Amber Eyes

THIRTY ONE

I know where she's going with this.

"The video clip, Harley, you were the one who recorded it, weren't you?" she says quietly.

My smile widens but I neither accept or deny the statement.

"You seemed aware of the camera. If someone was hiding and recording you, they'd move. But the camera was stable. As if it was kept somewhere."

She looks at me, her eyes holding an expression of curiosity.

"Why did you record a video of yourself when you knew who you were spreading a rumour about? That's a death wish." She pauses, looking at me. "It's a death wish. A normal person would try as hard as they can to stay anonymous. But you went ahead and collected proof for your own guilt? Tell me what I'm missing. Tell me that I'm right and the situation doesn't make sense at all."

I look away, staring ahead of me, right at the rail. She follows my gaze, and a silence spreads across the atmosphere.

A minute later, I get up. "It doesn't have to make sense."

"What do you mean?"

I walk towards the rail and keep my hands on it, my eyes following my own fingers. "I said that it doesn't have to make sense. As for the situation you want to know, well, that's not for you to know, is it?"

She sighs, getting up as well. She walks towards me, stopping when she leans against the rail with her face faced towards me.

I eye her. "You should probably stop recording me."

Her face drops. "You knew, huh?" She lifts up her other hand where she held her phone. She waved it to me, opened her screen, stopping the voice recorder. She keeps it back in her bag and sighs, folding her arms. "You do live up to the expectations."

"I probably don't, your screen was open half the time so it was easy to figure that out."

Her cheeks turn red and she suppresses a smile. "Yeah well, I'm not exactly the brightest person out here."

I let out a laugh. For a few moments, we stay silent just like this before it gets too awkward for me to handle and I back away from the rail and take a few steps backwards. "I'm leaving if that's it."

She nods and I turn around, walking towards the gate. Just when I reach out, I hear Summer call out to me once. I stop. "Harley, wait a minute."

"What's up?" I ask her and she walks towards me, standing at the other end of the door and holding it open. Her expression is genuine so I already know that she's going to mean whatever she says. Out of all the seniors I've met, Summer is probably the only person I like. She's sweet and helpful, minds what she says, and seems almost perfect to me. But everyone has their fair share of secrets - I know she has some as well.

"I want you to know that whatever's going on between you and Asher, I'm not involved in it. I don't care about any kind of rumours and I don't care about anything you did in the past and I don't give a fuck about anything you do to Asher, unless you murder him or something, because it doesn't concern me at all. I just want..." she trails off, looking at her feet. I notice she's wearing white tennis shoes. "I want us to be on good terms, you know."

My face morphs into a confused expression. "You mean friends?"

"Yeah," she replies. "I want us to be friends."

"You want us to be friends. Why? This is the first time we've actually talked to each other and you were recording a conversation we were having and you still want to be friends with someone who's gotten a rumour about being involved in a newsworthy scandal?" I sigh. "Why do you want to be friends with me, Summer?"