Harley

(Present)

It smells like smoke and mint in his car.

I've been locking and unlocking the door for the past minute, the clicking sound music to my ears as I try to think. I can feel Kyle's eyes on me as he sits in the driver's seat, leaning back with his hands on the steering. We're sitting in his car because it would have been awkward to stand near the school gate awkwardly. I'm holding the keys just in case I don't trust him enough to be in a car with him yet. His idea, not mine.

He looks exactly like he was in the picture my sister mailed me earlier if we ignore the dark circles and the dullness in his eyes. His outfit makes him seem like some kind of skater boy when I know what kind of a job he really does.

It didn't take much for me to figure out the basics of Kyle's story. He comes from a family with a single father, has two siblings and back when he got into all this, he needed money. He still works under one of the biggest dealers in the area even though he's never met him and I just know that he's terrified of him just by the way he looked when I brought him up a while ago.

The details of everything aren't clear to me but if these work out alright, maybe one day he'll trust me enough to tell me that.

"For fuck's sake, Harley, stop doing that," Kyle says. More like scolds.

I stop playing with the key, staring at nothing in particular before sucking my teeth and blurting out the question that's been on my mind since I've talked to Kyle for the first time.

"Did you sleep with her?" I turn to him, meeting his eyes. "My sister?"

He's caught off guard but nods anyway. "Yeah. I did."

"How close were you?"

He waits for a couple moments. Then, after realising that there's no way out of this, he slumps back. "I don't know. I guess we were. She talked about you. She told me about the whole Redville thing." He sighs. "You know, she called me sometime in January. That was the last we talked."

January. I bite my lip. "What did she say?"

"That she doesn't want to talk to me anymore. If I contact her again, she will turn me in."

I almost choke on air. "She said what?"

Kyle smiles, glancing sideways at me. "Yeah. She thought if she talked to me again, it would be difficult for her to remain sober. I don't know what was going through her mind then."

I nod once, running a hand through my hair. "Right."

"Do you know where she is?" he asks me, unsure. "The last thing she'd said to me was that she'd run away. When I came to your place to check on her, she wasn't there anymore."

I look at him. I didn't know that. I know I should give it more thought before telling him the truth. I nod slowly, letting out a shaky breath as I look out of the window, leaning my head against the cold glass. "I do have an idea about where she is."

His gaze on me intensified. "You do?"

I hum in response.

He waits for a while, probably waiting for me to say something but I don't. When he realises that I'm not going to say anything, he exhales. He's clearly disappointed and frustrated. "You're not going to tell me that, are you?"

"Not yet," I reply quietly. I turn to him. "I will. Someday. Maybe. But just not yet."

He smiles but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Alright." He looks away, beginning to fidget with his fingers. "You know, when you told me that you're at Redville, I thought it was a prank at first. You couldn't be at Redville when you didn't like it in the first place. Especially when your parents split up and neither of them approved of this crappy school."

I watch him as he speaks, noticing him hesitate every now and then.

"But then again, it's you. It's not the most out of character thing you would be doing, would you? I've heard a lot about you. You were all she talked about when she wasn't cussing out your parents and her—friends, if you can call them that. She said you'll give them a tough time if you ever meet them." He angles his face to face me, his gaze falling down to my right arm and I immediately feel the nervousness flip in my stomach. "She said it wasn't an accident, you know? That's what you said to your parents. She hurt you. She said it was a mistake but calling it an accident wasn't a good decision."

I feel myself shivering, my hands growing cold.

"She said she couldn't bring herself to apologize to you, you know? She–" he breaks off. He doesn't say anything for a while. I turn to him, watching him as he faces the window. "I shouldn't have said all that. I don't even know if I'm supposed to know all this. I'm sorry."

It's okay, I want to say but the words don't come out of my mouth at all. It feels like everyone but me knows my own sister and I blame myself for it. If only I'd been closer to her, bothered to get involved in her life instead of just being a bystander, maybe I'd have the courage to find her.

"There's something I want to ask you, though," Kyle says suddenly. He leans back against his seat again, watching nothing in particular. He lets out a breath, biting his lip as if he's contemplating something. "Does anyone... bother you?"

I'm caught off guard by the question. What does he even mean? And then the realisation hits me.

"You know what I mean, Harley," Kyle adds. "And you can tell me that honestly. I know you've met me for the first time and I won't pressure you to tell me anything but this is important."

I look away from him, setting my gaze outside the window. There's a street here but not many people come around except to see Redville from the outside. A coffee shop with an open sign opens as a family enters the place, smiling.

"No," I reply. "No one does."

"Does," he echoes. "Did someone bother you in the past?"

"Nope." At least never directly, not really. Even if they did, I don't know if it's the right time to tell him about it. The incident has been buried in my head for way too long to be surfaced all over again out of nowhere.

When I look back at him, he flashes a look that clearly says that he's not convinced. He doesn't press it but I know he isn't going to let it go the next time we meet. If we meet.

"There's something I want to ask you too. Or rather, something I want you to do." He raises his eyebrow, silently asking me to continue. I don't know if it's a good decision to ask this or not but then again, I'm not sure about anything at all. "Might be a lot to ask but..."

"Shoot."

***

Julian

(Present)

Being bullied by my roommate was alright.

Till the waiter of the diner we were sitting in started to laugh and high five Aaron, pissing the hell out of me. He's still grinning about it. Definitely checking her out. Pretty sure they exchanged numbers too. I wouldn't know because I was too busy being offended. We're back at the campus now and I'm over it by now. Not that he cares anyway because as I said, he's still grinning about it.

"Man, that shit was funny, Jules. Laugh a little. You're so fuckin' uptight," he says for the millionth time. "Oh, and by the way, you finished the homework for tomorrow?"

"You ask me not to be uptight and offended and then ask me for homework answers? Jeez, man, get a grip."

"Those two things have no relation at all," he defends himself. "I'm sorry. I won't bully you in public anymore. For real."

I don't know how he knows that the waitress laughing made me feel bad instead of him saying mean stuff to me as a joke but it's good that he does. I guess he does have some basic observational skills after all.

I let out a sigh, running a hand through my hair. "Yeah, I've done it. I don't know why you even asked me that when you saw me complete it before we left." I also don't know why he suggested skipping the whole Spring Heights showcase thing when he's pretty close with Elliot, who's up for performance. Maybe they had a fight I don't know of but I'm not asking him either. If he wants to tell me that, I'll listen.

He hits my shoulder and laughs. "I'll copy it. Thank you." He nudges me by his elbow again. It took me a while to adjust to his clinginess but I'm used to it by now. Aaron will hit you a million times a day for no reason. I think it's because he wants attention, something he probably didn't get enough of as a baby. "How's things with your crush?"

My cheeks heat almost immediately. "Fuck off."

"Come on, man," he laughs, "there really isn't any update? Make a move, dude. You won't get anywhere if you don't make one and you know that." When I don't reply, he shakes his head. "Have you ever texted her first? Have you? Have you?"

I exhale. "Nope."

"Why?"

"She probably likes someone else. She doesn't even talk to me."

Aaron rolls his eyes. "Harley doesn't talk to anyone unless they talk to her first." He's right about that, though. The only people I've seen her talk to are the ones she made a dance group with—Kai, Ryker and a girl named Rhea. There's also Elliot and Leo, who copy off her work and don't let her stay quiet during the mornings, engaging her in conversations she doesn't look she wants to be a part of.

Oh, and then there's Sam and Zia, also dance students. I can't even begin to talk about Penny's clingy ass and the other seniors who've taken a fascination or something towards her. Only an idiot could miss the tension between the seniors and the high rankers this year. It's like a complicated rivalry which might look stupid to others but it's not. I don't think it is.

Fuck, I sound like a creep. Why do I know who she talks to? I hate crushes because of this reason. Why did it have to be her out of all the people I could have been attracted to?

"You should text her," he says. "You know, for help for something or maybe a simple hi?"

"No. Nope. Not going to do that." I'm a chicken when it comes to texting the girl I like.

"Thought so. Maybe we could ask Elliot to set you up with her." It's my turn to hit him now. He just laughs like he always does. I don't know why I even hang out with him but if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't even have friends this year. Hayette and Maia and Ty don't even count as friends. Okay, maybe Ty does but the others definitely do not.

"If you say anything to Elliot, I'll kill you."

He shrugs. "I mean, literally everyone knows that you like her, bro. I mean, at least the Calliope guys. I'm not sure if the girls do, though. Except Jade. Jade knows everything. She's like the gossip queen."

"That would be Ana," I mutter under my breath.

He's about to say something when we hear someone's voice from behind one of the buildings. It's familiar to me. Paying attention for a couple seconds, I notice that the voices belong to Ryker, one of Harley's friends, and surprisingly, Remi.

"I didn't know Remi and Ryker were even talking," mutters Aaron. He sounds skeptical of this and rightfully so. We've all heard about Remi and his fall in the ranks in the first assessment itself. It had really strained his relationship with the other dance students and on this day, he's only friends with bullies. I've seen him around, of course, hanging out with another dance student named Carrie and a couple of second years whose programs I'm not sure of at all.

I do know that one of the second years he hangs out with is Jase Kenley. He's a bully but also a friend of Reece Bremer, some second year in the same program as Aaron. The way two people can have completely different personalities and still hang out with each other on a regular basis is unreal to me.

I mean, that's kind of the case with Aaron and I but still.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Aaron says. I don't know when we started to walk towards the source of the voices but we are now. And he's right—I have a bad feeling about this as well. I don't think we should actually check it out. But knowing Aaron, he isn't going to let this go. And I'm not letting him go all alone.

Fuck. Is this shit really as complicated as I'm making it out to be or is it just me being paranoid as fuck?

We're near the place now. The voices still aren't clear yet but as I look at Aaron's face, I know he can hear them more clearly than I do. Maybe it's because I don't want to hear them but it becomes almost impossible to ignore when we hear a familiar person yell. Remi, I realise. Man, that guy is dumb but he can be scary when he wants to be.

I take out my phone and pass it to Aaron. He looks at me for a second before realising what I'm up to. He clicks on the record button and begins to record whatever it is that is going on out there. He's in front of me so I can't see him, and there's no way in hell that I'm going to push him or ask him to be at the back for a while.

I'm not interested in this. But then again, after all those anti-bullying seminars back in middle school, I would like to think that I've gotten something in my head after all.

I don't know how long we stand there, recording. At one point, I almost want to walk away but then Aaron lets out a sigh, tugging at my sleeve. I look at him and he flashes a small smile my way. "Let's go," he says. Without waiting for a reply, he steps out of the place.

I follow him without any idea about what's about to happen.