“Yeah, I’m doing fine,” I shrugged, grabbing one of the stress balls off his desk and squeezing it until the eyes popped out of the alien looking thing.
“And how’s the college essay?”
I muttered a curse under my breath, and he raised a bushy brow at me.
“I haven’t started it.”
He chuckled with a shake of his head, “Procrastinatin’?”
“No, I just don’t know what to write about,” I shrugged, gritting my teeth as I assaulted the hell out of the stress ball. “All the prompts are fucking stupid. And they probably use, like, an AI bot to read them anyways, so it’s honestly a waste of my fucking time.”
“Language,” Mr. Crane chastised halfheartedly. He was well aware of my adoration for the use of swear words, and there was no breaking the habit at this point. “I must admit some of the prompts are a bit dry, but just get a rough draft done and we can go over it together, m’kay?”
“If I wanted guidance, Mr. Crane, I would’ve made an appointment during the school day to get out of one of my least liked classes,” I deadpanned.
“Oh, stop. I just want you to succeed. I know you put in a lotta effort to do well in school, and I don’t wanna see that go to waste.”
I grimaced at his praise, an awkward silence falling between us as I struggled to come up with a response. He wasn’t wrong; I wasn’t naturally smart. I spent hours studying to get high grades in all my classes. I’d been attending the peer tutoring center since freshman year mostly as a non-sports related reason to stay as long as possible at school, but I wasn’t always a tutor.
Someone cleared their throat behind us, and I turned around to follow Mr. Crane’s gaze. I recognized the guy as the one who’d almost run into me in the hall and rolled my eyes, turning back to face Mr. Crane.
“Hi. Come in and take a seat. What can we do for ya?”
The guy settled into the chair beside me, and I glanced side long at him to take in his appearance.
He had a mop of shaggy chestnut waves on top of his head, brown eyes, a sharp jawline, and pink lips that were pulled downwards into a slight frown. He was clutching onto theshoulder strap of his backpack as he sat tall in the chair, unlike my slouched body.
“I’m hoping to get some help with Algebra II?” he asked, his voice deep and smooth, not at all what I was expecting out of him.
“Well, you’re in the right place, Mr. Reznikovsky. Just sign in,” Mr. Crane held out the clipboard to him, “and our resident mathematician here can take a look at what you’re struggling with.”
I scowled at Mr. Crane who flashed me with a knowing smile, shooing us out of his office. I cursed him under my breath and didn’t bother checking if the guy was following me as I walked across to the nearest empty study room.
I plopped into one of the chairs with a sigh, stretching my legs out beneath the table and peering over at my newest student. He stood in the doorway staring, and I impatiently motioned for him to sit down.
“I feel like you want to be here less than I do,” he commented dryly as he closed the door and pulled out the chair across from me.
I rolled my eyes and eyed his backpack which he placed in the chair beside him.
“So, what exactly are you struggling with?” I asked.
When he didn’t answer, I dragged my eyes up to his face to find that he was staring at me again with a crease between his brows.
“It’s rude to stare,” I commented, aware of just what he was looking at—my deformed eyes.
He cleared his throat and proceeded to pull out his math textbook and a spiral-bound notebook.
“Pretty much everything,” he finally answered, pulling the pencil out of the spiral binding.
“Great,” I mumbled. “Do you have, like, a recent quiz or something so I can see what you’re doing wrong?”
He nodded and rummaged through his backpack before pulling out a paper that had several jagged creases in it. He flattened it out on the edge of table before sliding it across to me with a polite smile. I scanned the quiz, resisting the urge to scoff at the egregious mistakes that he had made. It was hypocritical of me, but he didn’t seem to be putting in an ounce of effort. His quiz was basically crushed at the bottom of his backpack. The guy could seriously use a better organization system.
I could feel his eyes on me again and groaned, looking back up at his face. “Seriously? Do I need to put on fucking sunglasses or are you going to stop staring at my deformed eyes?” I snapped.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly, dropping his gaze back to the table. “They don’t look deformed by the way.”
I rolled my eyes and returned my attention to the other side of his quiz.
