❝A man's character is his fate.❞
— Heraclitus
Even a normal person of some other program could see how tense the atmosphere was.
However, it wasn't just our group that seemed to be uncomfortable amongst each other. The other group members were dead set on giving each other cold shoulders. There was another student, Rhea, who was sitting on one of the seats with her feet propped up on another. I heard she injured her leg before and if she hadn't, she'd be in our group.
The warm up session and basic exercises went by on a whim. Val didn't seem to be bothered by the environment, nor did she stop anyone as they began to bicker. During the partner exercises, she asks us to choose our partners ourselves. Since there wasn't anyone specific with whom I really got along with, I just watched as the partners were being formed. There was an odd number, so I was hoping to be left out. That's why I had been standing in the corner watching everyone for the past few minutes.
"Harley," an oddly familiar voice says to me. I don't need to turn to figure out who's speaking. I'm surprised he reached out to me, though.
"What do you want?"
His hand reaches the back of his neck and he looks back. Val's looking at us but when she notices that Sam's gaze has found hers, she looks away. "I need to talk to you."
"About what?"
He lets out a sigh. Instead of giving me a direct reply, he looks me dead into the eyes and says, "Partner up with me."
"That's what you want to talk about?" I ask him even though I already know what's up. I'd figured it out the moment he had recorded the whole incident.
He shakes his head. "Nope. I just want to partner up with you so we can talk about it?"
I accept his invitation and he stands with me, waiting for Val to guide us. "Speak."
"Why didn't you push him away?" he says almost too quickly. "That guy, Remi. Why didn't you push him away?"
I can't say I'm surprised by this question. In fact, I had expected him to ask this. If he hadn't, I'd have been more than just disappointed.
When I don't reply to him, he turns to face me, an expression of impatience on his face.
"I asked you something," he says. "Why didn't you push him away? You could have. Your face wasn't zoned out which meant you were still aware of your surroundings. You were telling him to let go of you but you weren't making a move. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you'd have smiled in a while."
Hearing the last part of his sentence, a smile spread across my lips as an instinct.
"Why are you smiling? That's scary."
"You know why I did that already, huh?" I ask him. "You just want confirmation, don't you? I knew you'd pick it up."
He blinks. "You knew I was there. You knew I'd record the whole thing. You knew I'd interrupt. No, you didn't just know about it. You counted on it."
I lean back, folding my arms.
"How the hell did you know? I've never even talked to you before, Harley."
Of course I'm not going to tell him how I knew about it. I'm just not dumb enough for it. When Zia sent the message on the groupchat because no one could understand what she was saying, the read receipt said that the message was read by all. Since Sam was in the groupchat, it meant that he had read it as well. Which meant that he was aware of the meeting.
Sam had a delinquent reputation. When you're in a school like this, rumours travel faster. Just like the way people got to know about Rhett's challenge to me, there was another rumour that went around. The seniors beat a junior up because he heard something he shouldn't have. He was given a black eye to keep it quiet. The junior's name was Samuel Andrews. This was confirmed when I saw him on the weekend evaluation with a swollen eye.
On Sunday, when I was looking at the ranks of my teammates, I learnt more about Samuel and I immediately knew who the seniors from the rumours were. The rest of it was pure guesswork and instinct, that turned out to be right.
"You're Nathan Andrews' brother," I state.
His eyes widen and expression drops but he immediately tries to regain his composure. "And how does that matter?"
"Your brother beat you up. That's how you got the black eye. I don't know how he managed to keep his name out of the rumours but damn, your brother beat you up."
"Are you even listening to yourself?"
"You're free to deny my statement, Sam, but I'm pretty sure I'm correct. I'm pretty sure that your relationship with him isn't great either since he beat you up and stuff but honestly, I don't care. I'm sorry to bring this up. I just needed confirmation about whether I was right or not and your face tells me everything I need to know."
"How do you-" he stops himself. "You still haven't answered my question."
I stand straight as I begin to feel Val's eyes on us. "You're right. I was counting on you to come."
"Why?"
"I'm gonna need that recording sometime," I simply say.
"And why would I do that, exactly?"
I turn to face him and scoff.
His expression drops again and he runs a hand through his hair. "I'd never give that thing to you until you tell me what you're up to."
I smile again and this time, it's bittersweet and not assuring at all. "I won't need to tell you anything, Sam. You'd give it to me yourself."
At that moment, Val calls us all and asks us to stand in a row, giving no time to Sam to reply to me. I know my last statement left him confused, but it doesn't matter anymore.
He'll be confused and he'll be curious. But that won't be for long. He's weak. And he'll give in sooner than the others.