My world felt completely topsy-turvy. On one side, I had Leo. He was probably one of the best things that had happened to me in a good few years.

And then I have my brother, who has been ignoring me for the past couple of days since I got back from my day with Leo.

He didn't even acknowledge me as I walked through the door, just carried on watching the football on the tv and sip at his beer.

It was Monday morning now and my alarm was buzzing in my ear to wake me up, even though I had been awake for the past hour, just staring up at my ceiling and over-thinking things.

Gradually, I pulled myself up and out of bed towards my bathroom. I needed a shower but my effort was at a 0.

Despite that, I forced myself to shower so my hair felt cleaner than it did. My leg was still bruised and it was scabbed over, but thankfully it was still healing.

I also discovered that wearing jeans and leggings made it very itchy so I was going towards having to wear a dress or skirt.

I know I always said to myself that I would never want to wear anything that showed my legs off too much but I had too. Not only that but I had a new boosted confidence from Leo.

He said I looked good when I wore the skirt last time, and I just felt more like I shouldn't care what other people think.

I didn't have boys to impress anymore. As cheesy as it sounded, I didn't want to focus on anyone else. Leo and I liked each other, so what was the point in looking good for other people.

Plus, there was a dress I had bought ages ago that I did really want to wear.

Once I dried my hair the best I could, I pulled the long sleeved, grey dress out my wardrobe and slipped it on my body.

It fell just above my knees and the sleeves fit perfectly just over my wrists. It was also chilly today so I was grateful that the dress was a thick fabric.

Glancing at the time, I saw I had 10 minutes to leave so I rushed on some make up, just some simple eyeliner and mascara before shoving all the necessary books in my bag.

I pulled on some plain black pumps and made my way out the house. Harvey wasn't even awake yet, his bedroom door still closed and light snoring could be heard.

I wasn't even going to attempt to wake up him up. As mean as that is, I didn't want to cause an argument before the day had fully started.

As I made my way out the house, I grabbed some snacks from the kitchen cupboards for my lunch and headed to school.

My black denim jacket hung snugly around my body as the only proper form of defence from the cold wind that lightly blew around me.

Since I had my headphones in, my walk was particularly fast and I made it to school with 10 minutes before the first lesson.

Students were all swarming the entrance, chatting to each other about their weekends and catching up. I just headed straight to my locker so I could lighten the load of books from my bag.

I had DT first so I held onto my sketchbook and zipped my bag back up. As soon as I closed my locker, I noticed a blur of blonde hair moving towards me and my guard instantly went up.

It was Ivy. She didn't even hide that she was coming straight for me. Taking a few deep breaths, I prepared myself for what was about to happen. The last time I saw her she had physically hurt me so fuck knows what she would try and do this time.

"Hey Eliana!" She cheered brightly "Nice dress, your legs look great."

She wasn't subtle about what she said, clearly emphasising to the visible injury that she'd caused.

"Hi." My voice was small and I tried to avoid eye contact with her.

She laughed a little "You don't have to be scared of me Eli, I have no problem with you now."

I cringed inwardly at her for using my nickname but I couldn't help but feel confused. Why didn't she hate me anymore? I hadn't done anything she'd asked me to do.

"What do you mean?" I finally looked at her, noticing that she had a little bit more make up on than she usually did. Her lips were even a darker stain of pink from a lipstick.

"Nothing to worry about. Just know I'll leave you alone now." She smiled brightly again, tossing her long hair over her shoulder and leaving.

She wandered over to her group of friends that were just staring at me, a couple of them with smiles on their faces and a look that screamed 'I know something you don't'.

An uneasy feeling hit my stomach as I started making my way to my lesson.

I'll be honest, I completely forgot about Ivy since I was so wrapped up with Leo myself. It didn't properly hit me until now.

How we were going to act in school around others? We couldn't be close because of my brother, but he wasn't the only one watching us now.

Leo's Mum and Ivy were also going to keeping an eye on us which only made me feel more wary.

I didn't want to have to hide from everyone. I'd already lived my life in the shadow of Harvey and now that I had something that made me come out my shell, I had to throw it back into those lonely, pitiful shadows.

My thoughts distracted me for the most of my class. So much so that I didn't even register Leo moving his seat so he was on the same table as me.

He'd come in late to the lesson so that's why I hadn't even notice he was in the room.

"You ok?" He questioned as I played with the paint on the pallet in front of me. We'd already made the main parts of our GCSE work, now all that was left was drawing and painting our work to make the instructions on how to make the crappy pen holder look pretty.

My painting was pretty shit as art wasn't one of my skills but I still tried to make it look semi-decent.

At this moment in time though, I couldn't care less if I just made a mess of it all.

"Eh, as good as I could be." I shrugged a reply, mixing some red and blue to make a dark purple for my work.

Leo narrowed his eyebrows, his face looking at me with concern "What's wrong?"

I wanted to tell him, but I felt like talking to him too much would get noticed. Ivy and Harvey had a lot of friends in the school and a few of them were in the room at the moment so I didn't want people to tell either of them I was still talking to Leo.

"I can't talk about it now, but at practice tonight?" I offered so he wouldn't worry so much.

After a moment, Leo nodded his head before writing something down in his sketchbook.

Instantly, he ripped the piece of paper out, folded it up and quickly slid it over to me.

I furrowed my eyebrows at him, it picked up the paper nevertheless.

He had written a note one it.

"You look cute today, just didn't want to embarrass you by saying it out loud."

I felt heat go to my cheeks instantly and a smile plastered itself onto my face.

Glancing over to Leo, he was smiling right back at me.

I guess the day won't be as bad as I thought it would be...