❝He who has never learnt to obey cannot be a good commander.❞
— Aristotle
He doesn't notice me until I'm almost seated right behind him.
I sit down cross legged and he turns to see me, raising his eyebrows. If this was something that happened a while ago, I'd be flustered and embarrassed but right now, I had a reason to come here. Coming to think of it, I've never approached Reece on my own. It's always him who initiates conversations and carries them. I'm the one who tries to cut them short.
His eyes scream, what the hell are you doing here?
I'm about to say something when the girl next to him speaks up. "Hey, aren't you the girl from the locker room who was late?"
I blink before managing to flash a small smile and nod. "Yeah, I'm her."
"Oh," she says, "I didn't know you knew Reece."
I don't know what to say, so I just smile and nod once before looking back at Reece. Our eyes meet for a second before he sighs and turns away. The girl's eyes flick between me and him repeatedly with a questioning look on her face. The situation cannot be any more awkward.
"Do you want something?" he asks me. His tone is soft but still has a cold edge to it.
"I want to talk," I say to him. "To you."
"Then talk," he says and I roll my eyes. The girl and I exchange looks and I'm glad that she understands what I meant because she gets up and stretches herself. I silently thank her for it.
"I'll talk to you later, Reece." She turns to me and smiles. "You too..." she trails off.
"Harley," I introduce myself. Her eyes tell me that she recognises the name but doesn't comment on it. "And you are?"
"Oh, right. Sorry. I'm Pari." She tucks a strand of her brown hair behind her ear and begins walking away after waving to me. She joins her group of friends without sparing another glance at us. I look at Reece, who's still looking at her with an expression I very well know.
"You like her."
He immediately looks away and leans back, shaking his head. "Don't go around making assumptions."
"It's not an assumption," I clarify, "it's an observation."
He sighs in annoyance and turns back towards the screen. The third year evaluation had a few more rounds to go, giving us a maximum of fifteen minutes to talk before he had to go for his assessment.
"Whatever. What do you want to talk about?" he mutters under his breath.
I lift myself up the seat and keep my foot on the seat next to his'. I put my other leg forward as well, entering the same row as him. Just as I stand on the ground and am about to sit on the seat, I lose my balance. I feel like I'm about to fall when a pair of hands reaches out to steady me, one holding my hand and the other at the edge of my waist, making my breath hitch. I say something under my breath in relief.
His hands still holding me, he pulls me towards him lightly with a scowl on his face.
"Why're you pulling stunts like these when you can't even stand straight?"
His tone is mocking and cold but I can't care less. I sit down right next to him as his hands let go of me, his warm touch against my arm lingering, breathing heavily. "Shut up," I snap.
He lets out a small laugh before rubbing the back of his neck. "What do you want to talk about?"
"Oh." I lean back, sinking down my seat. "Just how much do you know about it?"
He gives me a quizzical look. "About what?"
"The whole Cammy McNolan is a cheat thing. How much do you know?"
"So you did find the wall, huh?" he scoffs then shakes his head. "What, you suddenly decided you want to help her?"
"Are you going to answer my questions with more questions? Because it will only extend this conversation and trust me when I say that I have no interest in talking to you."
Another look of annoyance covers his face. "What, why don't you just ask Cammy? She'll be able to explain whatever it is better than I can. I don't know the whole situation and besides, it's not my place to tell you something of hers."
I bite my lip and look the other way. "You were the one who approached me in the first place."
"Oh, so you are helping her?"
"I don't know. I can only say that if I get to know the situation better because I don't want to make false promises to you or to her."
"I-"
"If you don't want me to step in, then don't bother me about it again." I get up from my seat and take a step away from him. I'm stopped when his fingers wrap around my wrist once again, stopping me. His grip is tighter than before and I turn to face him.
"Won't you have to ask her that eventually?"
I move my fist and he lets go of me. I face him with a neutral expression. "I won't."
"Why?"
"I don't want her to know that I'll get involved in this matter." I close my eyes, then open them again. Our eyes meet again and this time, neither of us break the contact. "I want to keep this as lowkey as possible."
"Why?"
I roll my eyes. "Stop asking me questions. If you don't want me to help her, then I don't mind. I know you care about her."
He looks away, thinking about it for a while before gesturing to me to sit down next to him. I do and hear him sigh, covering his face. "Why did you change your mind? You said you won't help her because it wouldn't benefit you."
"Maybe it will."
"What do you mean?" he questions. "You're just going to help someone because you feel like it? That doesn't sound like you, Harley."
"Who said I won't ask for anything in return?"
This seems to have spiked up his interest. He raises his eyebrows, a confused look on his face. "You're confusing me. Didn't you just say that you won't tell Cammy that you're going to step into this?"
"I won't. Hear me out, okay?" I lean into him and he visibly stiffens as my lips were inches away from his ear. I bet he could hear the smile in my voice without looking at me as I playfully whisper some words to him. "You will owe me for it."
Hearing this, he shifts a bit and I sit straighter, thinking about how he'll react to this. "This isn't... Why would I be the one owing something? I'm already telling you the details about everything."
I smile. "If I help you, you will owe me and I'll ask you for a simple favour sometime. I know you're not going to refuse, though. I know you care about her as a friend. I don't know why but maybe you feel like you owe her something but neither of you guys know how to deal with this."
He bites his lip, looking as if he's deep in thought but even I know that he can't think right now.
"And if you fail to stop the rumours?" he asks me.
I let out a sigh of resignation. I can't lie about this. "All rumours fade away in a while. All I'll try to do is speed up the whole process. Of course, there's a big chance that I'll fail but in that case, I'm still safe because you'll be one of the only people to know about this."
"You're gonna get me in some trouble."
I scoff at that.
He leans back, folding his arms. "Fine. I'll tell you. But if you make the situation worse than what it is, I'll ruin you."
I run a hand through my hair. "You're the third person to say that to me in a week, you know. I know what I'm doing. I'll do what I can. Do we have a deal?"
He looks at me for a few seconds before saying, "Deal."
Just then, there's an announcement that all the second years are to come down as the third years begin to disperse from around the pool area. Reece gets up, putting his hands in the pocket and saying, "We'll continue this later."
"Fine by me. Just tell me when you want to talk and I'll be there."
He doesn't reply but walks away slowly, along with all the other second year students. I'm left all alone again and I look at the display screen, seeing that someone named Isla Amelia with a time of 23.8 seconds. The top ten were a very close competition but of course, even a simple difference of point one second makes someone score the top position.
There's one thing that's clear about this school - students will do anything to get on the top. They like to win and all the rivalries tend to turn dirty at some point. There's no guarantee that it'll get violent - in fact, student conflicts turning violent is very rare since it may result in expulsions. There's only one thing that's constant and that's simple mind games.
Manipulation is an art of exercising influence over others. It's done by attacking the mental and emotional sides of a person and is based on a simple principle, which is breaking a person and building them up again.
That's what it is.
Some seniors here are excellent manipulators. They think they can't be used and manipulated themselves but I will change that.
Because with enough pressure, even the strongest minds break.