MARTES
8:56 AM
Reid Harlow
She's left-handed.
That's all I could fucking think about as we're sitting in physics class, taking notes on Calloway's PowerPoint.
He clicks on a button, and the slide moves to the next. He turns away from the screen and faces us, proceeding to go deeper into detail about the laws. I'm jotting down the notes I find necessary—more of them on his lectures than on the previews—and I notice from the corner of my peripheral vision that Dahlia got distracted, again.
She was staring down at her notebooks, the words mixing with scribbles and doodles. Her dark brows pull together in thought. It wasn't until Calloway clicks on the next slide that the sound snapped her back into reality, forcing her to pay attention to the lecture.
She heaves a sigh, picking up a pen as she proceeds to write down the notes on the PowerPoint. Her elbow immediately bumps with mine, and my lips fall into a scowl.
It was annoying, but I wasn't pissed off.
It was just a habit.
She glances up at me, before returning back to her notes, scooting herself closer inwards—taking the least possible space. "Sorry," she mumbles, her cheeks growing a tinted pink. I haven't seen her since the day in the park, but that excludes our shared classes. Our three shared classes.
I don't say anything in return, momentarily fazed by her. I couldn't help but think back to that moment at the bench, where she uncharacteristically snapped at me for smoking. It pissed me off, granted, but it was in that one simple moment that made me reconsider what I thought I knew about her.
If I live or die, I would remain nameless as I am now.
Me too.
"You should start writing with your right hand," I declare, my voice boasting with impassiveness. "it'll work better with me sitting next to you."
I waited, wanting to see if that would cause her to snap. She shakes her head, her black hair flowing over her shoulders and covering her face. She pushes them back with a hint of irritation, but that was about it. "I can't." She whispers softly, delicately.
"Why not?"
"It takes me way too long to write with my right hand," she glances up at the board, reading the displayed presentation, before scribbling the words onto paper. "I just can't do it."
"It's pissing me off." It's not. I'm trying to test you.
She doesn't say anything, just as Calloway takes on the next slide. I return back to my own notebook, jolting down the notes I needed. I listen intently to Calloway, ignoring his casualties at getting the class to be interactive, and it took a full slide before I realize.
We aren't bumping elbows anymore.
I turn to her, seeing how she adjusted over to her right hand without saying anything. I thought she would be more resistant, but she wasn't. I could tell she's trying to perfect her handwriting to be legible, but her strokes were extremely slow.
A pang of guilt passes through me, and for a moment, I consider telling her that I was joking and she could return back to writing with her left hand.
But I didn't.
She huffs in annoyance, pushing her hair back once more. She stops for a second, dropping the pen as she decides to pull her hair into a handful—only for her to twist her locks and hope it stays.
It doesn't.
It unravels before her and flows across her face, covering her vision. She drops the retained pen, releasing a defeated sigh. "I can't do this," she mumbles under her breath, crossing her arms against the desk and dropping her chin onto her forearm.
She stares at the board with passiveness, trying to read the notes and hope they'll photogenically copy to her mind. I slowly stop taking my own notes—deciding to study her instead—and watch as she tries to keep her face blank, like she doesn't want to show emotions.
What's going on?
She silently goes to her backpack, deciding to pull out her MacBook. She drops it onto the desk and props it open. She types in something, maneuvers around the screen before opening an application. Mail.
Dahlia stares at it for a couple of seconds, blinking, before she decides to click what I believe to be the refresh button a couple of times, her eyes anxiously reading the screen. I've since lost all dedication on the board and have been completely submerged in what she's doing, trying to understand the type of person Dahlia Gray is.
I got to read a part of the mail: SAINT Laboratories.
"I got in!" Dahlia proclaims in excitement, her voice raising in octaves compared to her normal speech. Calloway stops, his eyes meeting Dahlia with a mixture of confusion and irritation.
For some goddamn reason, I wanted to punch him because of that.
"I'm sorry," Dahlia pulls to the gravity of the situation, settling back into her seat as she scans around the room. She pushes herself down, slouching, like she wanted to melt into the seat or become invisible from the public eye. She looks embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Don't apologize for being happy.
"Was there something more important than my class?" Calloway declares, crossing his arms against his chest. "Was it more important than your test coming up? Do you even know your laws?"
She bites her bottom lip, "I—um, I," she stammers, her eyes falling to the desk before her. I glance around the room, noticing how everyone's attention was falling on her and some were in the back, snickering.
I lean back against my seat, having long since abandoned my pencil, and put my hand to my face. "I hope you all fucking choke," I mutter under my breath, clenching down my jaw from spilling to words into the public.
The room fell silent.
"What did you say, Mr Harlow?"
Fuck.
He heard me.
I look up from the slits of my fingers, seeing Calloway's eyes pinned on me with aggression. I guess I was heard after all. I drop my hand to my side, staring straight into his eyes.
"I said: I hope you all fucking choke," I repeat, the corner of my eye picking up Dahlia gasping in surprise. "We're supposed to be focusing on taking notes. Sure, Lily was looking at her laptop—so what? Move the fuck on. I'm trying to graduate, not listen to students snickering in the back or you, lecturing her when you're supposed to be teaching."
Calloway stares at me, He takes a second to regain his composure, his eyes sharpening. "You can't swear in my classroom."
I scowl, clenching my teeth. "It's a word. Move on with the world. Fucking teach," I point to the PowerPoint behind him, dropping back into my seat. I pick up my pencil.
He doesn't say anything, and turns back. He clicks to the next slide, proceeding to explain the concept of certain laws as if our conversation didn't just happen. I took my time, deciding when and how I was going to take notes.
The rest of the class period continues forth just like that, and everyone shuts down from making side comments and snickers. At the signal of the bell ring, I manage to get the information I need and the logistics of physics pulled through. I understood.
Just as we're packing up, I feel someone grab a hold of my arm.
I look up, finding my seatmate at the receiving end. "It's not Lily," she said, causing my brows to furrow in confusion. She picks this up. "My name. It's Dahlia. Not Lily."
I cock one brow. "It's a flower, isn't it?"
"It's Dahlia," she repeats, more adamantly. "Just Dahlia."
Without another word, she turns around and leaves the classroom, leaving me with mixed feelings for the girl.
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MARTES
4:21 PM
Reid Harlow
Presley is using our bedroom for his presentation, causing me to have to settle downstairs to finish the rest of my homework.
We argued for a good bit about the respective boundaries and guidelines on sharing a room with someone. Presley hasn't shared a lot of room with anyone since he was in high school, and that speaks a lot about how long he's been used to being solo, the capital child, the one that has their room all to themselves.
Well, fuck that, I'm here and that's technically my room too.
"Ariah!" I hear a masculine voice yell, pacing around the house as his steps descend into the kitchen. Sebastian appears from behind the door, his eyes searching high and low for Ariah. He meets my curious gaze. "Have you seen Ariah?"
"Not since I came home," I answer honestly, tapping the end of my pencil to the paper before me. Sebastian notices.
"She's going to be late for her dance recitals," Sebastian declares, and my mouth almost opened to say why should I care but I force myself to shut up when I sense the panic in his voice. "Sorry to bother you."
He steps out from the kitchen, and the moment he does, I hear: "Ariah! I've been looking everywhere for you."
"I'm sorry! I was listening to music and I was coloring and I got distracted and I—" she begins to ramble, when Sebastian cuts her off.
"It's fine, it's fine. Your dance recital is in an hour, come on sweetheart, it's time to get dressed."
"Yes, sir!" She proclaims energetically, before I hear her giggles flooding the house. Sebastian laughs alongside her, before I proceed to hear footsteps ascending up the stairs.
I return back to my homework, shaking off the chaos that relishes the house and focus on school. Calculus was never a hard subject for me to grasp—I've always understood it well—so it wasn't a surprise that I managed to finish the worksheet within the next thirty minutes and moved on to the next assignment.
The backdoor swings open, nearly starling me and forces me to look up from the table. It was Nini. She was dressed in gardening clothes, in jeans overalls and gloves.
"Harlow!" She cheerfully declares, stretching her arms over her head. Her gloves were coated with a light layer of dirt, and her jeans overalls were becoming filthy. She looks quite happy for someone who looks like they swam through dirt.
I crinkle my brows at her, "what are you doing?"
She looks down at her attire. "I'm gardening," she adjusts the straps on her shoulders, staining them a little more from her gloves. "I thought it was obvious."
"It is," I nod. "Why'd you call my name?"
"I need your help," she claps her hands together. "I know you're busy with your homework, but I would really like for you to help me. Usually Nico would help me but he's obviously reading."
Obviously?
She points behind me and I turn around to see Nico on the living room couch, flipping through a novel instead of a comic book. He looks concentrated, at peace. That must be nice.
I scratch the back of my neck, hesitating, "I don't know..."
Her eyes grew bigger, pouting, "please? It'll only be for a little bit and I promise you can get back on your homework. I just—I just need a helping hand."
I clench my jaw, not wanting to do it but somehow, I consider the decision. I mean, I didn't hate Nini and she hasn't done anything outright wrong for me. Doing a small task to help her with her garden doesn't mean I'll immediately succumb to the urge of submitting to this family and loving them like my own blood. It's just a favor.
"Sure," I answer, causing her grin to split wide open. She comes around the breakfast table, her gloved hands catches my arm and begins to pull me from the chair and towards the backyard—where I witness the reveal of her massive garden.
The backyard is enormous. The moment you step out, you step onto a raised deck with smooth dark wood. To the left, there's a cobblestone patio cover with hanging lights. Underneath is a full family table, with chairs that surround the table. The grill is crafted with the same cobblestone, on the far corner of the patio.
Walking across the deck leads to a couple of adirondack chairs in the open, just before you descend down a step and onto a stone pathway. It leads to an open circular fireplace, lined with flat, cobblestone seats for the family to sit around and roast marshmallows or share stories.
From there on out, there was no more cobblestone lining the floor or preventing the grass from growing. There's a couple of stone steps here and there, but they were merely for decoration. The steps lead off to the open field of the yard, where Nini's garden is at.
The garden was filled with all types of plants; from fruits to vegetables, to a greenhouse of flowers. Everything was neatly placed, not a plant out of sight, and it doesn't take up the rest of the yard. The remainder is left to be an open field—free to do whatever.
"This," she points proudly to her garden, "is my favorite place in the whole world."
I nod, following behind her as my eyes wander, admiring the artwork of her craft. "I started growing them back when I was twenty-two and Sebastian and I bought this house. It's been growing bigger ever since."
I don't say anything, taking my hand from my pockets as I hold out to touch a large leaf. It was a part of a tomato plant. "You grow a lot of vegetables and fruits."
"Yeah," she twists in her spot, meeting my gaze with a smile. "It's better to grow your own food while you can. There's a lot of harmful chemicals in stores and plus, with the capitalistic world we live in where we're manufacturing in mass production—" she cuts herself short, seeing the expression on my face. "Not a fan of politics?"
I shake my head. "Never cared for it."
"That's a shame," she returns, coming over to my side as her eyes find the core of the tomatoes. She adjusts the stick holding up the plant. "Claudia loves politics. I would sometimes talk to her about it."
"Presley doesn't?"
Nini shakes her head. "He likes history, but he doesn't talk a lot about current politics. He's always kept to himself with that."
I bite the inside of my cheek, "sorry you don't got another kid to talk politics to."
Nini's eyes widen, as if the statement was too vulgar to be declared. She shakes her head, placing a steady hand on my shoulders. "I wouldn't want anyone to change," she declares, no ounce of forgery in her tone. "I love all the kids that we've taken in. You come and go as you are—don't change for anyone. Even me."
I almost smile at that—it was a little heartwarming—but I stop myself from showcasing this emotion. Instead, I turn back to the garden and pocket both my hands. "So, what am I here to do?"
"Oh, right!" She snaps back into reality, turning her focus onto the garden. "I was planning on weeding out some of the roots they've grown around my plants and adding in some more fertilizer. The problem is, I can't keep running back and forth from the garden to the fertilizer, so I was wondering if you could either help me pull out the weeds or fetch me the fertilizer."
I look to her garden. I never really like plants, always finding the idea of upholding and caring for them too exhausting and time-consuming. I'm just here to help Nini, and then, I'll be done. "Which one's easier?"
"The fertilizer," she declares, "you would just go into the shed and take out the cup and add in the fertilizer with its natural soil so the plants could get used to it without thinking it's foreign soil."
I nod, turning around as my eyes pin to the shed. "I'll go get it," I declare, beginning to march over when she holds out a hand to stop me.
"There's different types of fertilizers I use for different plants."
I almost groan. "This is easier?"
She gives a guilty smile. "It'll be easier for me."
I roll my eyes, taking a step back. "Just go show me. I'll figure it out."
She chuckles, nodding as she goes forth and proceeds to go on a lecture about the different components and their ingredients that help plants grow. How the first bag differs from the second, and how certain plants are more attracted to different nutrients. It was mindless, and I could sometimes find myself growing bored, but I kept my focus ahead and listened.
Then, we went into a routine.
Nini would go over to the garden and pull out the weeds, careful to not hurt her plants itself, and immediately call for me to carry out the fertilizers. I would come, give it to her, and she would move down the next station.
It repeats.
The process took longer than I expected, but it proved my theory to be right. Gardening is time-consuming, and while my mind explored what else I could've been doing instead of wasting time helping Nini—I also found myself countering my own argument.
It's stupid, but during this process, I got to know Nini a little more.
She can be funny, sometimes catching herself rambling about old childhood stories or about the other kids; she likes to talk but she doesn't like to take up all of the conversation. She tries to offer some questions about me, but I would mostly decline, and that would lead to an understanding before she returns and talks back about whatever filled her head.
I learned that she had been to a couple of protests. I learned that she's been arrested twice and once she was held in county jail for over twenty-four hours. I learned that she shops at recyclable clothing stores and would sometimes get carried away with the sales.
And while I found myself getting angry at times—at her, taking my free time—I also found myself relaxing. I didn't have to think about schoolwork, or about what I was going to do next, or my possible futures that I have to face once I grow out of the system and out of high school.
I didn't have to think at all.
"We finished!" Nini pumps her arms in the air in celebration, her eyes squinting as she pulls into a big smile.
"That was not a 'little bit,'" I scowl, approaching her as I use air quotations. "It's nighttime, Nini."
"I know, I'm sorry," she declares with sincerity, hooking her arm around my waist—since it would be awkward if she reached for my shoulders, "but we were on a roll that I just had to keep the pace going. I've never finished weeding and fertilizing this fast before."
"Well," I don't push her away, "cherish the moment. This will most likely be my last time doing this."
"What!" Nini pulls apart, giving me a small punch on the arm. "Why not? We made a good team."
"I worked and you did the talking, I don't know if that's considered a good team," I said with a blank face. I don't want us to be a good team. She frowns.
"You don't always have to talk and work to make a good team," Nini declares solemnly, she begins to use hand gestures—something I notice a lot when she's passionate, "it's just people and the collaboration and it just—it works."
I scowl. We're not a team.
"Come on," she challenges, attempting to swing her arm around my shoulders. It felt awkward. "You're telling me you didn't like anything? Learned anything?"
"I learned a lot about the natural components in fertilizers," I declare, "and flowers. A lot of flowers."
"That's good, right?"
I give her a blank stare. "When the hell am I going to use flowers for?"
She shrugs. "You'll never know when the opportunity presents itself."
I want to get it through her head. It's the hope, that misbelief that she holds for herself that's beginning to irritate me. I thought she picked up how I didn't want to be associated with this family, I don't see myself belonging in this family. I thought she understood that.
"We're not a team, Nini."
It was rough, it was blunt, and it was the truth. We aren't. We'll never be a team. When I turn eighteen, I'll have the option to grow out of the system and settle on my own. That means: all the funds, the money and the contributions that come with fostering me would be killed and the moment it does—I'm not sure I'll be wanted.
I understood that.
She frowns, this time holding a deep gloss of sadness. She drops her arm, facing me, as her brown eyes study me.
Like I could be broken down to pieces and understood one-by-one.
I can't.
You have to have all of me, or none of me at all.
She sucks in her cheeks, "I grew up in the system too, Harlow."
"I know what it's like, living on your own and moving from house to house. I understand the belief that you have to be independent to function, that you can't live with yourself if you allow someone in," she begins slowly, her eyes matching mine to catch if I'm processing her words. I am. "But you can't go living your life thinking isolation is the answer. Isolation is a situation, it shouldn't be a choice."
I break eye contact with her. Not because she's becoming unrealistic, but because she's right. She's calling me out right in front of my face, pointing out the flaws of my system and I don't want to hear it. I've been using this tactic for so long, I don't want to come in and change up my morals. I've always known where I drew the line.
"Harlow," I feel her hand on the side of my face, dragging my focus back to hers. She looks with delicacy shining through her irises, with realism. "You have to let people in."
I push her hand off my face, my features beginning to grow darker. I clench my jaw, "I'm heading inside—"
"I had a brother, too," she cuts in, causing me to halt. It took me by surprise, making me meet her gaze in curiosity. "He died and I was placed into foster care."
For a second, I thought it could be the same. I shake my head, "that's different."
"It is, but I'm trying to tell you—"
"You didn't have it like I did!" I scream, pushing her away and pulling back. I take a couple of staggered steps backwards, clenching down my jaw and forcing myself from feeling any type of emotions. I knew the deepest one I felt—the one that's childlike and wants to come out, the one that's screaming and crying and is a complete weakness. I don't want to talk to that one.
"You don't get to tell me what I feel," I declare, pointing an accusing finger at her. "My story is different from yours. We are not the same. You are not my mother."
Nini doesn't say anything. Her soft eyes staring back at me. She pulls her lips into a thin line, breaking contact for a second as her eyes found the ground, staring at the chipped grass. She sucks in a shaky breath. "I know I'm not your real mother."
"I understood that the moment I took your file, and I realized it the moment you came into the house. I'm not trying to replace your mother." She looks back up and meets my gaze, taking delicate steps towards me.
Once she meets my match, standing a foot away from me. She reaches out, her hand grazing my cheek. "You are a child, and no matter how much you try to fool yourself, you deserve love."
"And I'm willing to do whatever it takes if you give me a chance to provide you that."
I clench down my jaw. The child in me wants to come out. To scream, to cry, to be held. I almost submitted.
"I don't need you."
And I push her hand off.
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AVA'S NOTES
how do you guys feel about harlow?
please vote and comment!!