Simplicity
Author's note: Couldn't resist the rumor about Amena being Chuck's new love interest. Beware POV changes.
There's a certain anxiety about everything in the city. People are, after all, indecisive little things. Most were flighty, but everyone knew the saying. You could run, but you sure as hell couldn't hide.
Which was why he was just a bit surprised to see she'd done the exact opposite of the majority. But what did he care; the world would continue spinning on the damned axis, and she'd still be as indifferent as the rest of the world.
It was, quite precisely, the twenty-second time in one day he'd seen her. It was strange how one could keep track of the oddest things at any given moment. He'd seen him a total of thirty-two times since first block, and still had nothing to say.
To be quite honest, he wasn't sure if anyone could come up with something to say to these two. A sentence begging for forgiveness without directly saying so? Something subtle, or even better, something that wasn't even there? But what did it matter—he could survive counting ephemeral gestures of theirs, hallucinate, and believe he'd been forgiven with ever lifting a finger.
But as delusional as he could be at times, nothing quite murdered that thought more than the lovely "get the hell away from me" that'd been so charitably thrown in his face. Oh yes, that. Well. It still didn't compare to a certain debutante night.
He was slowly convincing himself that he wasn't the only one at fault.
Perhaps it was because he'd yet to figure out what to do, and years of banking on the fact he'd never need to apologize to any living, greedy soul (a wad of crisp green bills usually did the trick) didn't exactly help in this case. He'd doubt even—
"Is there something I can help you with?"
A polite pause when no answer came.
Dr. Jonas. Strangest man of them all; the guy threw holy water on the television set every couple of weeks. Who said a private school didn't have its quirks? He'd gotten in through the gates, hadn't he?
"Excuse me?"
A gnarled hand filled with liverspots waved in front of his face.
He was nowhere near wealthy, and went to sleep every night believing that doing something to impact others' lives was better than having hired hands to obey your every whim. He was still having problems believing it, and while he was at it, Maxwell Jonas had no intention of being sued by one of the most easily-irate billionaires on the coast.
Which was exactly why he even bothered to make sure this kid was still breathing. In fact, Max had no idea why this kid even bothered attending his classes. Nothing was ever handed in, nothing constructive ever uttered.
He had the sinking feeling that this kid, no matter how inept at Calculus and Vectors, had found a crack in the system, and with seemingly endless affluence at his disposal (which coincidentally made him nearly above any administrative figure), was exploiting that tiny loophole for all it was worth.
As much as Max had to admit the kid probably still possessed something that resembled a functioning mind, it didn't explain what he was doing staring straight at—no, into, the chalkboard a full twenty minutes after the impromptu detention had ended.
Someone waving a hand in front of your face tends to bring you back to reality. This, he understood. Unfortunately, that meant he'd have to remember where he was, and what he was supposed to be doing.
Why was he sitting here, really? There were no other students, were there? Why was Dr. Jonas looking unperturbed, for once? Not letting his spit fly in people's faces as he excitedly explained some complicated triangle property that, surprise, surprise, made no sense to anyone.
Why wasn't he home? Or rather, why wasn't he anywhere but in school?
Who knew.
"I…uh," Atypical. He'd usually have something ready to throw back at this annoying old man. But under these circumstances, what was he to say? That he had no recollection of why he'd ended up in the decaying classroom?
"Sorry." With a clattering of stationary, and a glimpse of a certain eclectic scarf, he managed to stumble out of the hellish classroom, thoughts nowhere near coherent.
Maybe if he said "sorry" and apologized to every third person on the street, he'd get used to it. Enough so it would be second nature to repeat the word to two individuals. Just two. Could it possibly be so difficult? More difficult than daily survival in these circles?
He doubted it.
Yet every time he even imagined saying anything that resembled an apology to either of them…
It really shouldn't have been that big of a deal. It shouldn't have required this much effort. And for all he was trying now, he wasn't exactly getting any closer to speaking with either of the two.
He barely noticed the strange stares that followed him—
"What?" The woman was on a cell phone, but turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow.
"What did you say?"
He frowned; he wasn't turning into some lunatic, was he? He hadn't been speaking to her.
She paused, returned the frown, then shrugged and continued walking, reassuring the person on the other end of the line she was still there.
"Yeah, Amena, of course, I'm listening, and I told you…"
Stupid girl. Yes, perhaps having a mother would've helped. Perhaps having a father would've helped. Well, she did have the latter, only a balding man who was leaving the country every three days didn't really suffice as a father figure.
But no, somehow, by some miracle, she, Maria Clareste, had ended up playing mother to her brother-in-law's daughter. And now the girl was whining something terrible about her current accommodations.
She had once contemplated throwing Amena out onto the streets for a good week; hell, she still considered it at least fourteen times a day.
"I wasn't trying to ignore you, there was just some lunatic behind me, talking to himself, and I thought he was asking someth—what? No, I just said…"
It was going to be a long night.
Well. That confirmed it. He was going crazy. Great.
Given the hour, he wasn't surprised the streets were emptier than usual. It was the calm before the storm, after all. Sandwiched right in between dismissal and rush hour.
It was precisely that moment he realized he no longer knew where he was.
Six hours in this retarded costume?
Amena refused to acknowledge the garment as a "uniform". The tartan skirt, fine, the blazer, fine, but the ridiculous tie ornament? She wasn't sure if the whole package was a cruel joke from the admissions officer.
Max Jonas liked to see the good in people. He honestly, honestly, tried. But no matter how he tried to look at this situation in a positive light, he failed. He could not see the good in adding another student to his tutorial class. What was the point? These kids would never remember anything he taught. He couldn't see the good in that sneering—no, smirking, as if that were any less malevolent, dark-haired, heir-to-a-fortune worthless piece of shit in the front row. No, Maxwell Jonas would never voice his opinions, but he was offending nobody in the privacy of his own mind. In fact, recently, he couldn't fathom why he was teaching privileged juniors at one of the most prestigious high schools in the nation. What was the point? He was MIT-trained, for heaven's sake.
He didn't know how he'd found his way back home last night. He didn't recall his father's disapproving glare. He didn't recall the empty bottles of whatever-the-hell, and he certainly didn't recall why they'd been drained.
He couldn't remember. Couldn't remember anything lately, to be honest.
Didn't know why he bothered staying for open tutorials. Didn't know why Dr. Jonas offered them to both schools. Didn't know why, how, or if he was passing the course. But Thursday rolled around, he was still breathing, and he found himself in the classroom yet again.
She'd survived her first week. Quietly anonymous among the throngs of people milling through the halls. For once.
Truly, she'd never bothered learning anything back in Toronto. All it had ever taken was a coy smile, and she'd have handfuls of exams to look off of. It didn't take much to persuade someone if you were the effervescent Amena Lawrence. Consequently, she's passed everything with flying colors without attending more than a month's worth of classes. Unfortunately, her school was no longer co-ed, and she wasn't planning on swinging the other way anytime soon. Pity.
And for the first time in ages, Amena found herself with the short end of the stick. And with a failing grade.
Maxwell Jonas could not see the good in this new student, either. Another ungrateful kid with no chance of succeeding. If only they pretended to make an effort, he'd be happy. Well, happier.
He was nearly fifty-four this year. A few decades too old to be recognizing he wasn't being the "nurturing teacher" he'd been educated to be. At least he wasn't lying to himself about it.
He had a surprisingly good memory, and unsurprisingly, a vivid imagination. It was regrettable that these two traits combined to permanently plaster an image of a certain brunette to his mind; he might've appeared to be continuously staring into the next world, but truth be told, he could swear the image was just behind his eyes. That if he just looked a bit longer, the image would spring to life and forgive him.