[ 25 ] 2014

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"I wasn't prepared to see you kissing him, I wasn't prepared to hear you choosing him." 

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All through practice, Michella kept messing up their stunts and Harley ended up feeling bruised all over. Dempsey and Andrea had told her the bruise on her cheekbone was already showing, turning from a bright red to a purple-ish tint. Just as earlier, Michella never apologized for all the mistakes she kept making. She would only stand there, looking away and trying to act innocent while Andrea, Dempsey, and Harley shot daggers at her.

When practice ended, Harley saw Michella grab her bag and head over to the parking lot that was just across the street from the soccer field. It was the second parking lot the school had, the other was in the front. 

Harley assumed Michella would wait for her dad, but she was mistaken. Soccer practice was just finishing and she watched Calum grab his belongings and head the same way she had gone. They both got into his car and he drove off down the street. Harley sighed and picked up her gym bag along with her backpack. Dempsey and Andrea were waiting. Since she was no longer getting a ride with Calum and Harley didn't know how to drive yet, they assumed she would get a ride with them. Harley told them to go ahead without her. She needed to talk to Cindy about Michella and if she needed to, she would walk back home.

Cindy was talking to the co-captain about the varsity jackets they had ordered, which would arrive for the fourth year cheerleaders within the next month. When she saw Harley approaching, she ended her conversation with Rin.

"Hey Harley!" She smiled at Harley Quinn. "What's up?"

"I want to talk to you about Michella." Harley bit down on her lip. She normally didn't do things like this, but she could not stand being around Michella Barnes.

"Yeah okay." Cindy nodded, adding quickly with excitement in her eyes. "Wait. First, I just wanted you to know that our varsity jackets will be coming in soon. And..." Her smile turned even bigger. "I want you to be my co-captain along with Rin so yours will be a different color with your name, the varsity letter and the words co-captain by your name. I wanted to ask you before, but you never seemed like you wanted to be here."

I still don't look like I want to be here, Harley thought.

"Now what did you want to tell me?" Cindy asked.

"Cindy," Harley started with a sigh. "I know you were very excited about having someone new on the squad, but Michella and I just aren't getting along."

"Are you asking me to kick her off the team?" Cindy eyed her, an eyebrow raised in question. "If that's what you want then consider it done. You're my best friend and I noticed the way she was coming onto Calum."

Harley felt her face turning red. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well Calum told everyone on the soccer team last semester that you and him were a thing." Cindy pointed out as though it was something of common knowledge at St. Genevieve's. There were people in her popular people inner circle that were on the soccer team, and they always talked about different things at lunch. During the time in which Luke also wanted to date Harley, they had been informed that Calum and Harley were supposedly dating. "And then everyone heard about how you two broke up when he left Sydney. It must still be hard on you to see that he moved on so quickly."

"Cindy, we never dated." Harley corrected her. She quickly added, "I already have a boyfriend anyway." As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted to take them back. She did have a relationship with Ashton, but she didn't want anyone at her school t know, especially not Cindy Hemmings. She would probably spread the news all over the school, and everyone would be wondering who her boyfriend was. No one at St. Genevieve's would ever get to meet Ashton because he wasn't human. Perhaps she had said it because she didn't want to seem like she had been dumped and forgotten so easily, even if there hadn't really been a relationship between her and Calum.

Cindy Hemmings placed a hand on her friend's shoulder. She felt for her. After her relationship with Billy had gone wrong for a few days, Harley had been the one to help them get back together. Still, Cindy Hemmings was not convinced that Harley Quinn and and Calum hadn't been together at one point. "You don't have to lie to me. We're best friends. And if you want Michella off the squad, I'll kick her off. Just give me until after Monday night's basketball game. I'll need to find someone to fill in for Hazel again."

Harley gave a shake of her head. "I honestly just want her out of my stunt group."

"If you want I'll switch with her for the basketball game, and I'll be your group's second base so you don't have to stunt with her anymore." Cindy offered with a small shrug of her shoulders.

"Thank you Cindy."

-

"That was savage, Harley Quinn. Trying to get poor little Michella Barnes kicked off of the cheerleading squad." Andrea commented in amusement when they got in the car to head back home. With her enhanced hearing abilities, she had been able to listen in on Cindy and Harley's conversation about Michella Barnes. Niall had been in the parking lot waiting for them for a few minutes. His track practice had ended before their cheerleading practice. 

Harley replied, "I just can't stand her. And I think she hates me."

"And you hate her too, don't even try to lie about it." Andrea pointed out, her British accented voice still full of amusement. All through practice she had noticed the hostility between the two girls which she found entertaining to watch. Dempsey had been hostile as well, but it was mostly because it was her job to watch over Harley Quinn, and Harley was getting covered up in bruises because of Michella's supposed clumsiness. "I think the real reason you hate her is because of that whole Calum deal, she took him from you." The English shifter added. 

"Why does everyone think that?" Harley groaned, throwing her head back in her seat. She now had resorted to getting a ride home with Niall and Andrea. Without Calum to take her to school and give her a ride home like he used to, she would need to learn how to drive her own car. "You two know better than anyone that we never dated."

"Because you didn't want to." Niall said from the driver's seat. "Calum always wanted to ask you out."

"Why didn't you want to? You love him." Andrea wondered, turning in the front passenger seat to look at Harley who was sat in the back.

"I'm dating Ashton." Harley reasoned. "I love Ashton."

St. Genevieve's wasn't too far off from the neighborhood in which the teens lived in. It only took them a ten minute drive through the residential areas until they reached their street. It was Firestone Avenue, the street where the most gruesome murders in Sydney had happened so long ago. And Harley Quinn's house had been the very spot where it all happened. For years, the students of St. Genevieve's told her, nobody had the courage to live in that house. It had laid abandoned for years until it was purchased by Aaron and Harleen Quinn.

Niall stopped the car in the driveway across the street from Harley's home. They were still renting the place from Calum. As the three climbed out of the car, Niall said to Harley, "We'd invite you in, but you might not like that. Calum is staying with us." 

Since Calum returned to Sydney, he had been staying with his two European friends. Harley had forgotten that his uncle Cole was still living in the other house, and she wondered if Calum would ever do anything to get that property back. It was a house that meant something to him because it belonged to his family. Calum's father Richard had gotten everything because he had been Con's first son. For that, his siblings Clarissa and Cole always resented him. He had always been favored and more successful than them.

"Why wouldn't I like that?" Harley asked him. "He's the one avoiding me."

"He might not like it." Andrea corrected, earning her a small glare from Harley.

"I need to talk to him." The dark haired girl with blue eyes decided and hurried past Andrea and Niall before they could even attempt to stop her. But neither of them did. Neither Andrea nor Niall liked the fact that Calum was seeing someone else just to try to get over Harley. 

Harley walked up to the front door and twisted the knob to get it open. She had only been at this house a handful of times, the majority of those times the house had been stuffed with people for a party. Now it was quiet and empty. There was only one person in the house at the moment. Going from her memories of the welcoming party Calum's family had once organized for the Quinns, she was able to find Calum's room on the second floor. It was at the very end of a hallway.

She knocked on the door and waited for an answer. He opened the door a minute later and she peeked over his shoulder to make sure there was no one else there with him. Calum said nothing when he saw her, he merely sighed and closed the door in her face.

"Calum!" Harley knocked on the door again, this time with more urgency. "We need to talk!"

"I don't want to talk to you." He told her from the other side of his bedroom door.

"Hiding from me won't make anything better." She insisted, her fist continued to pound on the door.

She heard him groan and within seconds the door was open once again. He grabbed her by the wrist, shutting the door behind her with a loud thud and locking them inside. "You're right." He agreed with her. He led her to the end of his room where his bed was located and had her sit down. Sitting down next to her, he continued, "Avoiding you is not making me feel better. Even if I avoid you, you'll still be dating him. Even if I avoid you, its still gonna fucking hurt. When my parents died, it hurt like hell, but I pushed through it because you were there for me. How can I push through this alone? How can I get used to the fact that I lost you?" He asked her, and through all his questions he sounded absolutely dead serious. He was genuinely seeking an answer from her. "I wasn't prepared to see you kissing him, I wasn't prepared to hear you choosing him." 

"Calum," She began in a voice barely above a whisper, her blue eyes were looking down at her shoes. She wanted to carefully phrase her words to avoid him anymore pain. "What would you like me to do? Would you have wanted me to force myself to pick you?"

"You'd have never forced yourself because you love me too." He insisted. Everyone seemed to be insisting on the same thing. But Harley didn't know, she couldn't tell. She was just a mess of emotions in her mind and heart. It seemed that everyone else was seeing something she was missing, like she was walking alone in the darkness and there was a voice to guide her through it. That was how she felt, only there were two voices and she didn't know which to run to.

At that moment, it was his voice which brought her attention back. "This is gonna sound ridiculous as hell, but I have never loved anyone like I love you. You know the kind of terrible person I used to be, and if I'm not so terrible anymore its all because of you. For you."

Harley swallowed hard. She didn't know what to say to him. The storm in her thoughts wouldn't let her connect any feelings together, much less any words.

"Well, if you say you love me so much then what the hell is the deal with you and Michella?" Harley found herself blurting out after a brief silence.

There was a very brief flash of a smirk on his lips that quickly went away after he noticed the seriousness in her blue eyes. "Are you jealous?" He asked. "Michella just wanted someone to sit with during lunch."

"But you gave her a lift home, and you gave her a nickname, Cal." She purposefully used the nickname she had given him. But the way she had used it was full of venom, like she could almost hear Michella saying it in her freshman high pitched American voice. It sounded not at all like it suited him, much less coming from her.

He was momentarily steered out of his depressive mood as he gathered from each of her resent filled comments that she was jealous of Michella Barnes, and that furthered his suspicion that Harley Quinn did love him too. He chuckled and moved back to lay on his bed so that his feet were dangling off the edge. "Someone is clearly jealous-"

"I'm not." She huffed.

"Right." He snorted. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her down so that she was laying down next to him. Now both were side by side, their eyes trained on the ceiling as they spoke. "Misha's dad is the new chemistry professor, and they were having a welcoming party for him, so she didn't have a ride home. And the whole nicknames thing was her idea. I just followed along because I didn't want to have her look stupid in front of the cheerleaders."

Harley rolled her eyes. "How considerate of you."

"Bottom line is I'm not interested. She's like five years old." Calum joked. Harley noticed her hand was still in his grasp and he was subconsciously tracing the outline of it with his index finger. 

She turned to lay on her side to look at him, and as she did, her hand was pulled from his reach. Calum absently reached for her hand again, but found only air. He turned his head and it was then that he had barely noticed the forming bruise on her face. 

"Was that from when Dempsey fell on you today?" He asked her, slightly shocked.

A small smile broke out onto Harley's face. He wouldn't have known that unless he was watching. She nodded her head, "I think your new best friend hates me."

"Why would she hate you?" Calum asked.

Harley shrugged her shoulders. She didn't know the answer to that either.

-

extra long chapter because im feeling inspired. thank you all so much for reading, commenting, and all that. i think we got a record of comments for the previous chapter. today im going jogging with my friend, and im leaving in a few minutes, so no long author's note for today.

just the qotd and then im gone: do you think michella hates harley? or do you think its just harley's imagination because she just hates michella? comment what you think!

have a blessed week!

-clary xx