“What causes that?” he asked after a moment of silence.
Gee, I’m not an expert on manners, but I’m pretty sure you’re not meant to go around asking people about their deformities.
“Scar tissue,” I muttered in response.
“Oh. From what?”
“I’m allergic to my own tears or something,” I shrugged.
“I didn’t know you could be allergic to your own body,” he said in astonishment.
“Well, clearly, you can,” I said, flicking my eyes up to meet his dark brown ones.
“Right,” he mumbled. “But they’re really not deformed looking.”
I scoffed and he interjected, “I’m being serious. They’re not ugly or anything. You just look like…I dunno, maybe like you’restoned or something. And you really only can tell when we’re up close.”
I chuckled darkly and shook my head. I knew full well that my eyes looked deformed up close. I was diagnosed with a rare condition at birth that causes a local allergic reaction to my tears in and around my eyes. Scar tissue built up basically every time I cried. The scar tissue resulted in my hazel eyes looking permanently glazed over, or foggy looking, and always bloodshot. Last time I was seen by an ophthalmologist, he said at some point I would need to get the scar tissue lasered off. Otherwise, I’d eventually lose my vision.
That was the reason I hadn’t cried since I was nine. We couldn’t afford to fix my vision any time soon. Plus, it felt like little shards of glass were in my eyes whenever I did cry and fucked up my vision for a good half hour after the swelling went down, making me feel like I was looking at the world through a jar of piss. I had gladly accepted Javier’s help in learning how to grin and bear it no matter how badly I might want to cry.
I blinked the thoughts away and handed Nox his quiz.
“Let’s start with question one,” I said, pointing to the equation on the page. “What do you think the first thing you should do is?”
He shrugged and I sighed at his obvious inability to try.Fuck, this was gonna be a test of my patience. I put on my big girl pants and started breaking down the solution with step one. We hadn’t even made it through the first problem when he interrupted me.
“What’s your name by the way?” he asked, lifting his pencil from the paper and bringing the end of it to his mouth. “I’m Enoch, but everyone calls me Nox.”
Gross, a pencil chewer. Remind me never to borrow writing utensils from him.
“I’ll tell you if you shut up and finish the problem.” I sighed, glancing at the clock on the wall.
“Sheesh, just thought I should know who I should thank if I pass my next quiz,” he mumbled with a small laugh, returning to trying to solve the problem.
It took him three more attempts and about fifteen minutes of me coaching him through it before he finally got it right. I had him explain to me how he found the answer and why it was right before finally relenting and answering his previous question.
“Shiloh. That’s my name.”
“Cool,” he nodded, sitting back in his chair and roaming his eyes over my body that was currently hunched over the table. “Are you a sophomore?”
I scoffed with a dramatic eye roll, “No. A senior.”
“Really?” he said, raising his surprisingly neat brows. If only my eyebrows were as fair blonde as my eyelashes, maybe then I’d stop being jealous of anyone who didn’t have caterpillars above their eyes. “Me too. How come I’ve never seen you before? I mean, we must have had classes together at some point. Are you new this year or something?”
I rubbed my tired eyes and shook my head, pointing down to his quiz. “Let’s get through two more problems and then call it a day.”
“Fine,” he agreed, although he didn’t seem too excited about it, which was surprising since I’d thought he’d be happy to finish being tortured by math.
As much as I hated socializing, it was really rewarding watching students get a correct answer without too much of my help. It was also relieving to know that I was actually being helpful. He seemed a little proud of himself too, because I noticed he was smiling and not being too much of a dick by the end of the session.
“So,” he cleared his throat, tossing his notebook into his backpack, “how does this tutoring thing work? If I come back tomorrow, will I work with someone else?”
“No, you wouldn’t work with anyone. We’re only open Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.”
Nox nodded, his lips twitching with a smile that put me on edge. People weren’t usually this nice to me, not even my regulars.
“So, are you working on Tuesday?”
