A scandalmonger is a person who stirs up public outrage towards someone or their actions by spreading rumours or malicious gossip. They're the cause for ruining the lives and publicity of a person and I'm supposed to be one of them right now.

The post was released on RedRow at exactly 6:45AM. The account that made the post was deleted five minutes after the post was released. There were hundreds of comments and many new posts around on the website with people digging up my past, trying to figure out which school I went to, and what exactly I did. There are speculations around what I've done but none of them are close to even guessing what happened.

HARLEY KINGSLEY IS A FUCKING DEFAMER

DOES THE FIRST RANKER HOLD SOMETHING AGAINST THE BOARD MEMBERS?

WHAT EXACTLY DID SHE DO TO GET INSIDE THE SCHOOL?

SHE'LL GET YOUR SECRETS AND HOLD THEM AGAINST YOU: IS THAT HOW SHE GOT IN THIS SCHOOL?

Was her admission really honest—or is it just something to avoid yet another scandal at Redville?

Posts like this are all over the app with their content repeating the exact same thing for the most part—that my admission in this college is not honest and that I'm likely to hold something against upper board members that ruin their, or their children's life and career. That's what a defamer does, afterall. If Asher Hale thinks I can't play this game with him, he's wrong. I've been playing it longer than he thinks, and I've won it every single time.

People don't approach me in dance class. The groups are made and I leave immediately after, knowing that people are looking at me and remembering the rumour that has spread about me. I remember Elliot's words on how a rumour can ruin a person's life. I'm the talk of Redville once again. People will speculate, people will question, people will speak—just like I want them to.

I'm sitting on my bed, reading her diary when there's a knock on the door. Jude's outside campus so I doubt that it's her. Closing the diary, I call out, "Who's there?"

"It's me," Reece's familiar voice reaches me.

I keep the diary back where it was. "Come in."

The door creaks open and he enters the room. His hair is wet, as if he just took a bath. He wears black sweatpants and a plain white t-shirt, his ear piercing missing. He closes the door, walking over to my side of the room. He pulls out my chair and places it facing my bed, directly in front of me.

He watches me for a couple seconds, trying to read through me but he can't. "What the fuck did you just do?" he asks finally, his voice low.

"I did what I had to," I reply. "I told you I'd end this situation for Cammy no matter what. You owe me now, by the way."

He clicks his tongue. "I owe you? That's what you care about right now?"

"You asked me to help you and I agreed. All I'm doing is holding up my end of the deal."

"That doesn't mean you'd spread something this weird about yourself." His gaze makes a shiver go down my spine. "You know what you've just done, right? Your life is going to hell now."

I close my eyes and open them again, trying to shake off the weird feeling away. "If I cared about that then I wouldn't have done it in the first place. No one has to know that I've done it myself, by the way. Keep it a secret."

He blinks, leaning back on the chair and putting his arms across his chest. "Is it true? Were you involved in some scandal?"

I let out a scoff. I shift, keeping my feet on the ground and leaning towards him. We're a lot closer now and his eyes move from my arms and back to my face but my gaze isn't focused anywhere in particular. "I wasn't involved in some scandal. I created it."

He presses his lips together. "Who was it about?"

I press my finger to my lips, gesturing to him to stay quiet. "There are some things that you'll get to know with time. Don't ask me questions you know I won't answer."

"Why spread a rumour about yourself to stop another one from growing?"

"There's proof of what I did," I tell him, ignoring his question. "Back then. There's solid proof of what I did. If people find it, if it gets circulated here, then I'll be gone. I'm risking expulsion to successfully pull this stunt, Reece. The least you can do is be quiet and not ask me any questions."

Reece doesn't say anything for a while. I get up from my bed, make my way to the window and pull the curtains apart, letting the light seep in. From here, I can see the courtyard where people are hanging out, gossiping. Some of them are on their phones, and I wonder how many of them are talking about the rumour. I bet there are many.

"How many people know about this?" he asks.

"Just you," I reply, "And I intend to keep it that way."

He gets up from his seat, walking towards me again and standing there. He doesn't look at me now. In fact, for the first time since he entered my room, he's not looking at me. He's looking at the pile of papers on my study table. Just then, something piques his interest there and I'm left to wonder what it is. He puts away three or four papers before seeing a certain question paper.

Picking it up, he flips through it once. "Why's your entrance paper here?"

I walk towards him, looking at whatever he's seeing. It's the last part of the paper, the one I didn't attempt during the exams. It had a lot of complex problems and I knew that whatever I'd attempted was just enough to get me here so I left it be. His eyes drop to the sheets of paper that were kept below them and his eyes widen a bit again.

"Do you mind if I-"

"Go ahead," I say before sitting back on my bed.

A minute passes by as he goes through the papers. I close my eyes, focusing on the rustling of papers to calm myself down. I stay like that until the rustling stops. That's when I open my eyes again. He's still standing where he was but something's changed. I smile—I know exactly what he's realised.

"Goddamn," he mutters under his breath. "How much time did you take during the exam?"

"Three hours and fifteen minutes," I reply.

"And how much time did you take to solve these?" He picks up a bunch of papers with calculations of the last part of the last section.

"Thirty minutes, give or take."

He drops the paper instantly and turns to face me with an expression of genuine shock over his face. I raise my eyebrows, silently asking him what's his deal.

"You're saying you could've finished the whole thing within four hours?" His tone is laced with disbelief but there's nothing I can do but shrug.

"Yep," I answer him. "I could've but I didn't."

"There was a chance that you would have scored a hundred percent?"

"If I had attempted the whole thing, I'd have scored a hundred percent for sure."

He takes a step back and slowly tilts his head towards me. "That's impossible. Most people aren't even able to attempt over three sections."

"Most people wouldn't spread a rumour about themselves at a place like this either."

"You spread the rumour just so I owe you," he mutters. "That's some crazy shit. Just what the hell are you?"

Right then, I get a text again.

Asher: meet me @ athena room 2 in 20 mins

"Who is that?" Reece asks me.

"Now that," I pause, "is none of your business."

He waits for a few seconds before letting out a sigh. He walks towards the door, giving me one last look before he leaves. He doesn't say anything at all, leaving our conversation open ended. I bite my lip before lying back on my bed and groaning in frustration.

Guess I've to go meet Asher now.

***

I reach Athena in half an hour in the same clothes I've been in since I posted that rumour about myself this morning. A peach coloured oversized t-shirt and a pair of shorts with my hair sprawled open—I'm pretty sure I look like a dead person right now.

Entering the building and finding room two, I take a moment before I knock. A small sound comes from inside the room, followed by Asher's voice asking me to come in. I open the door and enter, my eyes flicking between the two people inside the room. Asher's leaning against a table, his phone on his hand and eyes on me. Nate, on the other hand, is sitting at the end of the room, scrolling through his phone and his feet propped up on the table in front of him.

"Come here," Asher says to me with a blank expression.

"Why?" I ask him.

He throws me an annoyed look and I sigh, walking up to him. He turns the screen of his phone to me, pressing play of the video on screen. I take his phone from him as the video begins. It's a clip of me, spray painting something on a particular wall in black. It's a vent wall. In my previous school's basement, the vent wall was the medium to spread rumours. Call it an offline version of RedRow—it was more classic back there.

I watch myself paint the words that started the conflict. Personally, I didn't want to watch this video again since I knew that the guilt would hit me right away and it did but all I can do right now, standing in front of Asher is to bury is further.

CARLY KATZ IS A SLUT.

That's what I write. I remember each and every moment of it, like a memory someone wants to forget but only remembers better than any other.

The video clip ends and I just stand there for a second, frozen, before Asher takes his phone back. He keeps it back on the table and looks at me with his arms folded.

"I got that you spread the rumour about you creating a scandal yourself. I get that you made someone send this video to me. But what I don't get is," he pauses, letting out a sigh, "Why would you dig your own grave by providing people with a damn video clip of yourself?"

"Come on, I thought you were smart," I tease him. "Is this why you called me out here? Because you got a video clip of me? I thought you liked it when you held people's secrets against them. I thought I was just doing you a favour. Come on, appreciate me a little. I had to find an old number for this."

He stares at me and my sick smile at the moment. "You know what could happen if this video clip is leaked and still you decide to take the risk of sending me this. Just what are you playing, Kingsley? And Carly Katz? How do you even know her?"

I smile again, knowing that this question would come from him. "We were in the same middle school."

His composure falters a bit. "You were in the same middle school as Carly Katz, the singer?" he asks me in disbelief and I nod, confirming his statement.

"I was. We were friends. We fell out. I spread a rumour about her. We fought. She left."

Nate laughs from his place but doesn't say anything to that.

"Is the rumour that you spread about Carly true?" Asher asks me and I simply shrug.

"That's for me to know," I tell him and a visibly furious expression takes over his face. I'm not afraid of Asher. There is no one I'm afraid of present here. The only person that gives me a sense that something will go wrong is me, myself because I don't know how far I'm willing to go to get what I want. Miscalculations are a terrible part of it all, but an equally important part of a plan is a risk.

A person needs to take a perfect amount of risk for anything. There's a thin line between taking risks and being reckless as a whole. I'm standing on it at this moment and my sole reason for doing this is because it's fun and it will probably make things even more interesting. If things do get out of hand, this would be fun for everyone.

"If this video gets out," Asher leans forward to whisper to me. Nate has now closed his phone and is watching us both with amusement. "Then you're done for. The teachers will know about it and you may as well be expelled because of it. You knew that, didn't you? And yet, you choose to go ahead and give me, out of all the people, this clip. Why would you do that?"

I roll my eyes. "Run your brain. Looks like it's become a little rusty now that you haven't been using it much."

At that moment, Nate gets up from his place and slowly strolls towards us, sitting on the table next to Asher's. He's wearing grey sweatpants and a loose white t-shirt, carrying his confidence like a necessary accessory. It would be a lie if I'd say that he isn't attractive and he's probably the kind of person I'd have a crush on him if I didn't know about his personality.

"She means that she already knew that he won't go around uploading the video on the forums for everyone to see it," Nate says, his voice having a calm but playful tone. "Did I get it right?"

Asher looks at me as if asking for confirmation and I sigh, before shaking my head and smiling again. "Come on, Asher. I thought you were smarter than this. I obviously know that you're going to keep the clip till you either figure out everything about the scandal and know whether this is going to backfire on you or not. So let me tell this to you, Asher," I take a step away from him, my expression never dropping, "if this clip gets leaked for everyone to see, there's no easy way out for me. That being said..."

My eyes flick between the two of them again and I take another step away.

"...if this clip gets out, I'm done for. There are chances of me getting expelled because of this." To put it simply, this is one of the genuine ways that can get me out of this school. I know it's a dangerous move but it's also an assurance. If I ever go far with everything, I count on him to use it against me. Even my mother would agree to get me out of this school if that happens. I know that if he or any of his friends are threatened by me, he'd do anything to get me out of this place and that can only happen if I ever go that far.

"I don't trust you for not having anything up your sleeves," Asher simply replies.

"I know you don't and I don't care about that." I reach for the doorknob and open it but before I exit the room, I decide to ask him one last question. "How many people have seen this? Tell me honestly."

Asher and Nate exchange looks before Asher answers my question. "Me, Nate, Summer, Lily, Mason, Ella..."

"And Penny," Nate adds.

I sigh. Just as I'd guessed, the whole inner circle of Asher's friends knew about the rumour I spread. Somehow, I don't feel threatened by the risk of it being exposed by any of them. Asher told them that because he trusted them with it and knew that they wouldn't go around spreading things that aren't theirs to spread. I am pretty sure that none of them really understand how Asher's mind works. Even Nate doesn't, but I think I partially do.

I know a lot about him even though he doesn't know much about me.

It's unfair, but that's just the way it works.

If playing unfair is what that will get me revenge, then I'm willing to do it.

"I just gave you a lot of power over me, Hale," I say to him with a smile. "Use it wisely."

***

I spot Summer and Lily standing near the room the moment I step outside the room. They're both engaged in some conversation but stop when they see me.

Lily looks at me with a scowl while Summer's lips curl up in a soft smile. The two of them then exchange looks and Summer whispers something to her in her ear before Lily nods, walking past me to enter the room where Asher and Nate still are. They're all talking, but I don't know what it's about. I can only figure out whose voices they are, not the words they're speaking.

With that, Summer walks to me. I almost think that she's going inside the room as well but she doesn't. Instead, she stops in front of me, her smile never dropping. "Hey, Harley," she says to me, "do you mind if we talk for a bit?" She pauses, looking around and closing her eyes. "Somewhere that's not a stinky hallway."

I nod. "Do you have someplace in mind?"

"The rooftop," she replies, pointing overhead. "And don't worry about getting caught. Technically, there's no restriction for us to be on rooftops. Unless, of course, someone wants to jump." She chuckles before beginning to walk in front of me. I follow her up the stairs, noticing how empty the hallways are. This building sure is out of use but I don't get the point of it being accessible to the students. There's something up here but I don't know what it is.

She leads me to the top floor and pushes the door open, gesturing me to enter. Since it's mid afternoon, the sunshine immediately begins to hurt my eyes. I take a few seconds to adjust to the light before I can see properly again. Summer is standing under the shade and calls me over to her.

"What do you want to talk to me about?" I ask her once I'm next to her.

She giggles, then turns to face me. "So, you know Carly Katz?"

I shrug and lean back against the wall, slumping down and sitting. She does the same. Her blond hair is tied up in a high pony and looking at her makes me feel like she's the prettiest girl around here. I've heard things about her, though. She's been in business for years now—she's definitely not as sweet as she looks.

"I did, yes," I answer her and she smiles.

"And the number who sent the video clip to her, it was one of hers, wasn't it? She must've discarded it by now. Or maybe it already belonged to someone she knew, someone less popular and less known. Am I right?"

I look at her, a corner of my mouth twitching. "No comment about that. The sender has made me promise not to reveal their identity. And I can assure you that it wasn't Carly at all. I haven't talked to Carly in a couple years."

"Is that so?" she says, her voice blank. "The scandal was limited to a specific town. I remember that. They managed to bury the news properly by paying people and stuff. I also remember them saying that there was a girl who wrote everything up on the wall. It was some case of jealousy or something. Carly's parents knew who the girl was but they decided that it was a mistake."

I know where she's going with this.

"The video clip, Harley, you were the one who recorded it, weren't you?" she says quietly.

My smile widens but I neither accept or deny the statement.

"You seemed aware of the camera. If someone was hiding and recording you, they'd move. But the camera was stable. As if it was kept somewhere."

She looks at me, her eyes holding an expression of curiosity.

"Why did you record a video of yourself when you knew who you were spreading a rumour about? That's a death wish." She pauses, looking at me. "It's a death wish. A normal person would try as hard as they can to stay anonymous. But you went ahead and collected proof for your own guilt? Tell me what I'm missing. Tell me that I'm right and the situation doesn't make sense at all."

I look away, staring ahead of me, right at the rail. She follows my gaze, and a silence spreads across the atmosphere.

A minute later, I get up. "It doesn't have to make sense."

"What do you mean?"

I walk towards the rail and keep my hands on it, my eyes following my own fingers. "I said that it doesn't have to make sense. As for the situation you want to know, well, that's not for you to know, is it?"

She sighs, getting up as well. She walks towards me, stopping when she leans against the rail with her face faced towards me.

I eye her. "You should probably stop recording me."

Her face drops. "You knew, huh?" She lifts up her other hand where she held her phone. She waved it to me, opened her screen, stopping the voice recorder. She keeps it back in her bag and sighs, folding her arms. "You do live up to the expectations."

"I probably don't, your screen was open half the time so it was easy to figure that out."

Her cheeks turn red and she suppresses a smile. "Yeah well, I'm not exactly the brightest person out here."

I let out a laugh. For a few moments, we stay silent just like this before it gets too awkward for me to handle and I back away from the rail and take a few steps backwards. "I'm leaving if that's it.

She nods and I turn around, walking towards the gate. Just when I reach out, I hear Summer call out to me once. I stop. "Harley, wait a minute."

"What's up?" I ask her and she walks towards me, standing at the other end of the door and holding it open.

"I want you to know that whatever's going on between you and Asher, I'm not involved in it. I don't care about any kind of rumours and I don't care about anything you did in the past and I don't give a fuck about anything you do to Asher, unless you murder him or something, because it doesn't concern me at all. I just want..." she trails off, looking at her feet. I notice she's wearing white tennis shoes. "I want us to be on good terms, you know."

My face morphs into a confused expression. "You mean friends?"

"Yeah," she replies. "I want us to be friends."

"You want us to be friends. Why? This is the first time we've actually talked to each other and you were recording a conversation we were having and you still want to be friends with someone who's gotten a rumour about being involved in a newsworthy scandal?" I sigh. "Why do you want to be friends with me, Summer?"

"You just..." she mutters something inaudible and looks up at me, then realises that I didn't understand anything she just said. She sighs in frustration, doing some action with her hands. "You just remind me of someone I used to know a long time back, okay?"

I scoff. "Am I just a replacement for you?"

Her cheeks grow red again and she steps closer to me, an expression of panic on her face. "No, no, fuck, I did not mean it like that- I meant I-"

"Hey, hey, relax," I laugh. "I was just messing with you. Fine, I get it. We're on good terms alright."

She smiles. I start to walk down the stairs, Summer following me after closing the door. When I'm almost down the stairs, she pokes me in my back and I almost fall. I stumble and almost regain my balance but fall again, only to be caught by a pair of strong arms. The smell of the strong cologne makes me recognise the person almost immediately.

Nathan Andrews catches me and my face heats up in an instant. "Sorry," I mutter half heartedly but he doesn't let me go.

"You really can't walk, can you?" he whispers in my ear and I push him away, making him laugh. His eyes go up the staircase at Summer, who's giggling like crazy.

"What are you on now?" Lily's lazy voice comes from behind us and I glance behind me, only to find Asher and Lily walking towards us. Her eyes flick towards me but she rolls her eyes, setting her gaze at Summer. "You look like you've just seen a fuckin' ghost dancing in his pink polka dot pajamas."

"Did you just push Harley?" Nate laughs lightly, though his eyes still say that he's keeping his guard up.

Summer shakes her head, getting a grip on herself and pausing her laughter. Even her laugh is soft and angelic. "No, no, I didn't. I was-" she giggles, "-just going to ask her something and tapped her shoulder but she got scared."

"You didn't tap my shoulder or anything. You poked me," I deadpan.

"That's the same thing," she says.

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

"Oh my god, both of you, just fuckin' stop already," Lily snaps in annoyance, closing her eyes while everyone looks at her. "Summer found her new play buddy. Do you both want me to drop you to the children's park downtown? Because to get rid of you both, I'd actually do that."

"Aw," Summer swoons as she reaches the bottom of the stairs. "Is Mama Lily willing to be a babysitter for free?"

"A babysitter who leaves the kid in the park to get kidnapped for free? Sure, I'm down for it."

Lily seems like a heavily sarcastic person who sometimes may try too hard. Of course, I don't say this out loud since I know she doesn't like me and I don't want her to hate me even more. I know she wouldn't really pull any moves on me separately but it's better to stay on her good side anyways. Just in case.

"What was it you wanted to say to her?" Nate snaps in an annoyed tone.

"Oh, right," she says. "I forgot about that."

"Stupid," Lily mutters under her breath.

Summer walks towards me and slings her hands across my shoulders, a bright smile on her face. "So, here's the deal. It's my birthday on Saturday and I want you to come. There's no way out of it because you're going to come with us downtown on Saturday because by the looks of it, you haven't been out of this place since you joined the academy."

"Your birthday?" I ask quietly. Something hits me then, something that fits perfectly in my mind like a missing puzzle piece.

"Yes!" she exclaims. "I'm turning eighteen on Saturday. I want you to be there, alright? You can bring your friends if you want."

"Well, I don't have friends."

"Then come alone! I don't care. Please be there," she metaphorically begs me and I sigh, nodding.

Lily, seeing the two of us, decides to make a comment about it in her bored yet annoyed tone. "If you don't want to come, just don't. Besides," she eyes me up and down, probably assessing my outfit, "you don't strike me as the kind of person who'd come to a party. Just go bury yourself in some physics textbook and enjoy your day like that."

I raise my eyebrows, not sure how to reply. Usually, I'd reply with something snarky, but right now, I decide to make an exception. It's still strike one for her, two more and I snap at her.

"Hey," Asher says, "That's a bit rude."

"That's why I said it." She rolls her eyes and lets out a sigh. She checks the time on her phone and looks up at them. "I've to meet Addie in ten. I'm leaving."

Without another word, she walks towards the exit, soon walking out of our sights. Summer presses my shoulder with a smile.

"Don't mind her, she's like that. Will you come? You really can bring whoever you like, I don't mind. I really want you to come and I don't care about your outfit anyways. If you're there, that's enough. Please say yes."

I question her being over friendly with me when this is the first time we've met but realise that if there's an ulterior motive, I'll deal with it at that moment itself. Plus, it had been a while since I had attended a good party. Since it's Summer's eighteenth, I'm pretty sure that it's going to be grand.

I bite my lip before nodding and saying, "Sure, I'll come."

She claps her hands in excitement and I quickly glance at Asher, who has a soft, genuine smile as he looks at her. He catches me staring at him and I look away instantly, right at the moment where Summer pulls me into an embrace and I'm caught speechless. "Thank you," she says in my ear and a small smile forms on my lips as I hug her back for a moment before pulling away.

"Are the two of you done yet?" Asher asks.

"Yes!" Summer exclaims, jumping a bit.

He walks towards us and puts an arm around her shoulder before looking at me once. "Come on, let's go then."

He begins to walk away with her but she stops abruptly. "Wait, I still haven't gotten her phone number yet. I have to-"

"Hey, get that from Asher," I tell her with a smile.

The two of them leave with Summer still talking about something with Asher. Nate's still around, watching me. I meet his eyes, not wanting to break the silence first but he doesn't say anything either. I know there's something he wants to say but as time goes by, I begin to lose my patience. Then finally, he opens his mouth.

"You knew about the markings," he says to me. "The first evaluation. You knew about it."

"I figured it out."

"You scored the highest in the quiz."

"It wasn't that tough."

"You really are smart, aren't you?" It's like he's not even listening to me. "You knew that Remi's score would fall. You knew about the negative markings."

I shrug. "I had an idea."

"Why would a person as smart as you want to spread a rumour about themselves?" He takes a step towards me, getting closer. The eye contact between us is still there, still intact, making my heart beat fasten. He looks at me like I'm a thing to be studied, a book to be devoured. He looks at me like he can look into my eyes and read through my every thought, every plan. But I know he can't. I've prepared myself enough to not be read by a man like him.

"I'll warn you this once, Harley," he whispers once he's that close to me. "Don't mess with things you don't understand or you'll regret it. Don't get lost in rumours and competition. Once you go down that road, there's no coming back. Not at all."

With that, he leaves.