Harper woke up early on her first day of college and slipped into the pink pencil skirt, shirt and blazer that Eleanor had picked for her. She felt very grown up. She went on down to breakfast and Oliver's Mum flushed about how lovely she looked in her new clothes and hurried her to sit down for breakfast. Oliver followed shortly after wearing more normal attire, it was just their school's sixth form after all and the dress code was pretty lenient.
"Oliver!" his Mum shouted, looking surprised. "Why aren't you wearing the suit I laid out for you?"
"Because it was pink," he replied, grabbing a coffee from the machine.
"But I got you a matching suit to go with Harper's" she sulked as she placed their breakfast down on the table. Oliver sat down across from her and started to eat his breakfast. They hadn't seen each other much at all over the summer, not since the prom. Harper had been busy working at her Dad's restaurant to save up some money and she had no idea what Oliver had been up to. He stood up and put his cup and bowl into the sink and headed into the foyer to put his shoes on. "You coming?" he called to Harper who was just finishing her last sip of tea. Harper rushed to put her bits in the sink and headed out into the foyer to get ready to go. The walk to the bus stop was unusual, Harper was rather disappointed that the atmosphere between the two of them had gotten so much more tense recently. But what could she do? Despite the kiss, she had a feeling that Oliver's feelings towards her hadn't changed at all since that fateful day at the school gates.
Harper was really excited to get her timetable for the first term of her A Levels. She had chosen to do Biology, English literature and IT as her subjects, she didn't take a fourth one as she figured it would be easier for her to get good grades if she just had 3 subjects to focus on. In the hall Niamh and Sarah found her as they arrived to retrieve their own timetables.
"Hi girls, how was your holiday?" Harper asked them both as they queued up. Sarah explained how her family took her to France for a couple of weeks and then she spent the remainder of her time relaxing by the pool at her Dad's house. Niamh had a less exciting holiday which consisted of reading several fantasy books back to back and sunbathing in the garden.
"I saw you came in with Oliver this morning" Sarah teased, "what happened there?"
Harper blushed slightly as she thought back to what happened at prom, even though she knew he only did it to tease her it still gave her chills to think about. The two girls immediately saw that she wasn't telling them something and demanded that she spill the beans. Harper sighed and told them exactly what happened. The two girls screamed in surprise "YOU KISSED?!" Harper shushed them, telling them not to make a big deal out of it as they haven't even spoken to each other since and she is pretty sure he only did it to tease her. The girls refused to believe that he would just kiss her and mean absolutely nothing by it and tried to convince Harper otherwise, but she just shook her head and explained that she didn't want to spend her time dwelling on it.
The girls were stopped on their way to their form rooms by someone handing them a flyer with a list of extracurricular activities. "Anything you like the look of?" Niamh queried as they all read through the different clubs.
"Hmm, Oliver's Mum taught me how to play a bit of tennis over the holidays. Maybe I could join that club?" she thought out loud. Oliver was a nationally ranked tennis player so there was a chance that he would also join that club, but then again he never went to practice when they were in school so she didn't see why he would start doing that now. She shoved the flyer into her bag and continued on, the three girls were unfortunately separated from each other this year so she waved goodbye to them as she headed up the stairs to her form room. The day passed pretty quickly with their first lessons being a mix of icebreakers and games to get to know each other.
As she headed to the gate at the end of the day she noticed Oliver also heading out but this time he was accompanied by a tall girl with long black hair. Harper didn't recognise her so she walked up to them and paused for them to acknowledge her. The girl looked between him and Harper and asked him if he knew who she was. "She's a girl that lives at my house" he explained and introduced the new girl as Jennifer, she had come here from her old school as hers didn't have a sixth form.
"How did you two meet?" Harper asked, trying to get a feel for the situation.
"We're in similar classes" Jenny replied, "Biology, Maths and Chemistry". Oliver took Biology as a subject? Looks like he was put in a different group as she definitely didn't see him in her biology class. Jenny cocked her head to the side and then turned to Oliver, "is she your girlfriend?"
"How could that be possible?" he responded almost instantly.
"Yeah, we just live in the same house" Harper laughed to try and break the tension. "Speaking of which, you ready to go home?" Oliver nodded and said goodbye to Jenny before they both headed for the bus.
"She seems nice," Harper commented, as they were walking from the bus stop to the house.
"She is," he agreed. "She's really smart, similar grades to what I got in school and she's really pretty." Harper nodded as she tried to process what he just said. "What's wrong, you jealous?" She looked up at him and he had a smirk on his face.
"Not at all" she responded, rolling her eyes at him "I was just saying she seems like a nice girl."
"That's good, I recall you saying you were going to forget about me, is that still the case? Especially after we kissed." He leaned in close to her so he could get a close up of her reaction.
She recoiled slightly and pushed him away, "stop making fun of me!" she shouted blushing. "How can you act so strange about this!" She went on ahead, not wanting to hear any more of this excruciating conversation. She just could never understand what he was thinking and his behaviours just seem to contradict his previous ones.
The next day after her morning classes Harper headed down to the canteen to grab a bite to eat. As she ordered her food, Oliver came in next to her and ordered the spaghetti bolognese. "Oh I'll have that too" Harper requested, that made it a little easier for her to decide. When the cafeteria worker handed over their food, they both noticed a huge difference between the portion sizes they had been given.
"What on earth is this?" Oliver questioned when he realised he had been given a much smaller portion.
"What are you so upset about?" came a familiar voice who raised his head to show his face.
"Kunal?!" Harper shouted as she realised who it was.
"I gave you both a fair share," he told them smugly.
"How is this fair, she has so much more than me!" Oliver felt himself getting angry again, he would have given anything to not have to see this guy today.
"What are you doing here? I thought you were doing an apprenticeship at my Dad's place?" Harper questioned as she scooped some of her extra bolognese onto Oliver's plate, much to Kunal's annoyance.
"I work here too during the day, apprenticeship pay isn't a great wage" Kunal replied, "I also need to protect you from being bullied by this devil and ensure I am set up for our future" he gestured back to Oliver when he mentioned the bully.
"Wow I'm touched" Oliver replied, he was trying to hide how annoyed he was making him. "If you decide everything for the sake of one woman, you'll never achieve anything though. Think about it" he chided before moving along the food line trying to hide how frustrated he was.
After they walked away from the food station, Harper was approached by a very energetic guy who was holding a flyer for the tennis club.
"I heard you were interested in joining our club!" he said excitedly, handing over their club leaflet to Harper. "If you could get your boyfriend to join too, I would be really grateful" he whispered to her as none of his tactics thus far had convinced Oliver to join. Oliver recognised this guy as the captain of the tennis club who had already approached him multiple times and begged him to be on the team whenever he saw him yesterday.
"I was considering it yeah" she responded, "what time do you meet?"
"Tomorrow after school, meet us out on the tennis courts!" he told her enthusiastically, winking at Oliver as he left.
"You're joining the tennis club?" Oliver probed.
"Oh yeah, I really enjoyed playing with your Mum over the summer and thought I could learn a bit more." she replied feeling awkward. He definitely thought she joined the tennis club because of him although Harper couldn't even confirm to herself whether or not that had anything to do with it. She spotted Niamh and Sarah on a table across the hall and sped off to go and join them, this conversation was painfully awkward and it seemed like a good scapegoat.
The next day after college, Harper made her way down to the tennis court with the new racket that Eleanor had bought her during the holidays. When she arrived, she noticed that not only had Oliver decided to turn up to practice, but the girl from yesterday was also here.
Harper walked over to greet them and Jenny seemed surprised to see her there. "Oh Harper, you like tennis too? How many years have you been playing?"
"Erm…just a month or so here and there" she responded, slightly embarrassed by her lack of experience.
"RIGHT LISTEN UP!" a voice bellowed from the front of the group. "OUR TENNIS CLUB WAS ESTABLISHED A LONG TIME AGO, AND HAS HAD LOTS OF GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS. WE HAVE SEEN CHAMPION TENNIS PLAYERS MADE AT THIS SCHOOL AND IT IS ALL THANKS TO OUR STRICT TRAINING REGIME." Harper audibly gulped, strict training regime? What on earth did that entail?
"WE ARE ALSO BLESSED WITH THE PRESENCE OF LAST YEARS REGIONAL CHAMPION AND FEMALE REGIONAL RUNNER-UP, OLIVER RIVERS AND JENNIFER KIEFER. I AM NOT ABOUT TO LET OUR STELLAR REPUTATION GO DOWN THE DRAIN. OUR PRACTICES ARE FILLED WITH BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS TO ENSURE THE BEST RESULTS. SO I WANNA SEE ALL OF YOU PUTTING IN YOUR BEST EFFORT! NOW GIVE ME 5 LAPS AROUND THE COURT" The captain of the tennis club was really intense, Harper was already starting to regret her decision to join this club. She stretched her legs out a bit to get ready for her run when the club captain came over and advised Oliver and Jenni that they were not obligated to do the laps around the court as they were already proficient at tennis. It was also clear that Oliver had no intention of running the laps anyway. The captain clocked Harper just stood around doing nothing and screamed at her to get started on her laps. This was not going to be fun.
After they had finished all the laps, the Captain (who she now knew to be named Steven) wanted to do some rallies with the newbies to gauge their abilities. Harper soon learned that Steven was a demon with a racquet as she watched him smack tennis balls as hard and as fast as possible, leaving the newbies with little to no time to react.
"They call him Satanic Steve" Oliver whispered to her after seeing the horror on her face. "He's usually a super nice guy but the second he picks up a racquet, it's like he's been possessed by the devil." Watching Satanic Steve in action, Harper could see how he got his nickname.
"NEXT. OLIVER RIVERS!" he shouted after finishing a somewhat decent match with Jenny. No one had beaten Steven once though, even the more experienced of the group.
"It's time to show you how a real man plays tennis!" Steven boasted as they took their places on the tennis court. Oliver just laughed and made a joke about not going easy on him before making the first serve. The rally was over in seconds with Oliver scoring easy points on him.
"You're really something huh?!" Steven commented starting to look nervous, he couldn't let this newbie show him up in front of everyone. "I'll show you!" he shouted as he served another volley, but Oliver was unfazed as he returned his serve instantly gaining another point. Steven fell to the floor in disgrace as he was beaten so easily.
"WHO'S NEXT!" he screamed in a fit of rage, "HARPER, GET ON THE COURT NOW!"
Harper walked onto the court nervously positioning herself opposite the captain. He immediately started serving fast volleys at her, she had no chance of hitting them back so kept dodging them as quickly as she could. Out of nowhere another ball came flying towards her face and she held up her racquet to try and soften the blow but it just caused the racket to smack her square in the forehead leaving her with a waffle shaped bruise on her face for the remainder of the week.
After the practise had ended, Harper informed Oliver that she won't need accompanying home today as she was going to her Dad's restaurant instead. He just ignored her completely and walked off towards the school gate with Jenny following closely behind him.
"Harper" her Dad started, she got the feeling she wasn't going to enjoy this conversation. "I know you have been very comfortable staying with the Rivers, but I've been thinking, we've been leaning on them for nearly a year now and we have well overstayed our welcome." This news hit her like a tonne of bricks, this year had been some of the best times of her life and just like that it was about to be over. "I still haven't been able to get the insurance payout, unfortunately they've been trying to argue that I may have attempted some kind of insurance fraud but that looks like it's going to be resolved in the very near future, so I am going to start looking at apartments for us to rent." Harper's eyes filled with tears, "also, I'm not trying to meddle here but just from my observations, I don't think Oliver has any particular feelings for you. Whether you still like him or not is your own business, but I would urge you to give up on that now for your own sanity."
Harper nodded in agreement with her Father, even if the tears that fell on her lap betrayed her true feelings, she knew he was right and maybe that was what made it so much worse.
Back at the house, Ian explained his stance to a distraught Eleanor who was adamant that they should stay with them a little longer as she was determined to have Harper for her daughter in law. Ian tried to explain that he didn't see any particular affection towards Harper on Oliver's part and it was just getting hurtful to watch.
"I don't just want any girl living in the house, I don't think you understand that. I love Harper because of her cheery and cute personality. She really has been a ray of sunshine since she came to live with us. I know my boy and I'm positive that these are traits he likes" Eleanor cried into her husband's shirt who was desperately trying to comfort her.
In the foyer, Finley overheard the conversation and ran up the stairs excitedly to tell his brother the great news. "OLLIE! OLLIE! HARPER IS LEAVING!" he cheered "they're both going to find an apartment and it'll finally be normal around here again!" Finley jumped up and down on the bed in celebration, very clearly excited by this news. Oliver nodded and picked up his towel to go and get a shower when he spotted Harper coming out of her room.
"I heard you're leaving?" he asked her.
"Oh yeah, my Dad is finding us somewhere to move into as soon as possible" she replied, her heart felt heavy but she mustered up a smile, "don't miss me too much!" she joked.
Oliver must have not found this funny at all as he didn't so much as move the corners of his mouth. He appeared to be deep in thought, perhaps he was unhappy about the situation but at that moment, not even he could answer that. "I guess my life is finally going back to normal." Harper nodded, she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of upsetting her with that.
"Great, well I have to go and pack now" she told him and she darted into her room, shutting the door in his face. Something unsettled Oliver about that and he leaned against the wall as he contemplated his thoughts on the situation. He should be happy right? Harper was just a nuisance to him, he could finally go back to his quiet day to day without having to worry about constant unforeseen events caused by the whirlwind currently leaning against the other side of the wall. Everything was going to be better now.
