[ 30 ] 2014

-

"He says he'll be back so you guys can talk. Ides of March, whenever that is."

-

Harleen and Aaron talked about the offer from the Sydney Police Department for a few days. They had offered to do all the heavy work regarding the Murder Tour, which was a tour in which they would show reenactments of what they believe happened the night of the murders. The family would also get relocated in a nice hotel for the week. Billy was okay with it, since it didn't exactly affect him. He had gotten permission from his parents to stay at Cindy's house for the week. But Harley wasn't thrilled about the whole situation.

For one, she didn't want people moving her things around. She also didn't like the idea of strangers walking all over and taking pictures of her bedroom, which was the place where three of the five murders had taken place. And lastly, she just didn't like how it affected Ashton. 

He had been in a gloomy mood since her parents had agreed to let the Police Department borrow the house for their murder tour. Harley was sure he was reminded of painful memories that were hard to forget as it was. Harley now had two mopey teenage boys to worry about, and it was difficult to go back and forth, spending time with both of them.

Since Ashton couldn't stay with her in the hotel because of Harleen, Dempsey and Paúl had taken him in for the week. Harley was very close to asking her parents if she could stay at Paúl and Dempsey's house. That would allow her to spend some time with Ashton and help keep him distracted during the murder tour that week, while it would also allow her to keep an eye on Calum who lived across the street with Niall and Andrea. 

She also wanted to giver her parents some time alone. And she honestly just wanted to be away from her mother for a few days. She knew Harleen was pregnant, but Harley was tired of her mother's mood swings, her strange cravings that she only seemed to get when all stores were closed for the night, and her constant complaining that she was tired, sore, and bloated. Harley felt more sympathy for her dad Aaron, who had to sit through all her whining and binge eating because she was pregnant and because he loved her. Harley loved her mother as well, but she just needed a few days off now that she was being rather insufferable.

The seventeen year old felt bad for wanting to be away from her pregnant mother who might need her help, but she had her own things to deal with.

At school, they were at the beginning of promposal season. All the boys and girls were thinking up creative ways to ask people to be their dates to prom. In their group of friends, Niall had been the first to ask his date to prom. According to what Andrea had told Harley and Dempsey during cheerleading practice, he had dressed up as a pizza delivery boy and handed her a box of pizza during home class. Inside, was a heart shaped pepperoni pizza and the words I know this is cheesy, but will you go to prom with me? on the inside of the box. 

Dempsey had gotten asked by one of the fourth year boys even thought she was only a third year, but she declined for Paúl's sake. She didn't want to go to prom if she couldn't go with him, and she already had planned that she would go with him.

Harley's brother Billy was planning to ask Cindy that afternoon, but everyone had already guessed that they would be going together.

Harley was almost sure Calum would ask Michella, since they were still friends. Things between Harley and Calum were much better. They were getting along great and she had made progress convincing him to get in the pool. The furthest he would do was to get the water to his knees, but Harley knew they needed to keep working if she wanted to help rid him of his trauma. Even through all the progress they had made in their friendship, Calum was still spending a lot of time with the freshman student, which gave Harley the impression that she would be his date to the prom.

Harley Quinn went about her day seeing several promposals, and she started to doubt that anyone would ask her. She didn't mind. She wanted to go with Ashton, even though she knew it wouldn't be possible. During lunch time, Harley had seen Calum carrying around a box, with another tiny box on top of it. The bigger box was white and looked like a pastry box, while the little one looked like a jewelry box. Harley thought that was Calum's promposal for Michella. But she ignored it. It was none of her business who Calum wanted to go to prom with. She decided she would just stay home and watch movies with Ashton that night.

She was on her way to Niall and Andrea's car after practice when both of them climbed into the car with lightning speed and locked her out after Andrea snatched Harley's backpack from her shoulder and tossed it a few feet off. "Open the door, guys. This isn't funny." Harley hurried for her backpack and returned to the car, knocking on Andrea's passenger side window. "I don't have another ride home."

Andrea rolled down the window and shot her a taunting grin. "Too slow, Quinn." And she blew her a raspberry before the two took off without her.

Harley was surprised that Niall would have also been capable of leaving her behind too.

Everyone else had already climbed into their cars and took off for home, leaving Harley Quinn in the school parking lot with one other car there. It was a black sports car that belonged to Calum, which meant he was still on campus. But Harley didn't want to get a ride with him if he was also taking Michella home.

She instead slung her bag over her shoulder and headed for the exit of the school. She was halfway across the parking lot when she heard someone calling her, "Hey Harley!"

She turned and saw Calum barely making his way out of the physical education building with his belongings and the two boxes still in his hands. Harley waited as he cut the distance between them with a few strides.

"What are you still doing here?" He asked her like he didn't know. 

The football team and the cheerleaders shared the south field for practice in the afternoons, and they both finished at the same time.

"Your friends left me behind on purpose." Harley said, unamused by their little joke. She was pretty upset that they had left her alone in that empty parking lot, absolutely stranded. But maybe they had done it on purpose because they knew Calum was still at school. Both Niall and Andrea were always trying to find ways to push the two of them together. Eyeing the big white box, she asked, unable to contain her curiosity, "What's in the box?"

He looked down at the boxes in his hands. "Some cupcakes I bought."

"For Michella." Harley guessed. 

Her tone of voice immediately changed to one of disdain as she remembered Michella Barnes. For days after Harley had gotten her kicked out of the cheer leading squad, strange things had been happening to her. Gum in her school shoes that someone had put in while she was at cheerleading practice. Shaving cream in her backpack. Push pins hidden on her blazer so that when she put it back on they would poke her. Harley had suspected Niall and Andrea, but she thought Niall would never be capable of such things and she was on good terms with Andrea, which only left Michella and her possibly petty revenge because Harley had gotten her kicked out of cheerleading. 

Calum quickly shook his head, crinkling up his nose. He still couldn't believe that no matter how much he had assured Harley of it, she still thought he and Michella were an item. "No. They're for me. Don't I look like the kind of guy who loves cupcakes?" His last sentence sounded slightly sarcastic to her.

Harley felt some relief wash over her. 

She was about to say goodbye and head out when he added the offer, "Want one?"

She thought about it for a moment before she felt her stomach growl. She felt it and he heard it, earning her a chuckle from him. It was five in the afternoon and she hadn't eaten anything since lunch time, which as at noon. Nodding her head, she replied, "Sure. I'll have one. I'm starving." A cupcake would surely make her feel better after she was sulking all day, thinking that box was for Michella Barnes. 

Calum grabbed the smaller box from on top and stuffed it into his pocket. With his now free hand, he lifted the lid off the box and Harley gasped at what was inside. There were eight cupcakes. Five of them spelled out PROM?, one of them had a red heart on it, and the last two were what surprised her the most. The bakers had drawn their faces on each of the other two cupcakes with frosting. Harley knew the girl was her, and not Michella, because of the blue frosting hair on top and the blue eyes. They had done a surprisingly great job with the cupcakes and she was sure they had costed him a pretty penny.

"Calum..." Harley didn't even know what to day.

"Be my date to the prom." He told her with that ever so confident smirk of his that hadn't made an appearance in a while, adding, "Its not like you can go with mirror boy." No matter how much it displeased Harley, he was right about that.

Harley bit down on her lip nervously before she replied. "I just don't want you to think that I'm leading you on by going to prom with you."

The raven haired boy gave a shake of his head. "You made it more than clear who you want to be with. Just let me take you to prom. Give me this one moment of happiness with you."

"I have to talk to Ashton about it." She said, still unsure of what response to give him.

He had a response for that as well. "I already asked him because I knew you would want his input. He said it was okay because he wanted you to have a real high school experience."

"That does sound like something Ashton would say." Harley commented.

Calum handed her the box of cupcakes and grabbed one from the batch, which happened to be the girl with the blue frosting hair. He smiled at her as he took a bite into the cupcake and then gestured for her to follow him. "I'll take you back home, since we live across the street from each other."

The two of them went over to his car and got inside, Harley set the box of cupcakes on her lap and strapped her seat belt on.

"You should thank your dad for those." Calum informed her in an attempt at casual conversation, gesturing to the white box on her lap. He got his key out of his pocket and stuck it into the ignition to start the car. He then reached for another thing in his pocket, the smaller box with a blue ribbon tied around it. "And this too." He added, handing her the small box.

Confused, Harley took the small box and opened it. "Who? Aaron?"

Inside was a silver bracelet with the name Harley engraved on it. It was full of little charms of things she recognized. A jaguar face. A  gun. A cheerleading megaphone. And several other little charms around it.

Calum shook his head. "I never even talk to Aaron in my life. I was talking about Arthur."

"What do you mean?" She was still confused.

"I'm fucking dirt poor right now. My uncle took everything from me." He admitted to her, his eyes were trained on the road but his hands gripped the steering wheel tightly in anger. "All I have left that is kinda valuable is this fucking car. My shit-head uncle Cole hasn't taken the other house because Niall and Andrea pay a ton of rent on it, and he doesn't know I'm friends with them, much less that they're harboring me. I would have never been able to get you a decent prom proposal or a present right now if it hadn't been for your dad's help. Arthur's taking this uncle-slash-legal-guardian thing really seriously. He helped me make all of this happen."

"When did you see him?" Harley wondered. She and Arthur had been meaning to talk about her relationship with Ashton. Since Arthur had helped Calum with his prom proposal, she knew Arthur was probably not exactly keen on the idea of his daughter dating a ghost from the nineteen sixties.

"Yesterday." Calum replied to her question. He then remembered a message Arthur had given him for Harley. "He says he'll be back so you guys can talk. Ides of March, whenever that is."

-

"Ides of March," Harley repeated the words to herself aloud. "What is that?"

She was alone in the hotel room, laying down on one of the beds in the room. Her parents had gone down to the lobby restaurant for some fancy dinner and wine which the Sydney Police Department had paid for. They invited Harley, but the last thing she wanted was to third wheel with her parents. 

The murder tour at her house had been going on all week, with the weekend being its last two days open before they would return the house to the Quinns. According to the local news there was even a bit festival planned on the entire street in remembrance of Sydney's unsolvable murders. Many of the people she knew from school were going to be there and she was also tempted to go on the tour, if only to gain more insight on what the police really knew--or didn't know--about the murder of the Irwin family.

"Ides of March was when Julius Caesar was betrayed and assassinated." Ashton startled her, popping into the hotel room. "It was March fifteenth."

Harley sat up in her bed. "That's tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's the big murder festival's two-day finale." Ashton pointed out. "March fifteenth. We were all killed on March fifteenth."

Harley gestured for him to sit next to her. By this time, Ashton had lost most of his hesitance around her. He poofed away from where he stood on the other end of the room and materialized on the bed, sitting next to her. Harley placed her head on his shoulder and sighed. "It really pisses me off that they're doing this. They don't even care about the murders. They just care about the fucking money, the publicity."

"At least now I don't have to sit through all of it, stuck in that mirror." He told her with relief.

"You'll never have to go through it alone." Harley assured him.

Ashton turned his head and smiled softly, kissing the top of her head. "Thank you, doll. I'm so lucky to have you, and I would really understand if one day you decided to be with someone else."

"What are you talking about?" She lifted her head to look him in the eyes.

"I'm going to be nineteen for eternity." He began, "And that means I'll always feel this way about you because nothing about me will ever change." His words were careful, with a tone of caution like he was trying not to say the wrong thing that would upset her. "Its different for you. You'll grow up and there's a chance you'll move on, and I'd understand that. I just don't want to get ahead of myself, and expect that you'll be with me for the rest of your days. Its what I would like, but I understand that its unlikely-"

"Wait." She stopped him. 

Both of them knew that when he talked about her moving on and falling in love with someone else, he was specifically talking about Calum.

"Are you trying to say you don't think this will last?" She asked him. Deep down, she had thought about it as well, many times. But the fact that Ashton had actually given it some thought as well hurt. Harley thought about it--not because she thought they couldn't last--but because she was unsure if Ashton would continue being by her side when she was a shriveled up old lady. He would be young forever and she would eventually die. Perhaps another would come along and he would fall in love with her next, until her dying day. 

"That's not what I said, exactly." He replied, looking away from her. "All I said was I would be okay with it if you ever decided you didn't want to be with me anymore. I'm just a soul left behind, after all."

"Ashton..." She started, feeling the tears beginning to burn her blue eyes.

He sighed, mentally kicking himself for everything he had said. "I've screwed up, haven't I?" What he meant to do was to make her understand that she had no reason to feel bad for him if she one day decided she wanted to be with Calum instead. Ashton always thought she deserved someone who could grow old with her and be seen with her in public. He had allowed himself to be selfish, as he put it, by allowing himself to enjoy her company until she needed him.

Harley said nothing, holding her head down to conceal the tears that were beginning to spill. The girl with bright blue dyed into her hair brought a hand to her face to wipe the tears away. On her wrist he noticed the silver bracelet Calum had given her, and it wasn't difficult for him to figure out that it was a gift from him, though he said nothing of it.

"Can you just go?" She asked him, her voice weepy and cracked. It did everything to break him.

"I'm really sorry I made you cry, doll. I didn't mean to." He told her with pure sincerity in his voice. "Just remember that I love you with my entire soul. I could never love anyone like I have loved you." 

With that he finished and vanished into thin air.

-

a semi drama filled update. 

i've been sick these last few days which is why there haven't been very frequent updates like there used to. i know i have updated many of my other stories, but that's because the majority of those updates were already pre-written. so please bear with me. and thank you for reading and supporting this book. 

qotd: okay guys. so this may sound a bit crazy, because it is, but i have written four possible endings for this book. three of them i like ALOT. but i dont want to write them all on here because i reckon its gonna get confusing af. so i was wondering if maybe i post the original ending and one alternate ending on here, and then just post the other two in a separate book. or should i post them all in here? what do you guys think? i like all the endings equally. fuckkkk.

comment what you think! and have a great week!

-clary xx