I love this. I enjoyed her sharp comebacks so much, quietly cheering for her to stay strong. I can imagine so many girls like me who were once victims of high school gossip hurting for Ariana. You did a wonderful job making us feel every step in her walk of shame.

This sounds amazing...can't wait to read the rest. Good work.

AMAZING! I'm sooo loving this story! Great job! I also really like Ethan and Arianna together. :)

OH WOW...This is incredible! First of all, I am BEYOND interested in the story line. Second, the characters are established well and either you love to hate them, or you love them...I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS STORY SO FAR. I'll try to read the next chapter as soon as I find time (more than likely sometime late tonight or tomorrow!) Keep writing!

Hey, long time no review, huh? I have reasons though. Uh, mostly life and the fact that I needed to get away from a lot of stuff. It was pretty necessary, and by the time I got over all my emotional stuff, I had school to focus on and that took awhile to get over. I repented though! Summer vacation started a month ago, and one of my main goals was to re-read this story so I tortured myself by waiting a month to do so. Believe me, it was hard but made it all the more better when I got to re-read your story over again. I had a pen name change for my return! I used to be LivingHerOwnFairyTale. Now, I hope you can excuse this rambled mess that I can tell this review will be.

Okay, this won't be a "normal" review, it'll be like a masterpost of my thoughts over what I've read the last 9 days. I started to read LFIM over again, but I decided to go back to the very start with TLIW. You're still editing the story over again, and I must say that it's really fun to read over again and by left on a cliffhanger! I also read WILT over again, and this one's completed and GAH SO MANY EMOTIONS ALL OVER AGAIN. I think it may be my favourite from your trilogy, there was just so much! I wanted to cry so many times for Spencer, knowing what's become of him. Some things also became more obvious to me the second time around, like how Riley and Sienna were going to be together. It's always a surprise though, going from sweet, cute Ariana to the one we see in LFIM. I'm guessing media was her biggest influence? Aha, either way - I think Ariana is extremely interesting.

The two main leads, Ethan and Ariana have always been my favourites in this one. They're both so similar. I just want to knock some sense into the both of them, like smack a book at them or something. Ariana is currently under the delusion that her and Ethan are siblings because of a few words she caught during an argument Sienna had with Monique. Gosh, this girl just has to ask someone about it! I can see how she'd come up with that conclusion, I would have if I didn't read the previous stories, but she's not the only child Sienna had. I hope she doesn't feel too stupid once she finds out the truth. I wonder how that'll be uncovered though, and how everyone will take the news when it's finally revealed. Hmm, Monique is causing quite a bit of trouble. I like her character, not her personality. She's a pretty shit mother, and person - holy hell, I laughed when she kissed Riley. It wasn't funny or anything, okay maybe a little because Riley probably brushed his teeth for awhile when he went home, but it was pretty shocking and I truly wonder if she thought her advances would work on him. Oh and one of my favourite moments was when Sienna and Monique were having that argument, and Sienna was confident in Riley not cheating on her because not only did she trust him, but she has faith in herself! Sienna really does amaze me sometimes, I'm so proud of her. She's come so far from TLIW and I feel like a parent right now :') I love Sienna and Ariana's relationship. It's not an extremely close relationship where they can both tell the other every little thing, but that doesn't mean they are't close. Riley and Sienna seem to have embedded family importance into Max and Arie's head pretty well, and although their family isn't exactly perfect, to someone like Ethan, it sure as hell is close to perfect as it can be. I loved it when Sienna just silently held Ariana's hand and it was exactly what she needed then.

I was very surprised that Ariana was jealous of her mother's physical appearance! I've always thought that Ariana was pretty confident in that area. Speaking of her physical beauty, I can't believe this slipped my mind (but I love these ladies, so can you really blame me when I go on about them?) DRAKE. Oh Drake. What can I say about the guy? I never pegged him for one of abuse when he first appeared, maybe that time when he more than insisted for Ariana to stay late, but I'm not surprised that Ariana would take that from him. She's in a very emotional state, and she thinks she has no one there to comfort her. Sure, she has her family but they don't always count in situations like this. Back to Drake - this boys is sick in the head, and I'd say worse than Ariana. Drake's been telling her that he hates her burns, so I'm just going to patiently wait for the moment when Ethan says something to comfort Ariana about them. I liked Drake at first, mostly for his name, and because I knew he'd be a character to create problems and those ones are always the most interesting. He's still interesting, but now he just disgusts me. I'm a bit disappointed in Ethan for not calling the cops, but he knows Ariana's in a fragile state and he shouldn't try to take of something that she insisted she'd rather do herself. That doesn't help me out much though, since I want Drake to get what's coming to him soon, preferably from Riley but whatever way you decided will obviously be the best.

Can I go onto Talley now? I stopped off sometime after the fire the first time, so I just recently found out she abandoned her friendship with Ariana, was Ethan's first, and is in love with him. Well damn. That's a lot. I don't really know how I feel about this betrayal. I'm pretty sure that she truly was Ariana's friend, I'm hoping she still is, and I think that if you really loved someone once - any form of love - then you can't really ever stop loving them. It's hard to stop caring. She's probably hurt in many ways, particularly due to Ethan and Ariana, but I don't think there's ever going to be a good reason to leave a friend like that, even if there's something more to it than we know.

Okay, Riley! A lovable man, who used to be one of the biggest assholes to walk the earth. I think I'm liking mature, calm and collected Riley more than younger!Riley but if I went back to reading TLIW then I'd be saying the opposite. I think Riley and Ethan's relationships is one of my favourites. I'll just go ahead and say that the relationships between Riley and Ethan, Sienna and Ariana, Riley and Sienna and obviously, Ethan and Ariana are my absolute favourites in this one. Riley is like a father figure to Ethan right now, but I also see him playing a friend-like role. I really liked that little therapy session that Riley had with Ethan a couple of chapters ago. Ethan wanted help before he relapsed, and Riley saw it fit that the way to help Ethan would be to show him the cold, hard truth. Him and Sienna have a greater understanding of each other in this one, as expected for how long they've known each other, but it still amazes me how much they love each other. I'm pretty sure that if Ethan saw them interact long enough, he'd believe in love.

That leads me into Ethan! I actually think he's already opened up to the concept of love, and is starting to experience it himself. I doubt he in love with Arie just yet, but he's been the right path since the beginning. Ethan's always kept to himself, and didn't really bother with anyone else so I can see how he'd be concerned when he found himself genuinely worrying and caring about Ariana. Despite coming to that realization, this guy's still keeping to himself. Whenever I was reading parts where he'd hold off, I've always just wanted to tell to him to push it and intrude on her life. If you don't nag about anything, you're not going to be able to truly help her and that's what Ariana needs! She needs help, and she won't accept it from anyone until they push it. I just want Ethan to take a stand and do something, Ariana's a girl that's got him feeling new feelings so now he needs to do new things and try to help the girl overcome her problems. I guess what Talley unloaded onto him has also got him holding back. Him and Ariana just need to spill their guts to each other, clear some misunderstandings and get together. It would definitely relieve a lot of people, fictional and real! Ethan's got a lot of stuff going on, and I wonder how he's going to deal with all of it. Actually, I was waiting for this whole closet bit for awhile, actually. I just hope Ariana doesn't wake up to even more trouble.

Not some necessary words that are partially unrelated to the story. You've always been my favourite author on fictionpress, and you still are. I find your stories more enjoyable to read than many of the published books I've read. Your stories always have a lot going on, tons of drama, and I'm not usually into that because it can easily become a big mess. You just have this way of... taking things at a perfect pace, and introducing things at right times so it all fits? I don't know how you do it, but whatever it is, it's very effective. I guess your life hasn't been the best, and you're busy too so I hope you know that there are people reading this story that will wait a long time for you to update. I don't want you to rush your updates so that you'll produce something that you're not proud of, because I'm sure you'd feel bad that you didn't give it your best. Whether it be because of life, or you've just lost the inspiration to write this story - take as long as you want to write. You're an amazing person, and I'm not talking about your writing talent either, so I hope life gets better for you! I'm making a promise to stay diligently by this story from now on, there may be a few exceptions for some late reviews, but I'm not going to disappear from this site for such a long time for awhile so I hope you know that you've got me! My last review that I sent this story would have been a year tomorrow, but it's been only 364 days so I feel slightly accomplished! This review, it doesn't even deserve to be call that though, is just me vomiting my feelings about this story so I hope you were able to bear with me. Thank you for writing this story! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I feel like you're doing me a huge favour by writing this and I'm grateful.

GAH! why doesn't she just tell him? and she isn't even completely sure their related! And she doesn't ask her parent either! This is so frustrating! and why exactly did Tammy ditch her? I mean Ari practically saved her life! update soon!

Really good. "Alright," isn't a word though. It's "all right." In all languages. Sorry, lol...

Anyway, again, really good.

Keep Writing

-DerpOnRainbows

once again, ethan's awesome. he's so...wonderful and caring! i would say that i want one of him myself, but i think i've got one better. haha. i'm glad that they are almost together! also, his mom is stupid, stupid, stupid. WHY wouldn't she check in the closet? that's the first place to look! but, whatever. we didn't want them to be found anyways. btw, i really didn't know that drake was being that serious with her. (you know what i mean) and i really hope something is done about it. maybe have ethan beat him up? :) but, anyways, this is a good chapter-you write better than the famous author i am reading now-and i love you! now i'm all caught up!

LOTS of favorite quoties:

-Somehow I made my way up the stairs and into my room. I didn't bother to turn the lights on. I didn't want to. Light made everything so much clearer externally, but so much more dull inside my brain. If I turned the lights on I would forget about this for a while. My eyes would make me forget.

-I didn't want to forget, because I didn't want to feel what I felt for Ethan a single moment longer.

-Because it was dirty, it was wrong, so goddamn wrong.

-I fell asleep before the rest of my family got home that night, fell right into a place of fitful dreams.

-There was no escape from the truth now; Ethan even followed me into my dreams.

-I didn't know how long it was before I got back to school, I didn't keep track of the days. Even the idea of getting up made me feel sick and dizzy. I had no motivation. It had all been stolen by the truth.

-Drake came around one time. I didn't say a thing – didn't even move – as he hitched up my nightdress and had sex with me. I didn't feel the pain when he hit me hard across the cheek. I couldn't even remember why he'd hit me – he usually only did it when I did something wrong.

-And I took it, because there was nothing left to do. I couldn't even cry when he shoved me down afterwards and left without another word, zipping his pants back up as he did. I couldn't even move from where I lay in my now wet sheets.

-When I turned onto the next street someone ran out from a nearby house. Whoever he was, he didn't have an umbrella either, and his dark hair was getting wet quickly. I didn't know who he was until he stopped in front of me. Didn't even know that he was coming out into the rain for me…

-"Ariana," he said with his liquid voice. An especially large rain drop hit him in the centre of his forehead and dripped down off his beautifully shaped nose…the same nose as my father.

-"What are you doing here?" he said, reaching out to touch my arm. "What are you…?" he stopped. His eyes were lost, as were mine in his. I didn't really know who he was at all.

-The rain still poured down on our shoulders, Ethan's hair was drenched through, now. As was mine. His clothes were completely peppered with darkened splotches across his shoulders.

-But maybe that was right – for me to have the physical symptoms of what I was feeling deep inside.

-His eyes widened when he saw what it was, his hand closing quickly to keep the damaging rain from its paper surface. "How did you…? Was it in my wallet?" His eyes were still wide as he looked down at me. He looked as though he'd found the end of the rainbow.

-I looked back into his eyes then. The way he said my name was just too beautiful. He was too much. "I've been sick." I whispered. My throat was tight from not talking, my voice only a faint whimper of what it had once been. I had no soul left in me to put behind my words.

-"Come inside," he told me softly – his voice carried easily on the wind. His eyes were holding too many emotions…why did it have to be now that he finally felt something for me? Why not before?

-I shook my head and blushed. Actually blushed. All I could think about when he offered me a shower in his bathroom was that I'd be in the same place he'd been naked before so many times. Sickly, that turned me on. And I didn't want that, I was trying to avoid that.

-I broke out of my lull, out of being submerged and only half feeling. The bright lights of Ethan's room in the gloomy day hurt my eyes and sent rainbows spiralling around them. His smell engulfed my senses, because it wasn't only Ethan in the room, it was where he lived, where he slept…and presumably where he got himself off. There was every smell he'd ever had on any part of his body in here. The mixture of musk, fresh sweat, and male deodorant hung in the air. Ethan himself was bending over, picking something off the ground. The muscles along his back were faint behind the material of his shirt, but they were there. His mahogany brown hair was in half dry disarray – one where I could tell that he'd tried to fix the front, but had forgotten entirely about the back. It looked like well-slept bed hair from this angle. My lips tingled; I wanted to kiss him so badly.

-"Ethan," I said faintly before I had the chance to stop his name slipping from between my lips. He froze where he was, before he quickly rose to a stand and looked at me. He full on looked at me, as though I was hiding the secrets of the universe from him. "I…I

-He saw that what he'd done had had an effect on me, and I saw a hint of a grin twitch at his mouth. Which was so wrong. He knew that I liked what I saw, and he'd done it on purpose. The arsehole.

-He sat down beside me on the bed; it made me lean towards him as it gave in to his larger weight. My breathing stuttered as he reached out and put an arm around me. I held it all in when he made contact all along the back of my shoulders and where his hand was grasping the top of my right arm. My muscles screamed out at me from the lack of oxygen.

-"Arie," he whispered my pet name. Only my mum called me that, I'd thought no one else knew it existed. His breath stirred the dry strands of my hair; with his hand he brushed my wet locks away from the side of my face. "You're not." He knew that I wasn't. I didn't think I'd ever be alright ever again. "What happened?" he was sure talking a lot for Ethan.

-"Break up with him." He said with certain finality in his tone. As though he was ordering me to do it. He might have been my brother, but he didn't know it, and he certainly didn't own me.

-"Ariana," He moaned in such a vulnerable voice that I had to double take to check that it was really him, "Why are you doing this to me?"

-So I did. With a deep breath, I pulled up the hem of the too big hoodie to reveal my stomach and ribs. The bruises and marks. He groaned and diverted his bright green eyes away from my body. Even the scars from the burns couldn't hide what Drake had done to me.

-He leant his head back into the door, revealing his pale throat. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. I wanted to race to him and hold him. To make all the pain and the misunderstanding go away.

-"No. I trust you." He admitted to the ceiling.

-It was funny, because he really shouldn't have, considering what I wanted to do to him.

-"I'll be okay," I tried to reassure him, but my voice was too weak and uncertain. Even I didn't believe me.

-He shushed me with his eyes.

-"Call me all the names you want later," he whispered right in my ear, his eyes on the door.

-Even after that thought I still couldn't help but awkwardly turn myself around and leaning back into his chest. He was so damn alluring. Thankfully, there was nothing in his pants that had become hard. The softness of his shirt and skin cushioned the hardness of his muscles; he wrapped his arms around my waist and let me lean my head back into his chest.

-His lips brushed my neck and raised millions of goose bumps in all sorts of places. It felt as though I'd just been zapped with a defibrillator, my heart was racing so fast that I was afraid it was going to die of exhaustion.

-He was so close when he next spoke. "Don't."

-I was lost, lost in the feeling of his warm hands and non-intrusive butterfly kisses.

-"Don't lose any more."

-His fingers outlined a raised cut on my left hip and he kissed me again on the neck, this time slightly harder. It was enough for me to lose myself in, and turn my head up to face him.

-"Ethan," his name made me warm as it slipped from my lips, and at the sound of it, he held me a little tighter.

-I leant in to him more, our foreheads met; I could taste him on my tongue. I wanted so much more…

all i'm gonna say is: GO ETHAN! i am really sick of monique being a freaking douche to her son. now that i know more about her, i really don't like her. and seriously, what has ariana done to her? she needs to step off. i really love ethan and i think they're perfect together. i think that ethan can help ariana-if she'd let him! i want them to get together already. seems like they don't have a problem (the whites) with him, so maybe he could just live there?

btw, i am STILL on you for what's wrong with sienna. you're just being mean now! :)

love you. -tangledwebweweave

favorite quoties:

-I was trying to prove to myself that I could still do it – that I could just go on without thinking about her – but it was clear to me in that moment that I was completely wrong. It wasn't working. Not at all.

-I knew that he'd done it on purpose, so that all I could do was take her back to her house and drop her off. Any longer then the rest of the Whites would be standing in the cold waiting for their way home. Riley sure was a scheming bastard. He trusted me with her in the car, but not in his house.

-I felt a stutter go through my veins. Sure, he trusted me with his only daughter…but why the fuck had he trusted me with his car? Something like this was worth a fortune. I could see myself wrecking it due to pure excitement.

-If he knew of the ways I'd been thinking about her in the past few months, then he wouldn't let me near her at all.

-I started up the car as carefully as I could and progressed to backing out of the parking spot. The air between the two of us was tense for the first few minutes. I hadn't been in an enclosed space, so close to her for such a long time. There was no way for her to avoid me, and there was no way for me to ignore her. My heart was pounding in my throat, an experience that wasn't exactly pleasurable.

-When there was no instant response I couldn't help but look at her. She was in the passenger's seat, the cuffs of her leather jacket pulled down over her hands. She didn't look tough, she looked fucked over and innocent. It broke my heart.

-I waited. I wasn't being brushed off that easily.

-Once I was in I seriously considered flicking on the ignition and just driving away without her. There was nothing she could have done to stop me, that was for sure...but the moment of consideration passed, and I actually looked at it through more realistic eyes. There was nothing immediate she could do, but she could just make my life more of a living hell when she finally found a way home.

-"What the fuck ever." I bit back, bringing the car to a stop and pulling over to the side of the road. I turned it off, took out the keys, and opened the door with a rough creak.

-"Fuck you!" I threw back at her, cutting her off mid shout.

-The clouds from earlier had cleared, and all that was left to be seen was millions upon millions of stars scattering the black velvet sky. There was no moon tonight. The only light was that from a trillion suns too far away for us to feel their light any more than as just a pinprick in the sky. They were all suns in their own regards, a part of the Milky Way, one of the millions of galaxies that exist in the universe. I couldn't remember a time where the sky had made me feel more insignificant than this. It was enough to calm me a little, get some perspective.

-No, that was wrong, my mother was kissing him. Sliding her arms around him, and teasing the edge of his shirt. Riley was just standing there, frozen. Much like myself. I wondered if he wanted to vomit as much as I did. She'd fucked up my life, but she wasn't going to fuck up Sienna's, and more importantly, Ariana's. I wasn't going to let that happen. Not on my life.

-Ethan: One

Monique: Zero

Nah, they can't be related! But they so cute together, for real. Like AH JUST KISS. Dammit! You're not even related to him. :( I want them to GET TOGETHER like now. Yeah, okay, now that I'm all done with that...

Um, Ariana...I wish she would stand up for herself. The poor thing. She always seems so strong and now she just...broke I guess? It's saddening, makes me want to give a fictional character a hug lol. I absolutely love Ethan! He seems like a good person with good morals and what not. He should kick Drake's ass too. Douchebag.

I notice you write "arse" a lot. Ahaha. It entertains me. :) And the summary! I got excited when I saw it in this chapter. Yayy! Anyways, very amazing chapter. I loved it a lot, flawless writing as well. Update soon, I'm on edge! Talk to you soon,

-dontneedyou

Lol! Ethan's mother is such a hoe. Poor Riley, can't you see he doesn't like you? :p Anyway, I feel so bad for Ariana, like she really doesn't know what to do. And shes very confused it seems. So is Ethan. Hey, whattya know? That works out perfectly, they should hook up! LOL. But yeah, they would be an incredible couple. I want them to admit their damn feelings to each other because come on, we all know you've got them. I want them to kiss too. :( Waah. Lol! Fantastic chapter like always, and on I go.

-dontneedyou

Ahh! I forgot how damn good your writing is. :) I know I haven't read for a while, as I too have been going through a lot of shit that just put me down. Are you better now, then? So I'm very excited to read the rest of your updates. For real, Ariana and Ethan are just amazing together. I almost died at the part where he punched Ewan and then their moment after that. Seriously so sweet. I've been waiting forever. I bet you missed me. :p I seriously missed your writing, it is so beautiful; you just really know how to put words together so that they flow well. It's pretty darn amazing, if I do say so myself.

I'm trying to get back into this stuff. I can't believe I haven't updated for over a year. But I updated yesterday! So proud of myself. Ah, life's been tough, what can you do. I hope you've found your muse again. Your story is too good for you to not want to write it. I'm pretty sure I haven't reviewed or read a story on FictionPress for over a year as well, so you're my first so far.

-dontneedyou

Naaw... This story is worth commendable. It's really amazing. :D I can't wait for the next update.. :D

You're so amazing I think I'm about to have a heart attack. I'm not even kidding.

Damn. Why can't they be unrelated? I want them to be together. I can't imagine myself in Ariana's place, I'll lose my head. That's for sure. lol.

Great chapter! Update soon!