"I promise that I'll never fall in love with you. Cross my heart, hope to die."
"Here's to hoping."
Harper Young was sure that moving in with her aunt would be an improvement. It wasn't. This was all due to three tiny little problems.
1) Embry Call...
" In the field of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind. "
-Louis Pasteur
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Pro and Cons
It was during English class when Harper's phone rang. Or rather vibrated violently in her bag, because seriously, who leaves their ringer on? As soon as the slight noise met her ears she felt a panic rise at even the mere threat of getting in trouble. She quite liked this teacher and would hate for them to have a bad impression of her. During a rather unimportant day without any prompting, the young teacher waved her off to answer the phone outside. As always with anything that mentioned Harper Young, Embry Call was listening.
When she finally took a peek at who was calling he could hear her sharp inhale. He could hear the tone finally stop. And he could hear her question the caller rather than greeting them.
"What's wrong?" She asked in a dismissive tone. "Is Grandpa hurt or something?" Harper asked again in a shaky voice, still in slight disbelief after how many calls her dad had missed. Now he had chosen to give her a callback. She should have let him take a message. But what if it was Maya and he was in trouble. Yeah, it was probably just Maya and her phone wasn't working.
"Manners, Harper," he chided as if he hadn't abandoned her miles away from her home, to not call or pick up his phone.
Her eyebrows pinched and if she was in the classroom she would've heard a small yelp from a boy who got shot with the ink from a pen Embry had snapped on accident. "Dad?" She questioned raising a brow that Adrian Young couldn't see.
The man himself on the other side was pinching the bridge of his nose and mentally jumping through hoops over what he should say to the girl. He had never been good with his words. Never with his eldest daughter, He decided a greeting was a good place to start. "Good afternoon, Harper."
Harper bristled at the formality, scrunching her nose and pulling the phone away for less than a second to stare at it before placing it next to her ear.
"I suppose it is," she answered, matching his formal tone to a tee.
"How have your studies been coming along?" He asked her.
Harper didn't stop fretting as she answered him stiffly, "Perfectly."
She could almost envision his smile perfectly. It was less of a smile and more of a proud grin than anything else, but she guesses that it'll do. "That's good to hear..." There was a pause, tentative. Now that had made Harper pause. Her father was an efficient man who did everything with a purpose, with a plan of action. Everything he did, he did it for a reason. Now, this usually meant there was an ulterior motive that benefited him solely.
He was waiting, and for what she wasn't sure, but it reminded her of when cats got low to pounce at their prey.
"I think it would be best if you stay at your Aunt Emily's," he had finally told her. It was quiet. White noise had filled her ears, clogging them, so she couldn't even hear the loud and steady drumming of her heart against her ribcage. She wondered if she would feel better if she could see it crack, shatter into pieces so it couldn't be repaired. She dismissed the childish thought almost immediately. He'd win and she couldn't have that. Not right now. Not when she oh so badly wanted to simply scream her head off like a banshee.
