Photograph [Maya Hart]

21 ~ back home

Harley got back home from the field trip, exhausted.

James picked up him from school when they got back.

Everyone was staring and whispering to each other about James coming to get Harley from school.

At this point, Harley was used to it. He was used to people staring at him and recognizing him as Elizabeth Walker's son. He was used to people stopping him on the street or hallways, asking him for a picture. Even more when he was with his mother.

Now that everyone knew about his mother's relationship with James, it only increased and he was expecting it. He was expecting even more stares and recognition. He wasn't happy about it, but what could he do about it? It was out of his control.

"How was the trip?" James asked as Harley got into the car.

"Good," he smiled. "It was good."

James smiled.

He began driving again.

They got back to the apartment and James and Harley took Harley's stuff up to the unit and unpacked.

"Where's Mom?" Harley asked as they took the bags to Harley's room.

"She's at a meeting," James informed the teenager.

"Oh," he said, disappointedly.

"She should be back home," James assured him. "Her meeting is almost over."

Harley nodded.

Not too long later, Elizabeth came back home and hugged and kissed Harley on his cheek, welcoming him home.

Shortly after dinner that night, Elizabeth had Harley sit with her at the dining table in the kitchen.

"Okay, it's time for you and me to talk about you getting a job," Elizabeth said.

Harley groaned.

"You spent a lot of time at that bakery," Elizabeth said.

"I don't want to work there," Harley shook his head.

"Okay."

"I can work at some coffee shop or restaurant," Harley shrugged.

Elizabeth nodded.

"Good," she said. "Good. You're old enough to make your own money. And you need to save up for college."

Harley nodded.

"You can work as a photographer," Elizabeth said. "You're pretty good."

Harley smiled a little.

"I'll look into it," Harley said.

Elizabeth nodded.

"You can show some local companies here your pictures from school and your personal ones," Elizabeth said.

"Yeah," Harley nodded. "Can I go now?"

"Yeah, okay," she said.

Harley smiled and got up.

He headed into his room and logged into his laptop. He began to import all the pictures he had taken at the ski lodge and saved them all into a flash drive to print them.

***

The following day, Harley headed to school with Cassie. 

Cassie's father dropped the two off at school and drove off to work.

"So, you and Maya, huh?" Cassie said as they walked over to Cassie's locker.

"Yeah," Harley nodded, his face turning red.

"Are you guys, like, a couple or...?" Cassie began.

"Oh, no," Harley shook his head as the two got to Cassie's locker, "we're going on a date."

"She likes you?" Cassie said.

"Yeah, surprisingly," Harley said.

"Eh, it's not that surprising," Cassie said. "You're a nice guy, Harley, it's hard not to like you."

Harley smiled a little.

Cassie opened her locker and adjusted put in some of her notebooks and textbooks into it.

The two then walked to the computer room for Harley to import the pictures he took for the yearbook onto one of the computers and created a file for it.

"Wow, those pictures look great," Cassie said.

"Thanks," Harley smiled. "I'm printing them out this weekend."

"Great," Cassie smiled. "Make copies for me."

"Boo!" Farkle said from behind Harley and Cassie.

The two jumped.

"Oh, god, Farkle!" Cassie exclaimed. "Don't do that!"

"Sorry," Farkle smiled.

Farkle sat down next to Cassie.

"Can you print out some of the pictures for me?" Farkle requested.

"Sure," Harley said.

"Don't print out the pictures I had you take of the insects and everything else I wanted you to take," Farkle said. "Just email me those pictures."

Harley nodded.

"I'll do that..." Harley looked back at the computer screen, "right..." he clicked onto the web browser and logged into his email, "right now."

"Thanks," Farkle smiled.

Harley emailed the pictures to Farkle.

"Got them!" Farkle announced happily when he got the notification.

"Great," Harley smiled.

"I think it's time to go to class," Cassie looked at her watch, "or we'll be late."

"Let's go," Farkle said.

"I'll catch up," Harley said. "You guys go ahead."

Farkle and Cassie glanced at each other, but got up.

Cassie picked up her backpack and went ahead with Farkle.

Harley logged out of the school computer and headed to Mr. Matthews' class.