Amber Eyes

TWENTY NINE

He blinks, leaning back on his chair. Sighing, he asks his next question. "Is it true, though? Were you actually involved in some scandal?"

I scoff. "Since you know about this, I don't think I need to lie to you about it." I shift, keeping my feet on the ground such that I'm sitting next to him in a way. His eyes move to my arms and then to my face again but my gaze isn't focused anywhere in particular. "I wasn't just involved in some scandal. I created it."

His eyes go wide as he turns to face me completely. "You did what?"

I bite my lip before continuing to speak. "I'm not going to repeat this so hear this properly at once. I created a scandal."

"You- what the fuck? How did you even manage to pull that off? What did you fucking do, Harley? More importantly, who was it about? You do seem-" Tired of listening to him, I instinctively cover his mouth with my hand, catching him off guard. I shush him and he doesn't react to me at all. I let go of him and he doesn't speak any further.

"That's enough for now. I'm not lying when I say that I did that. You'll know about it in a few days. There's proof of what I did and in sometime, it will be circulated to everyone. The rumour would be confirmed true and I'm risking expulsion in order to successfully pull this stunt." I get up from my bed, walking towards the window and peeping out through the blinds. "If you go around telling people about me spreading this stuff myself, I'll kill you."

Though I wasn't serious, there was something in my voice that made me think that my tone was too harsh than what it was supposed to be.

Reece doesn't say anything. I look at the time and see that within the next seven minutes, the first video would drop. I sigh and turn to face Reece, who'd been staring at me all this time with a blank expression on his face.

"How many people know about this?" he asks me quietly.

"Just you," I reply, "And I intend to keep it that way."

He gets up from his seat, walking towards me again and standing there. He doesn't look at me now. In fact, for the first time since he entered my room, he's not looking at me. He's looking at the pile of papers on my study table. Just then, something piques his interest there and I'm left to wonder what it is. He puts away three or four papers before seeing a certain question paper.

Picking it up, he flips through it once. "Why's your entrance paper here?"

I walk towards him, looking at whatever he's seeing. It's the last part of the paper, the one I didn't attempt during the exams. It had a lot of complex problems and I knew that whatever I'd attempted was just enough to get me here so I left it be. His eyes drop to the sheets of paper that were kept below them and his eyes widen a bit again.

"Do you mind if I-"

"Go ahead," I say before sitting back on my bed and replying to a message that had popped up on my notifications.

Unknown: Harley, it's time. I'm sending it rn but just tell me if you don't want me to because there's no going back after this.

Harley: Do it.

Unknown: Harley...

Harley: Do it.

She doesn't reply then and I know that she's going to do it. She owes me that much.

"Holy fuck," he mutters under his breath. "How much time did you take during the exam?"

"Three hours and fifteen minutes," I reply.

"And how much time did you take to solve these?" He picks up a bunch of papers with calculations of the last part of the last section.

"Thirty minutes, give or take."

He drops the paper instantly and turns to face me with an expression of genuine shock over his face. I raise my eyebrows, silently asking him what's his deal.

"You're saying you could've finished the whole thing within four hours?" His tone is laced with disbelief but there's nothing I can do but shrug.

"Yep," I answer him. "I could've but I didn't."

"There was a chance that you would have scored a hundred percent?"

"If I had attempted the whole thing, I'd have scored a hundred percent for sure."

He takes a step back and slowly tilts his head towards me. "That's impossible. Most people aren't even able to attempt over three sections but how the hell did you-"

"I don't know," I snap. "I just had to get enough to get in the school, okay? I didn't even realise how much I'd attempted before I just couldn't anymore and-" I press my mouth shut, realising what I'd just said. Letting out a small sigh, I look away from him, grabbing my blanket and wrapping it around me again. "Just forget it. It doesn't matter anymore."

However, he just got a new topic to press on now. "What do you mean when you say that you couldn't? Were you mentally exhausted? Because you don't strike me as the kind of person who'd be exhausted just like that. You could've been the first person to have scored a hundred on Redville's entrance. You do know what the difficulty level of this school's exam is, right?"

I roll my eyes. "I don't care about any of that." His gaze matches mine once again and he doesn't say anything to me at all. Instead, he just begins to come closer to me again. "Is being close to someone your way of intimidation?" I ask him once he's near me again. He crouches on one of his knees just to match my eye level.

The corner of his mouth twitches. "You don't care about any of that?" He lets out a small laugh. "Just when I think that I've got you figured out, you go ahead and do or say something that's so fucking unexpected."

I don't reply to him. I don't know how to.

"Just what the hell are you?"

My phone vibrates and I quickly reach forward to grab it. It's a text message from an unknown number but I know exactly who that is once I read the text.

Asher: Meet me @ Athena room 2. 2pm. Don't be late.

"Who is that?" Reece asks me.

"Now that," I pause, "is none of your business."

He gets up with a sigh and walks towards the door, giving me one last look before he leaves. He doesn't say anything at all, leaving our conversation open ended. I bite my lip before lying back on my bed and groaning in frustration.

Guess I have to meet him now.

Author’s note:

yes ive run out of quotes. and im very lazy thats why im updating amber eyes this late. thank u for being patient besties and if you’re reading this, let me know what u think of this chapter <3