and females," he continues. "This is the first time we here in Snowy Land Hotel suggest this... Small invasion of privacy. Ethan Miller?" Everyone turns to me. I stare back at him. "You'll have to room with Ariana Dales."