9
HARLEY
There it was, the walls that held the beginning of her new life; Thorne University London.
Harley had been up early, as usual, the time on her phone reading five-thirty.
Waking up in her large new bed was something she was still not used to.
Every time she had woken up in her new environment, it was disorienting.
It had been a week of living at…she didn’t want to call it home because it was never going to be that for her.
She had only been there a short time so she shouldn’t be expected to feel that way about it.
Clearly her subconscious was trying to tell her the opposite, but she would never admit it out loud.
It didn’t help that Annabel clouded her every corner.
It was as if the girl had never heard of personal space in her life, she wanted to insert herself in everything.
Still attempting to make her meals, wanting to go shopping, and have film nights.
All of which Harley tried desperately to decline but had underestimated the girl’s persistence.
Despite the cold shoulder she tried to give her, it did not work. For whatever reason, Annabel was persistent in making a relationship work between them. Which was why Harley had left without saying anything.
She just needed a little distance. It was too much too fast, entirely disconcerting for her.
So she snuck out two hours earlier than she needed to and walked all the way here.
The distance wasn’t far and she got to sightsee a bit.
It had been getting colder, wetter and the leaves had started to change colours.
Harley was thankful for her tights, jean skirt and black hoodie on top of her puffy coat.
The coat was new; Annabel bought it. She bought Harley a bunch of new clothes and she wouldn’t have worn the coat but when she stepped out the house it had been too cold. Her sinuses could not handle it.
There were students littered around, with some also walking in at the same time she was, and they were staring at her blatantly, it was irritating. She looked down at her outfit again and felt a hint of insecurity peek through, but washed it down.
Quickly, she found her way towards Student Services. There she was meant to meet a student officer who was assigned to help her settle in, as she had already missed a week of classes.
Her head was bent over her phone, looking for directions, when she heard her name called, “Harley?”
She turned around to see a visibly black biracial girl in a multicoloured micro plaid tartan skirt and a fitted black jacket with black fur trim at the collar and cuffs, paired with black knee high boots, approaching her with a smile on her face. Harley nodded in acknowledgement.
“Hi, I’m Wren. First year student officer. Sorry to keep you waiting, the queue at Coffea’d was utterly ridiculous for a Monday morning. Have you been? You should, the coffees are to die for.” The girl spluttered out, speaking at a mile a minute.
“It’s fine. I just got here,” Harley replied. They walked together, Harley having to slow her stride to match with Wren's shorter legs.
“I can only provide a brief tour because a last minute meeting at the Student Union got called. Honestly, you will find your way around in no time at all. Your schedule and student details should have already been emailed to you.” Wren rushed out and started pointing out the different areas.
The campus grounds were huge and each building felt like they were trying to outdo the others in size.
“What is your story?” Wren asked, working the question in between the influx of information she had piled on. “Where are you from? I’m guessing, from that quaint little accent, somewhere up north…Manchester?”
“Liverpool,” Harley corrected.
“Beatles!” she said with a proud grin. “How cute. I visited once, never going back.” She grimaced, recollecting whatever memory had her making that face.
“Cool.”
As they continued their tour, the small talk drifted yet again.
Wren carefully asked, “So, how is it that we have a surprise scholarship student?” She had an eyebrow raised and her eyes twinkled, clearly itching for gossip.
Harley had a feeling the girl was going to be trouble and immediately planned to steer clear.
“My scholarship approval got back a little late.”
“Hmm,” she said, skeptically.
“What?”
“It’s just that every year we have five scholarship students per cohort, and with your arrival that makes you the sixth. An anomaly. Which rarely happens, if ever.”
Posy hadn’t told Harley about that specific detail, or she had, and in the midst of her nerves she hadn’t been listening. She deflected, “Guess I must be the rare case then.”
“Keep your secrets, but I won’t be the only one asking questions.
” Her eyes narrowed, evident that she didn’t believe a word out of Harley’s mouth.
“This is you,” Wren said as they stopped in front of a lecture hall with a plaque titled ‘William Bass Theatre’ which made Harley flinch uncharacteristically.
“Bass?”
“Yeah, it's one of the lecture halls that the engineering students use,” she said as she double checked the papers in her hands. “That is your course, right? Design Engineering?”
Harley nodded, quickly recovering.
“Ugh, I’m late and our president is annoying about time,” Wren muttered, looking at the gold watch on her wrist. She waved. “See you around, Harley.”
Then she clicked away in her heeled boots, moving faster than Harley had ever seen a person move in heels that high. She shook her head in disbelief and amusement then headed to her first lecture of the day.
Harley entered the theatre and realised the lecture had already started.
Everyone immediately turned to look at her as she tried to discreetly walk inside, there were more people than she had assumed there would be.
The lecturer was a man named Kofi Mills.
He didn’t look that old, likely early forties.
He also paused as she walked in. “If you’re going to be late to my class, don’t even bother showing up at all. ”
Then he returned to speaking without giving her another glance.
Harley took a seat at the very back of the room and brought out the notepad and stationery Annabel had also bought her, when the dark-skinned black girl next to her whispered, “Don’t take it to heart, he’s like that to everyone.
He’s been really supportive and helpful so far. ”
She gives her a strained smile, “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Trinity,” she says, holding her hand out.
“Harley,” Harley replied, taking it.
They went back to paying attention to the man who she was certain was glaring at her.
Hours later, when the bell rang signifying the end of her third lecture in a row, Harley was glad to get her head out of her books.
The classes had been a little hard to follow as she joined later than the others and hadn't attended school in almost three years, but she was admittedly enjoying herself. It felt good to learn again.
Harley heard her name be called out on her way out, it was Trinity.
“Hey, my friends and I were going to get lunch, do you want to come? Usually we’d eat in the canteen but we are trying to branch out .”
She seemed nice and all, but Harley wasn’t very well versed in the art of friendship, she was best off keeping to herself like she always had.
“Erm, I have a thing, sorry,” she replies, starting to walk away.
“Maybe next time,” Trinity said with a smile.
Harley nodded and they parted ways.
Soon after, she found a bench away from prying eyes to enjoy her packed lunch and the quiet. Posy had given her a card with money in but she didn’t feel comfortable using it. As she chewed on her food, a large shadow fell over and she raised her head to see who the assailant was.
The person in question plainly said, “The sister.” It was the guy who she met the other day when she was with Annabel. The “non-friend”.
Richard? Arden?
Either way she had suspected he meant more than Annabel had tried to hide, the details were none of her business. She had enough of her own shit to worry about.
Harley huffed and replied with distaste, “The dickhead.”
He chuckled a little under his breath and then sat down without an invitation.
Harley grumbled, the sarcasm oozing, “Yes, strange man I just met, you can sit next to me.”
“Between the two of us, you might be the strange one here.” He’s amused.
“Mmm, I don’t think so.”
“You randomly showed up out of nowhere.” This was the second time someone would say this to her and she was getting annoyed by it, “The sister of one of the most affluent people in England and here you are eating bread in the cold.”
Her cheeks heated up a bit, “Piss off, there’s nothing wrong with a sandwich.” She turns to him, her face hard. “Is that why you’re here? To bother me about my fucking food choices?”
He smirked but his face got a little serious immediately after, “How is she?”
“Who?”
He gave her a look and Harley sighed, with no vigour, only resignation, certain he won't leave her alone until he got his answer. “I’m not sure, I have only just met the girl. But I will say she has spent every waking moment attached to me more than I’d like.”
He smiled a small smile, his eyes a mixture of distant and fond, “She likes to fix things. Make things better for others. It's a habit of hers. That’s what she thinks she’s doing by trying to get closer to you.”
He tried to take one of the cut carrots from her plastic container, she whacked his hand away but not quickly enough as he managed to steal one anyway and put it in his mouth with a laugh.
He chewed, and once he was done, continued, “But it always comes at the expense of herself. She would suffer in silence if it meant everyone else was happy. She’d been doing it our whole life.”
“And your point being?”
“The point is that I just ask that you keep an eye on her, make sure she’s okay and doesn’t overexert herself.” He shrugged like this was an everyday request you ask a person you just about know.
Part of her understood where he was coming from, she did, but yet the anger that bubbled at his request consumed her.
Perhaps it came from the memory of being left alone at home at varying ages to fend for herself. She was six the first time she had been home all day with no food made to eat. Her mum had been out, presumably working.
By the time the sun had set she was getting restless, it hadn't been her first time home alone. She knew not to leave the house and knew not to open the door for anyone; Mama had a key.
Harley was a tall kid, even at that age.
Still, she had to take a small chair and stand on it as she figured out how to make something to eat.
They had bread and they had butter. The simplest food to someone else, for her, was a lifesaver.
She had learnt to cook pretty early on because of days like those.
Sometimes she felt stuck in that small helpless body where she starved or had little food to eat. Harley glared at the man in front of her who brought those feelings rushing back.
“What about me?”
He raised a nonchalant eyebrow at her, arrogance seeping through his pores, so she continued.
“For the last ten minutes, you’ve droned on about the difficulties Annabel faces.
How hard life is for the rich delicate princess and all the pain she so terribly endures.
Then you had the gall to ask me to look after her.
The question of the afternoon is: who makes sure I’m okay?
” Harley asked as she started to pack her things, her voice hard and level.
It took everything in her not to shout. “The answer is nobody.
No one ever has, it's always just been me. I look after myself.”
She stood up, ready to leave, “I packed up my whole life to be here, I left my mum behind to be here. We all have it hard, so no I won’t do what you asked. Go fuck yourself.”
Then she walked away without hearing anything else he had to say, her anger barely subsiding with every step that she decided to skip her final class of the day. She would chastise herself over this when the rage no longer blinded her.
Rain had started drizzling, and she was annoyed her coat didn't have a hood, so her hair was going to get wet on the walk home. She might have to take the bus after all. The whole day was proving to be a shit show.
Her route out of the university meant passing the canteen she had previously refused to enter, and that was her second mistake of the day.
She spotted Annabel immediately, her halo of golden hair cascading down her back as she spoke to one of her friends, in a cream jacket and matching skirt.
Her mouth was smiling but her eyes reflected a different truth.
Nervous, perhaps. It shocked Harley how easily she could read her.
Was this something that happened with siblings?
In the midst of her staring, the third mistake, Annabel looked up and caught her eye which led to Harley scurrying away as quickly as her two feet could carry her.
She could hear the clicking of heels behind her, but that didn’t slow her stride. Annabel’s voice kept calling out to her but she ignored it and carried on walking like she couldn’t hear her.
“Can you just stop?” Annabel shrieked and it finally got Harley to slow down. Despite how every fibre of her being told nothing good could come from this conversation.