Harley

(Present)

On Thursday, things are more hectic than they've ever been. There's only one class in the morning after which all dance students head to the studio for a rehearsal. The costumes are here and I help Andy sort through them since there's nothing else for me to do. Distributing them is easy—Andy's just calling out the names and I'm just handing them out without seeing which person is up here.

Later, after one simple run through of things, everyone goes on to try on their outfits. The first year fashion students are here to help with the alteration despite the fact that they've got a fashion walk coming up next week. I'm there with them as well, writing down just what needs to be done in whose costume.

The fashion students make their set up in the studio itself. Valeria tells me that's exactly how it's done every year. During the alterations, the dance students move on to one of the auditoriums. I stay back with the fashion students, helping them when I can wherever I can because I've got no other choice.

"Hey, Harley," Rhett calls out to me. I look up to find him smiling at me. "A little help here?"

I nod, walking over to him. He's folding a red outfit as neatly as he can, which, by the way, is very neat. "What do you need?" I ask him.

"Can you, uh, pack this up and label it?" He scoots it closer to me. "Carrie Everett's the name."

"Oh," I say. Bringing the spare plastic bag, I put the costume in it and grab a black marker, scribbling her name over it. The moment I close the marker again, Rhett speaks up again.

"So," he begins. "Is the bet still on?"

I let out a sigh. "It's on if you want it to be." The first time I met Rhett Carter, the egotistic son of a bitch didn't talk to me at all. To be fair, I didn't either but anyways—the next day, there was a rumour on RedRow where an anonymous poster brought up a challenge, or as the people are calling it—the bed.

The poster said that Rhett and I will be going head on during the midterms and if I manage to score higher than him, he'll accept that I didn't pay my way through the admissions, as he had been talking about with all the others in our year.

I get where he came from, honestly. If I were in his place, trying my best to score that high and almost breaking the damn record, I'd be mad too. Though, I can see that he's still not as pissed as he seemed earlier, he's still competitive as fuck. That's a good thing, I guess, and I always love a challenge.

"So, it's on," he confirms. "Right."

"Right." Awkward silence engulfs us again. I've never really put a lot of thought over awkward silences but it's clear that Rhett has something he wants to say to me so bad that it shows in the way he handles himself at the moment. I watch for a while, hoping that he's get the words off his mind but when he doesn't, I let out a sigh.

"You have something you want to say?" I finally ask him. He pauses his work and looks up, startled. Yeah, he did want to say something. He doesn't say anything. I raise my brow, urging him to speak. "Well? Do you?"

"Yeah, well, uh–" he takes a deep breath. "Okay. Look. Let me just get it over with. We're good, right?"

"Huh?" I don't know just what is going on in his mind to ask me a question like this. "What do you mean?"

"I mean—uh, I don't know how to say this. It's just, you know, the first time we met, I think I was rather...hostile towards you? I mean, okay, let me admit it. I was jealous of you. I could've been the first ranker. But really, now that I'm thinking straight, I don't want any weird kind of rivalry or bad feelings between us. You get me?"

I hadn't even thought of anything like this so far. I've never wanted to have any bad feelings with people who don't matter to me. I've wanted to stay neutral with all of them, just the way I'm with all the other first years. Not too friendly, not too hostile. But just so he stops thinking about this and gets the reassurance that he needs, I smile and say, "Yes, I do."

Instant relief floods through his expression. I didn't even know that he was tensed. Maybe he's always this tensed and the expression I'm seeing on his face right now is a rare sight to see. "So, we're good, right?"

I nod. "Yes, we're fine."

"So, no matter what happens during the midterms, none of us are gonna feel bad bad about it, right?"

"Yep," I say. "Nothing's gonna change."

He thinks he might be able to hurt me in some way by scoring more than I will but he's stupid to even think that. Unless I score less on purpose or skip an exam, there's no way he's going to score more than me. This isn't me being arrogant—this is me being confident. I know he won't be able to do it. I just won't say it out loud.

About an hour later, the fashion students begin to disperse. Rhett is the last one to leave, flashing a smile to me before he exits the room. Andy leaves too, asking me to keep everything to the side if I can. I say yes because I don't want to go to the auditorium just yet.

The whole place falls silent, the only sounds being the echoes of a few students' laughter and their footsteps when they run.

In the midst of it all, I pause. Heavy footsteps stop right in front of the room but I don't turn around to see who it is. I stand there, doing my work until I hear those footsteps approach me. Moment by moment they came closer and closer to me. They came to a stop then and the person watched me for a while.

"What do you want?" I finally ask. I have no idea what's up with people around me today. I turn around, finding a tall, familiar guy with dark hair and dark eyes, staring right at me. Today, Diego Mathias is dressed in a grey t-shirt and blue jeans, a chain around his neck that he wears as an accessory.

"We've met before," he says quietly.

I raise my brow, turning to face him completely. "No, we haven't."

"Yes, we have." Diego takes a step towards me. "You might not remember it but I do."

"When was that?" I ask, trying to hide my panic. I couldn't have forgotten something like this, could I? My brain looks for the worst case scenario. When could I have met him? A graduate? Just when...?

"Hotel Crescent. January." He smiles. "We talked, Kingsley. We did. I can't ever forget that conversation. I can't get it out of my head now that I've seen you here."

My blood runs cold as a distant memory resurfaces in my mind.

"Do you remember it now, Harley?"

January 2022

[ Four months ago ]

"Next up on the show are the Red Primas!" The announcer said and a wild cheer broke out throughout the crowd. "The Red Primas is a rising dance group formed by the students of Redville School Of Arts. In the past seven months, Red Primas has risen to the top by winning numerous championships and attracting the attention of prestigious showcases across the country. This year, the group with only teenagers as members will be competing in the Internationals, writing their name in the history of World Dance!"

She stood there, listening to each word carefully. The announcer looked like he was in his mid-thirties, speaking with such enthusiasm that Harley didn't know could be shown through mere words and the tone of speaking. She let out a sigh, leaning back against the auditorium wall.

"Let's give a huge round of applause to the Red Primas!" he screamed into the mic. The audience began to clap and hoot wildly just as a group of people—or rather, teenagers—whose faces Harley was too tired to memorise appear on stage. They take their positions, exchange looks that spoke volumes. They were silently asking each other whether they're ready and assuring everyone that it's going to just fine. It was just another performance, after all.

The music began to play as the lighting in the auditorium dimmed. Silence enveloped the atmosphere as the Red Primas began their act. Harley watched them carefully, judging their every move, every mistake. She didn't want to admit this but she knew that they were good. They really were good, deserving all the praise that they got.

She sighed again, muttering something under her breath. That was when she realised there was a guy standing right next to her. Tall, dark hair, dark eyes. She looked at him and found him looking at her as well, an amused smile on his face.

"You're a fan or what?" he asked her. "Normally, I'd say that you're a fan because you're standing here and watching them but judging by your expression, you don't seem like a fan."

"Don't be such a smartass, random guy," she scoffed. "You know nothing."

"Are you a dancer?"

She glanced at him one more time before nodding. "I'm a dancer."

"Really?" There was a tinge of excitement in his voice that just pushed her off the edge. "You dance?"

"No, I'm lying to a random stranger I met two minutes ago by saying I'm a dancer," she deadpanned.

He shook his head. "Okay, I get that you're being sarcastic. But that can be true, you know, like, you can lie to me right here and I'd never even know if you did. What are the chances we meet again?"

She just shrugged. After all, what were the chances that she was to meet a random stranger from a crowd at a Red Prima's performance a night before one of the most prestigious competitions of the country? There were so many people here that she doubted this guy would even remember her in a few days' time.

"So, you're a dancer." She angled her face to see him properly. His eyes were placed onstage, watching the dance. She could tell that he was impressed by them; she could just tell how much he liked them. "You think you're good?"

She smiled. "I'm pretty good."

"Good enough to compete?" His eyes flicked down to hers, his lips tugging upwards in a playful smile. She knew exactly what he was implying.

"Good enough to compete," she confirmed, her voice bold and confident.

"You've heard of Redville?"

"Of course I have. It's literally what everyone talks about online these days." She looked down. She felt hollow inside, like the empty pit in her stomach was growing and consuming her whole.

"If you're pretty good as a dancer, have you ever thought of aiming for it?"

She scoffed in disbelief, almost laughing at the question. "No. Never."

"Why?" All the amusement had disappeared from his voice now. It was a genuine question that he was asking—you don't meet a person who reacted like that about Redville even when they think they're good. "So, you think you're a good dancer but you're not aiming for Redville? That's a first."

"Just because I'm good at it doesn't mean I want to get into that school," she said nonchalantly. "I don't know what the big deal is." She knew what the big deal was. It was one of the top schools of the world after all. Its acceptance rate got lower every year due to the amount of students who tried for a spot. Harley knew she'd get it in one go. She knew she was good enough for it.

"Oh, but it is. Why do you not want to go to that school?"

"Because I don't think it's worth it," she whispered, barely hearing her own voice over the music. Her mind was flooding with memories she didn't want to remember. She would give anything—absolutely anything to forget everything that had happened to her and the people around her.

Diego leaned his head closer. "What? Couldn't hear you—"

She angled her head towards his ear and said, "Because it fucking sucks, that's why." She must have said it too loud because he visibly flinched. He stared at her blankly for a few seconds before his lips broke into a smile again. He shifted, leaning closer to her.

"That's an interesting opinion," he said. "But why do you believe that Redville sucks? For all you know, it can be something that's there for you. If you're half the good dancer you claim to be, then Redville might as well be the best place for you."

She scoffed. "Are you on the Redville's marketing team or something?" He laughed lightly at that. Harley's heart felt rather heavy. She looked down at her feet, nervously playing with her fingers. He watched her, knowing that she was going to say something any moment now. "Redville's the last place I'd go to, you know."

There was something in the way she said it that it unsettled him. He looked at her for some more time, unable to find words to speak. What was he supposed to say to a girl who was visibly upset at the mention of a school? By the time he processed everything she had just said, he felt someone's hand on his shoulders.

"Hey," Asher said to him. Diego turned and nodded in greeting. "They're great today, aren't they? Better than they've been for a while."

"Yeah," Diego agreed. He looked at the girl again. Harley's eyes were set on stage, her expression as blank as it had been before Diego engaged her in a conversation. He wanted to know her name. He wanted to know her story. He wanted to know so much about her, not because he'd found himself be attracted to her—God, no, he wasn't attracted to her—but because sometimes, in the crowd, you find someone so fascinating that you simply wonder how they are when they're out there, facing the world.

Harley's eyes snapped to Diego again. She looked over his shoulder, at Asher, then back at him. Her lips tugged up in a small smile and she mouthed, "Bye," before turning away and disappearing into the crowd. He watched her leave for a while before the music dropped and the lighting shifted, the wild hoots of the crowd driving his attention back to the stage.

For Harley, it had been an insignificant event then. So insignificant that she'd almost forgotten that she'd met someone else the same day she had first seen Asher Hale in person. But that had been a mistake.

Every perfect plan can fall apart. There are always some things you can never predict. There will always be miscalculations. There will always be changes. Life does not go the way you want it to. It wasn't something that went smoothly. It was a series of dominos, standing in a maze of memories and dreams and fears.

Nothing was insignificant anymore. Because having Diego Mattias stand in front of her once again showed her how small the world was. She couldn't afford any mistakes at this point. Not now, when she was this far into the place she'd made. Not now, when this was the only thing she was living for. Not now, when things were at that crucial point that would be the deciding factor about the direction everything might go in.

She had no way out of this. She never did.

Harley

[ Present ]

"Harley?" Diego says again, snapping me out of my trance. He's looking at me with curious eyes that annoy and scare me at the same time. I've never felt like this before—the adrenaline rush I'm getting is making me feel like I might as well like this. "Do you remember this?"

I let out a sigh, pressing my lips in a line. I shake my head, turning back to whatever work I was doing. "No, I don't."

He says nothing for a moment. "You sure, Harley?"

I hum in response. "Yep, I'm sure."

He lets out a sigh. "Alright," he mutters. "Alright."

I don't know how many minutes it takes for him to back off and walk out the room because the next time I turn, he's not there. I stare at the doorway for a few seconds, letting down my guard as I let possibilities of what might happen run free in my mind. I'm glad he reminded me of the time we met instead of going to Asher. He might already have told him, but as long as I'm on the same page as them, it's all good.

Diego Mattias might be trouble, but for some reason, I don't give a fuck about it.