𝐏𝐎𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐍 ┃ʟᴇxɪ ʜᴏᴡᴀʀᴅ

─ʀᴜᴇ sᴘᴇᴀᴋs

                    HARLEY MET CASSIE a few months ago. At that time, Cassie was beginning to find herself attracted to McKay, an older guy, a football player and much nicer than you'd expect from a popular guy in high school. For some reason still unknown to Cassie and Maddy, McKay had broken up with his girlfriend, and for another reason that also escaped them, Harley seemed too intimidating to date McKay without seeking something resembling her approval first.

Harley Jordan, seventeen years old. I think she's the only person in our grade who seems to have no mental, family, addiction or heartbreak problems. On the contrary, she seems like a pretty focused girl. Before hanging out with Maddy, Cassie and the rest of the clique, I would never have thought she would be friends with such a crew. Yes, she dressed flashy. Yes, she was also a cheerleader. Yes, she got dough coming out of her pores. She just seemed to have something different, something that would never have told me Harley would end up being one of them.

Rumor has it that Cassie and Harley got into a fight in the back of the high school to see who would get McKay, but as far as I know, that's nothing more than lies created by twelve-year-old girls to gain popularity. The reality is that Harley was having lunch in the cafeteria, unaccompanied and with her headphones on, so Cassie was getting more and more anxious —would she be planning something against her?— but Maddy, being as stubborn as she is, encouraged her to come closer, whispering to her not to let her fear get the better of her, that in case she wanted to pull her hair, there were two of them, and Harley was just one.

But when Cassie dropped the bombshell on her —"well, you see, it's just that I like McKay, and since I heard you two had broken up, I'd like to know if you thought it was wrong," is what Cassie would like to have said, but instead, she just stared at her with wide eyes and parted lips with no coherent words coming out of them, while Harley kept looking at her silently, waiting for her to say something meaningful—, Harley just nods and looks at Maddy behind Cassie, who frowns slightly —was it that easy? , fuck—, and says, "It's cool. Take care, though," but her tone of voice didn't denote threat, but a clear warning of "he's a brat and probably will remain one even if he's with you."

So, as far as I know, that's the story of how Maddy, Cassie and Harley became inseparable. Harley was the same age as us, but from the way she carried herself she seemed a little older, so in the early days of their friendship, Cassie was a little intimidated by her. She had to think about what she wanted to say beforehand if she didn't want to screw up as badly as the day she met her. But Harley was one of them. She gossiped about BB's flings of dubious provenance, brought advice to the table about Maddy and Nate's relationship, and even helped Cassie pick out clothes that would surprise McKay the most. And while that initially smelt like there was a catch to Maddy —what kind of person helps someone else get together with their ex?—, she soon realized that Harley's interest in relationships was negligible.

"Do you think I should get back with Nate?" Maddy asked one day. They were at Cassie's house, so there was privacy to tell the truth.

"No," Harley answered seriously, barely lifting her head from her notebook. Kat glanced at what Harley was writing, and quickly copied down the math homework. "But you're going to do so anyway, so why bother asking us the same stuff over and over again?"

"Wow, it was just a question. Stop being such a bitch," Maddy scoffed.

"I'm not," Harley replied without raising her voice. "You're asking something we've told you a million times not to do, but you do it anyway. We're looking out for you, Maddy, but if not hearing what you wanna hear is better than telling the truth, you do you. I'm out."

She gathered all her things and left, not even saying goodbye to the others, who stood watching the scene tensely, waiting for a logical reply from Maddy that never came. Unbeknownst to her, Lexi was watching the room from the stairs, sitting with her arms crossed and listening to someone else's conversation, but she didn't mean to, she was just going downstairs to do homework with them. Sometimes she was another member of the group, other times she felt left out because the others were older and talked about grown-up things, like Nate and Maddy's relationship, and even though Lexi pretended to be innocent, she knew all too well the kinds of things that went on behind closed doors.

So from that night on, her little obsession with Harley began. She liked her honesty, her strong personality that wouldn't be placated even by Maddy Perez. She liked that she told the truth even when it wasn't what her friends wanted to hear, but always tried to do it as tactfully as possible. She liked watching her from afar, thinking about what her next move would be, watching her open the biology book and write things down, thinking about if Kat would say something that would make her smile and her wonderful grin would light up her face. Lexi was smart, so it wasn't too hard to realize she had a crush on her older sister's best friend. The hard part was realizing that it would never come to anything.

The truth was that Lexi didn't know much about Harley, and the truth was that none of us knew much about her life. It was hard not to notice her huge house, with large windows that overlooked a pool in the back and a spectacularly cared for yard. She didn't talk much about her parents, so even I didn't know what her mother did for a living, or why there were only two cars in her parking lot, hers and another one. I had seen Mrs. Jordan a few times: a woman even more imposing and intimidating than her daughter, always dressed in her best clothes, as if she were permanently in a courtroom or at the top of an important company, but I had never exchanged enough words with her beyond "nice house" or "I come to study with Harley," so I didn't know anything else about her. It was strange, but her father I didn't even remember.

The only thing Lexi knew for sure about Harley was two things: that she got good grades without studying, and that her hatred for Nate Jacobs was unbelievable. She didn't know if it was because of the hurt Maddy was getting from the toxicity of their relationship or if there were ulterior motives, but the truth was that the Jacobs family left traces of hatred wherever they went, so Lexi wouldn't be surprised to learn that something had happened with some Jacobs in the past. Lexi worried that her comments towards Nate would cause him to hurt her at some point, but apparently even Nate respected Harley's hierarchy, a position in high school that no one understood how she had achieved.

I hadn't dealt too much with Harley up until the time I overdosed, so I didn't know her as well as Maddy or Cassie, but I knew she was a good person. She'd taken me to NA meetings a time or two without asking questions, and although I didn't want to ask either, she seemed to have some experience in these matters. She didn't drink too much at parties, so she never caused any scandal, and I was also unaware of any dark secrets from her past or things to threaten her with, so I assumed no one had any special reason to mess with her.

Despite her disconcertingly far-from-typical cheerleader attitude, or the unanimous but inexplicable respect everyone had for her, I knew Harley Jordan was a good person.