Hey everyone, welcome back to the story, I hope you enjoyed the last chapter (although if you read it and then decided to read this one I'm hoping that means that you did :D). I hope you enjoy this chapter too!

As ever, I do not own Austin and Ally or anything you recognise from the show in any way, shape or form, nor do I own any recognisable brands, songs or lyrics within them.

. . . . .

Chapter Two: The First Day (Part 1 of 3)

Ally's POV

I turned onto Trish's street just as she walked out her front door, and as soon as we saw each other we squealed and ran to each other, meeting in a big hug, jumping up and down slightly. Ha, we must have looked so weird, I hope people didn't see…

I hadn't seen Trish in like 3 weeks because she'd been spending some time with her relatives abroad, she only got to see them during the summer and at Christmas. So, because of this, it had been a rather lonely few weeks for me, I never met up with the other girls unless Trish was there with me, because I just didn't feel comfortable around them without her there. I know, it sounds really ridiculous.

Anyway, we'd been spinning, jumping and hugging for around 10 seconds, squealing and quietly screaming incoherently about how much we'd missed each other and how happy we were to see each other again.

We would have continued this quite happily if our beautiful moment of reunion wasn't interrupted by some jerk speeding past us in a black Mercedes. Could they have possibly had a louder engine? As it sped down the street my ears were ringing from the roar of the engine that passed us, and I could see Trish was the same.

. . . . .

Austin's POV (Briefly)

As I was driving to school, when I turned down one street I saw two girls I vaguely recognised… I think they're in my year at school. One was a short brunette with caramel highlights and the other was even shorter with thick black curls. They looked like friendly people, so I considered pulling up and offering them a lift to be nice – I've decided that this year I should start to try and clear my name.

Then I remembered how many rumours there are about me, and thought that they had probably heard them. If they had, then they would probably think even worse of me if I suddenly offered them a lift having never met them before. They'd probably think I wanted to rape them or something.

Aaaand then I got angry. Angry at how the bad boy image made me look to other people, and I floored the gas and sped past them, feeling annoyed at everything and everyone.

Stupid rumours.

. . . . .

Ally's POV

We quickly recovered from the noise and collapsed into giggles when we saw each other's faces scrunched up as our ears desperately tried to block out the noise.

We started to walk towards school together side by side at a normal speed, we had about 20 minutes to get to school and it was about 10 minutes away, which meant I could get to my homeroom early and just sit with my songbook for a few minutes like I normally did.

"So, Trish, are you excited to be a junior?" I asked, turning to look at the shorter girl as we continued to walk.

"I don't know, I mean it doesn't really feel any different, but I know we're that one step closer to finally being done with school forever. Thank God." She replied. Trish had never been very fond of school, hence why she spent the majority of our calculus classes asleep. "But I'm kinda annoyed about the whole mixing-up-the-classes thing, now who's going to wake me in calculus when Mr Collins looks over at us?" I let out a chuckle.

"Oh no, you may have to pay attention!" I said sarcastically, knowing that would never happen. My theory was proved true by the look on Trish's face as she playfully scowled at me. "But at least we'll still be in Chemistry together."

"Yeah, true, I think I would kill my lab partner if it was anyone other than you." She said this playfully but I could tell there was some level of truth behind it, especially if her poor partner were to mess up the experiment. "But at least we only have two years left, then we're out of that hell-hole forever!"

"Yeah I feel the same way, really," I replied. "but won't you be even a little sad to see the end of High School?"

"Not really, I mean I know I'll stay in touch with you, no matter where we go to college, and that's all that really matters to me." Trish said back. She had other friends, unlike me, but she had always seemed to put me first, which made me very happy. "I can tell you one thing, though, I won't miss having to get up for classes so early." She continued, yawning and earning a small giggle from me. "So how was the end of your summer?"

"Well obviously not the same without you there. I didn't really do much, I just stayed at home relaxing, reading and writing a couple of songs."

"Ooh, anything good?" Trish asked enthusiastically. She had always been very supportive of my music and was always encouraging me to put myself out there and let the world hear me play, but she knew as well as I knew myself that my stage fright meant that would never happen. "I mean, everything you write is good but anything particularly amazing?"

I giggled again at her quick recovery even though I knew what she originally meant. "No, not really, just the usual kind of stuff." I don't write music to try and create masterpieces, I just use it as a way to relax and express my emotions at the same time. If the outcome is a good song, so much the better. "It was relaxing though, just being by myself with my piano and songbook."

"Listen, Ally, you know I say this as your best friend: you need to let loose more! You spend half your life on your own in your room, and yes I know that everyone needs time alone, but you have way too much of it for a teenager!"

I was used to this kind of speech by now. Trish was always trying to encourage me to get out of my shell and meet new people, but I didn't want to or need to! I am perfectly happy with my best friend and small group of acquaintances, and I was even happier when I could just write music or read a good book.

"Trish, we've been over this so many times, I'm perfectly fine how I am." I replied, honestly a little annoyed that the school year hadn't even officially begun yet and Trish was already doing this.

"Ally, you may be as you say 'perfectly fine', but you can be even better! Listen, you are an amazing, sweet, caring, wonderful person, and the more people that know this, the better! You could easily have tons of friends, everyone who really knows you really love you!"

"Well that may be true, but I don't want 'tons of friends', don't you see Trish, what I have makes me happy." I replied sweetly, smiling at her.

"Oh my God Ally, we're getting nowhere with this." Trish chuckled as she spoke.

"Nothing new, then." I replied jokingly.

"Look, all I'm saying is that you should go out more. You're a teenager! Go to parties with me! We can go dancing, we can go clubbing, there's a house party of some sort almost every weekend. Hell, even just going for a walk in the park would be better than just being cooped up in your house 24/7." Trish encouraged me gently.

"Okay, first of all, you know I can't dance. Second, those house parties are not a good idea – you know that someone is always gonna spike the drinks and you know that someone is gonna start a fight with someone else. Those parties never end well. And thirdly, I'm not cooped up '24/7', you know that I spend a lot of my time helping out at Sonic Boom, so it's not even like I have the time to go to these parties anyway, even if I wanted to."

I work at Sonic Boom pretty much every day after school. School lets out at 3:30, so I go home first and then get to the store in the mall for around 5. Normally I work until around 8, depending upon how busy it is, and my Dad stays behind after that until the store closes. I use the rest of the evening to do all my homework, although if it's quiet enough I can do some of it at Sonic Boom. I'm not complaining at all, I love working at Sonic Boom, and it's great that it gives me a chance to spend time with my Dad.

"Listen to yourself Ally, your whole life is spent at school or working." Trish was trying to remain calm and talk gently, but I could tell she was getting annoyed that I was being so defensive about my work. "Okay, I know when I'm beaten; you're never going to let me persuade you. But promise me that you'll let me take you to a party at least once this school year, just so you can see what you're missing out on. If you hate it, then oh well but at least you will have tried it."

"We'll see Trish, we'll see." I really didn't want to have to go to a party, but part of me knew that there was no point in trying to fight it, Trish was clearly determined about this, and once she sets her mind to something, she doesn't give up until she's got it.

. . . . .

Trish's POV

Argh, Ally could be so frustrating sometimes! All I want to do is introduce a little more fun into her life and make her happier. She thinks that her life is perfect how it is, but I know that she would be even happier if she just let loose a little, and I think deep down she knows it too.

I am not giving up on this. Ally needs to know what it's like to have more fun.

. . . . .

Austin's POV

I pulled into my usual spot in the school parking lot, sighing deeply as I braced myself for the hell-ish day that I had a horrible feeling I was going to receive.

The first day back at school always meant a new set of rumours and stories about me and what I'd been up to over the summer. It was always the same kind of thing: guys claiming I'd gotten wasted on nights out, girls claiming I'd slept with them and said I loved them, other guys saying I'd spent a few weeks in prison for who-knows-what, other girls claiming that I had nearly died from a blood infection that I got from a fight but that I was 'so strong and brave' that I survived.

I hate these rumours. The thing is, you'd think rumours like these would make people hate me and try to avoid me, because I was clearly some kind of monster, but somehow it managed to have the opposite effect – I became more popular the more rumours there were, presumably because they all just added to the bad-boy image everyone thinks I am.

Sometimes, I wish everyone just knew the real me and treated me that way. Obviously, Dez, Elliot and Alex all did because they were my true friends, but they were the only ones.

I could try and deny all the rumours and just tell them all the truth, and in the past I had tried to do that, but no one ever believed me so I just started accepting them and not even bothering to deny them. It wasn't worth it. I knew the truth and my real friends knew the truth and that was all that mattered… right? And, I mean, it wasn't like my life was bad because of them, they actually made my life easier.

Still, rumours are rumours, and it was annoying that people only liked me because of the stories rather than because of me being me.

As I looked out the windows I could see everyone huddled in little groups, catching up and talking about their holidays. I saw some of them huddled closer, whispering and giggling, a clear sign that they were gossiping and talking about rumours. Three guesses at who those rumours were probably about.

I could see Dez, Elliot and Alex in our usual spot on the grass just by the steps up to the entrance. I took a deep breath and opened the door, wanting to get over to them quickly – I wasn't in the mood to try and confirm or deny rumours and I really wasn't in the mood to have girls throw themselves at me and try to flirt. Whenever they did that I felt disgusting.

I stepped out of the car and started to move towards the school, but I only made it about two steps before I was practically pinned to the car and surrounded by the 'popular' girls. To be more specific, Carrie, Tilly, Kimmy and Violet. Sure, they're all pretty good-looking, but they're also all complete bitches. Like mega-bitch level. God, how I hate them. They're ruthless bullies who trample anyone and anything that gets in their way, whilst flirting and doing anything necessary to get what they want. And apparently, they're all obsessed with me. Just my luck.

They stood in a close semi-circle around me, trapping me between them and my car door. I cursed to myself and prepared myself for more of their annoyingly obvious flirting attempts. I sighed as I realised there was no escape.

"Hey Austy." Tilly said in an over-sweet voice, fluttering her eyelashes. This alone made me cringe and want to throw up. "How was your summer? Did you miss me?" She asked in a flirtatious voice, still fluttering her eyelashes and obviously sticking her chest out, trying and utterly failing to try and be subtle as she did this.

I just shrugged my shoulders a little and looked straight past them at my friends, praying they would see me and come and help me out of this situation before I lost the will to live.

"Of course, you missed me more, right?" Violet added, trying to be seductive. She was stood directly on my right, and placed her left hand on my shoulder. I felt disgusted having even this much contact with her. I can't believe I went on a date with her once. As the memories of that night came flooding back to me I shivered in disgust at the memory. Of course, I had to shiver right then, as Violet obviously thought I was shivering in delight at the touch of her on my shoulder. 'Damn it!' I thought to myself. She giggled at this and placed her right hand on top of her left, so she was facing me and her face was only centimetres from the side of mine. I was in living hell. I still refused to say anything.

"No matter, you're back now." Carrie said. She placed a hand on my chest and I had to fight the instinct to literally grab her hand and push her off of me into the car next to mine. "Wow Austy, you get more attractive every summer." She continued, also trying to be sexy and seductive as she bit her bottom lip and fluttered her eyelashes in the same way Tilly had done. I know that I should be happy that she gave me such a compliment, but I just felt uncomfortable. "Even when I don't think it's possible for you to be any hotter, you manage it." She continued with a smirk.

"Agreed!" Kimmy said in her incredibly annoying high-pitched voice, and then she giggled. She does that – giggles after everything she says pretty much. "You've got the whole package Austy!" Another giggle.

"But so do I, don't I Austy?" Violet said, her hands still on my shoulders. Obviously, I didn't answer her and just smirked at how stupid the situation was. And of course, Violet took this as me agreeing with her. "Right answer, Austy!" She said over-enthusiastically before giggling like Kimmy. "We're both perfect!" Then she leaned her head on her hands on my shoulder. I wanted nothing more than to just shrug her off but I resisted.

Carrie, who had her hand on my chest still, started tracing her finger around on my t-shirt over my chest and around the rest of my torso, pulling down slightly on the v-neck of the t-shirt. I sighed, bored of their company and trying to think of a way to get away from them, and whaddya know, Carrie took this as a sigh of pleasure and giggled, continuing her actions.

Tilly, who was stood on my left, wrapped her arms around my left arm, which had my hand stuffed into my jeans pocket. She looked up at me and smiled over-sweetly.

"Oh, Austin." Kimmy said. "You're so lucky, I mean look at you, you could have any of us!" She giggled again and moved forward towards him slightly. "Especially me!" She added, speaking barely above a whisper, before winking and giggling again. I groaned in annoyance, and all the girls giggled thinking it was from pleasure.

I'm pretty sure this counts as sexual assault.

How long would this go on for?

. . . . .

Ally's POV

The rest of our walk to school was fairly quiet, as we walked just making small talk to prevent silence. Neither of us were really paying too much attention to the walk, what we were saying or what the other was saying really. We were both still half-asleep, not used to getting up early again after the long summer break.

Because of this we were both a little surprised when we suddenly realised we were at school already when we walked through the gates.

As my eyes moved around the parking lot, I saw a familiar black Mercedes – the one that had sped past us when we met up and nearly caused my ear drums to burst. Looking closer, I saw the driver. Surprise surprise, it was none other than Austin Moon.

Ugh. Austin Moon. The school's bad boy. He was a renowned player and just generally seemed like not a very nice guy. I wasn't at all surprised to see that he was surrounded by the 'popular girls', Tilly, Carrie, Kimmy and Violet, and that they were practically throwing themselves at him. Violet had her head on his shoulder, Tilly had her arms wrapped around his, Carrie had her hand all over his torso and Kimmy stood there giggling and fluttering her eyes at him.

Those four girls were horrible. They were the nastiest people it was possible to come across, bullying innocent freshmen as well as people in our year. They'd even bullied me at the start of sophomore year, but I guess they got bored of me and moved onto their next target. No wonder they were so attracted to Austin, they all seemed like a perfect match for him.

Whilst this was happening though, he just… stood there. He just leant against his car door, looking bored and expressionless, just letting these girls jump all over him. He just seemed rude, not even acknowledging them as they did their best to get his attention. If he wasn't enjoying it he could at least say so, but I guess he just like the attention. Of course he did.

I feel a little bad just judging him like this, I've never actually spoken to him, but to be honest I have no desire to ever speak to him at all. He seems like a complete jerk the way he acts around school, he looks like a stereotypical bad-boy, and some of the stories about him are unbelievable. I heard that during the summer, he went on holiday to England, got a girl there pregnant and then just left her without giving her any kind of support. I hope to God that isn't true, because even the thought of that just disgusts me! But, judging by his reputation, I wouldn't be surprised.

One thing I know is that it's best to avoid guys like him.

. . . . .

Austin's POV

I glanced down at Carrie's hand that was still moving around on my chest and looked at her wrist watch. The bell would ring in about 5 minutes, so at least I knew that at that point I could finally be free.

Suddenly, Tilly hopped back away from me and unhooked her arms from mine. Looking over at her, I saw a look of worry and disgust on her face. "Austin, is it true that your sister walked in on you and Emma having sex and it turned into a threesome?" All the girls gasped and moved away from me, staring in disgust.

"WHAT!?" I shouted back in shock – I've kind of got used to the rumours, but this one is even more ridiculous for three reasons: 1) I'm a virgin, believe it or not 2) Who the hell is Emma? 3) I don't even have a sister!

They all stood there for a few seconds, before rushing back to their previous positions, smiling and giggling. "It doesn't matter, Austy, I still love you!" Tilly said

"And me!" Added Carrie.

"And me!" Said Violet.

"And me!" Kimmy finished, giggling again.

"Girls, listen to me, that rumour is NOT true!" I said forcefully, I am sick to death of these rumours, and they're just getting worse.

"Of course we believe you Austy!" Violet said as she continued to lean her head on my shoulder, even though it was completely obvious that she didn't.

I'd had enough of them for one day, so without wasting another second I just pushed past them all and walked away. I felt horrible for being so rude towards them, but at the same time I was just over it. "Bye, Austy, see you later!" I heard them calling and giggling behind me, and I groaned in frustration as I quickly walked towards my real friends.

"Hey guys." I said as I reached them.

"'Sup Austin, how's it going man?" Alex asked, giving me a fist-bump.

"Horrible, you know how it is on the first day. Rumours everywhere." I replied in an annoyed tone, thinking back to the one Tilly had said.

"Oh yeah, I've heard some stunners already today." Dez replied grimly.

"Yeah, me too. Some of the stuff people can come up with is ridiculous." Elliot added in the same tone of voice.

See, my friends all knew that the rumours were a bunch of lies, and that's all that mattered really, because I would never even see 95% of the people in my year again after high school, so I simply had to endure them until then. Honestly, anyone who believed those rumours wasn't worth my time.

We all walked up the steps into the school and separated off to go to our lockers. Thankfully I could stay with Dez, cos his locker was right next to mine. I really didn't want to be on my own, because when I am I just get swarmed with girls flirting and giving me their numbers, telling me to call them and it just drives me crazy.

Normally, at this point, we would be expected to be catching up on how each other's summers were, as we walked through the hallway to our lockers. But, for us, this would be completely pointless, considering how we already knew having spent pretty much every day hanging out.

On the whole, the summer had actually been pretty… uneventful. We'd just done normal teenage guy stuff really, hanging out, going to the park, playing sports (although Dez was pretty useless at this), a few parties here and there, hanging by the pool in Dez's back yard (that guy lives in a mansion, it's crazy), that kind of thing.

I can't say I was particularly happy to be back in school, because… well, it's school. But at the same time it was kind of a relief just knowing I had something to do, I was starting to get a bit bored and everything was just repetitive.

As we continued our walk to our lockers, talking about something random (this was Dez after all) I could still feel every single pair of female eyes on me. As I looked around, I received countless winks and flirty smiles. I was getting even more attention than I normally do, and I can't really say I liked it. I mean, there's always a girl or two doing this as I walk around, but today it had hit a new level. It was weird.

After what seemed like an eternity, and a thousand suggestive looks later, we finally got to our lockers. I got out my folders and notebooks for my first two lessons so that I wouldn't have to come back to my locker in between. Dez wasn't in my homeroom, so I said goodbye before setting off in that direction.

Once I got to homeroom, I took my usual seat in the back corner of the room, trying to draw as little attention to myself as possible. I sat there quite happily in my own little world, waiting for the bell to ring and the day to officially begin.

. . . . .

Ally's POV

"Can you see them?" Trish asked me as we stood there in the parking lot looking for 'the girls', Trish's other friends who I tolerated.

"Hm… hmmm?" I mumbled, snapping out of the daze I didn't realise I was in as I stood looking over at Austin and the populars.

"I said can you see the girls?" Trish asked more sternly.

I glanced around and saw them all huddled by the steps. "Yeah, there they are." I said, pointing to them.

We walked over and all greeted each other in the normal way, asking questions we didn't care about the answers to and giving each other hugs.

"So, are you guys excited for junior year?" Piper asked as we all walked up the steps to the door. She was nice enough, pretty as hell and easy to talk to. The reply she got was a bunch of sighs and groans mixed with a few mumbles of how it should be better than last year. When we realised how ridiculous we sounded all of us started laughing gently.

"Ooh, have you guys seen Austin yet today?" Brooke spoke out. This was a typical thing for Brooke to say and I was surprised it took her this long to bring it up to be perfectly honest. She is… borderline psychotic, I would say, and she pretty much stalks Austin.

All the other girls except Trish and I swooned slightly at the thought of him, causing me to giggle a little, but I tried to not make it obvious.

"I swear he gets hotter all the time…" Piper said, clearly in a fantasy world where she was with Austin as she stared into space.

There was no denying it, Austin is certainly a very attractive guy, with his perfect blonde hair and deep brown eyes, but I couldn't honestly say I understood what all the hype is about, there are loads of attractive guys in our year, plus why would anyone want to be with him if he's as bad as the rumours say?

"But have you guys heard the latest rumour?" Cassidy, the strawberry-blonde girl, said. 'This should be good.' I thought to myself. "Well apparently he wanted to have sex with Amelia, but they didn't have a condom, so instead they used an empty Doritos bag!"

"Eeeeewwwwww!" All of us said at once, scrunching up our faces in disgust. "That's horrible!" I said, and everyone nodded in agreement.

"Although…" Cassidy said. I wondered what she was going to say, how could she possibly defend that? "He must have really liked her if he was willing to do that just to please her. That's actually sorta sweet." She said.

I felt my jaw literally hit the ground. Was she being serious?

Everyone else (apart from Trish) seemed to agree with Cassidy, though, and they all nodded slightly and started swooning again.

"I heard he was with Violet, though." Brooke said, a little disappointed.

"No, Violet's single I thought…" Piper countered.

"I thought she was with Aaron…" Cassidy thought out loud.

"No she dumped Aaron yesterday." Piper said.

"Wait, wasn't Aaron going out with Olivia?" Brooke.

"No that ended a couple of months ago." Cassidy.

"Hang on, Violet said she got together with Austin last night." Brooke.

"But isn't Austin with Carrie?" Piper.

"No they dated for like 3 days last year." Brooke.

This is just a standard conversation for the girls, and it drives me insane! I get this daily! And as you can see, me and Trish don't really say a lot, we just listen to them talking at a million miles per hour, I can barely understand a word they say.

I think they eventually came to the conclusion that Austin is single and that Violet made it up, although to be perfectly honest I'm not entirely sure, their gossiping is like a foreign language to me.

We eventually had to split up to go to our lockers, somewhat to my relief, and Trish's was right next to mine so we walked together. I got out my folders for my first two lessons whilst Trish did the same and then we walked to homeroom (we're in the same for that, too).

When we got there I took my usual seat in the front row and Trish took the seat next to me. We were still a few minutes early so there were only a couple of other people in the room, although I didn't really see who they were. There was someone sat by the window and someone right in the back corner.

When we sat down I pulled my songbook out of my bag and turned to a new page, doodling and writing odd phrases that came into my head as I made light conversation with Trish, waiting for the bell to go.

. . . . .

Austin's POV

I was sat there waiting, and there was about 5 minutes left before the bell rang. I was just thinking about how all the rumours started, trying to think about where it all began. I couldn't really remember, but I'm pretty sure the whole bad-boy image thing started about halfway through freshman year…

I was interrupted from my thoughts when the door opened. Looking up out of curiosity to see who it was, I instantly recognised them as the two girls I nearly offered a lift to this morning. At least now I knew where I thought I knew them from. They were in my homeroom, even though I don't think I had any lessons with either of them.

I started thinking back to when I sped past them. Should I have stopped and offered them that lift? Maybe if I had and they realised that I was actually a nice guy, then at least that would be two less people who believed the stories and I'd be on my way to completely clearing my name. But then I remembered how it wouldn't matter because there'd always be someone who didn't believe it who would start another rumour, and the whole thing is just one vicious cycle.

I sighed in annoyance and rested my head on the table, deciding that I should just accept my life how it is and be happy with how it was. I'd had enough – everyone thought I was a bad boy and treated me like one, so why the hell should I even bother trying to act differently if nobody's ever gonna believe it? Screw it, if they wanted me to act like a jerk to people then I would.

I instantly hate myself more.

. . . . .

Hey everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! We got our first insight into what the rumours really are and a look at Ally's current impression of Austin!

The next chapter will be more of their first day. I was originally gonna do the whole day in one chapter, but as I wrote I realised it would be a bit too long so I should just split it into two, which then became three!

Please remember to review, favourite and follow, it really means a lot!

Catch you later!