I'm a Tutor?
A/N: Hey guys! I hope this chapter is long enough for you guys! As always, please review! Especially grammatical stuff because sometimes things make more sense when you're stoned, haha. Also, shout out to those who have already reviewed, favorited, and/or are following the story. Y'all make me smile!
"Alright, so what's your game plan?" asked Amethyst. It was approximately 7:30pm and we were finishing up our dinner at the campus dining hall.
"What do you mean?" I asked, eating the last bite of mac n' cheese on my plate.
"Like, are you going to be nice to her even though she hates your guts?" she laughed.
"Amethyst! She does not hate my guts. I have no reason to be rude to her. Maybe we'll find a common enemy in our professor and become…acquainted?" I immediately regretted my choice in words.
Amethyst's eyes twinkled to the point where you could almost see stars in them and her full lips broke into a wide grin, "Oh. My. Gosh. You like her! Oh, of course you want to become acquainted. Peri has a crush!"
I shook my head and waved my hands at her to quiet down, "I do not! I mean she's pretty and all but I do not have a crush on her! Besides, she's probably straight. And I'm totally not her type. She's athletic, graceful…uh, and it would be wrong since I am her calculus tutor!" I felt myself blush and decided it was probably time to head out.
Amethyst and I placed our plates on the dish rack and walked out of the dining hall. "I'll see you at home, dork. Try not to kill each other…or make out with each other!" She punched me on the arm and walked away laughing at her joke"
"We're not going to make out!" I yelled after her and angrily huffed in the opposite direction. She can really push my buttons sometimes. I'm just doing this to get my A and then I'm done. I'm probably never going to see Lapis again once the semester ends anyways.
I made it to the library and climbed the steps onto the second floor. The modern architecture of the four story building seemed so small with so many students buzzing around, trying to cram for their exams. I moved towards the café area and scouted a section for us. All of the comfortable spots near the windows were taken so I opted for a table. Man, I think just about every student enrolled is here tonight!
I stopped in my tracks as I came upon a table in the aisle of two parallel bookcases. Sitting with her head peering down, I saw the blue-haired girl, coffee in one hand and cell phone in the other.
"He-hey, Lapis," I smiled, awkwardly, as I approached the table. She looked up from her phone and gave me a quick "oh, hey."
I can sense your enthusiasm, I rolled my eyes. "Am I late or something," I asked, glancing at my watch.
Lapis slipped her phone in a pocket of her backpack and took a sip of her coffee. "No, I'm early. Swim practice ended a lot earlier than I anticipated. Let's get started. Teach me calculus." Straight to it. Alright.
We scattered our books and notes across the table and began our, I guess you can call it, tutoring session. I explained limits, derivatives, antiderivatives, and everything else lined out in our study guide.
After about 45 minutes of taking notes and writing out example problems, we took a little break and walked to a nearby vending machine since the café was closing up.
"So, how are you stuck in this predicament?' Lapis asked, inserting bills and choosing an energy drink.
"What do you mean?" I raised an eyebrow, confused. I pulled the cash out of my wallet, ready to mimic her selection.
"Well," she started, "You were just as surprised as I was when he said you would be my tutor. Which leads me to believe that you don't just tutor people on the regular. So what did you do to piss him off? You know, other than being late on the first day of class." I swear I saw a faint smile play on her lips, but it was gone just as fast as it had appeared. We made our way back to our table.
"I didn't piss him off. And for your information, I was not late. I made it with five seconds to spare. Now, if you really want to know why I'm here, that man is a menace to my perfect grade point average! He won't give me my A because I did all of the group project assignments on my own. Apparently being an independent motivator and self-starter is frowned upon in the world of Calculus I. If I tutor you and help you pass, he'll give me my grade."
She rolled her eyes, "Basically, you're too arrogant to work with anybody else so your GPA depends on me. No pressure, right?"
"I am not arrogant!" I exclaimed, "I don't like working with other people."
"Why?" Lapis inquired.
"Because…well, I just…don't see the need to dumb myself down for people who are just going to make me do all the work anyways! I prefer to work on my own." I sat down and opened up the math book for distraction. I totally sounded arrogant. "Alright, where were we. Ah, let's see you do number 7. That problem was on the first exam and I bet we'll see it again."
"Greattt," she shook her head.
A couple of hours later, Lapis was still struggling to grasp the concept of some methods. She shut her book in frustration and started packing her belongings. "Listen," she started, "It's already 11. I'm exhausted from practice. Let's just continue this tomorrow. I told coach that I needed the night off to study." She dug into her backpack and pulled out her phone. "Here," she handed it to me, "save your number and I'll text you when I'm free. Cool?"
"Fine." I quickly tapped in my number and saved it, 'Peridot Facet.' "Can we do around 6ish? We have a lot to cover and I do not want to stay here all night."
She grabbed her phone from me and slung her bag over her shoulder. "Sorry you have to dumb yourself down for people like me. I'll text you when I'm free." Lapis started towards the exit without giving me a second look.
What just happened?! Does she think I called her dumb? Ugh. "Lapis! What are you talking about?"
She continued walking, "Nothing, nerd. I'll see you tomorrow."
Still trying to register what happened, I packed my books and made my way to the opposite exit. Well, that was awkward. Tomorrow is going to be so painful to get through if she's going to be upset the whole time. Why do girls have to be such complex creatures?
I exited through the glass doors onto the main campus. The lamps that lined the brick-paved walkway and the clear, bright, shining stars illuminated the night. I took out my headphones and pressed 'random' on my favorite playlist. I smiled as soon as I recognized the song. "Chaos" by Mutemath. Immediately, the song made me nod my head on the beat. The best part about walking to and from campus is getting to lose myself in music until I reach my destination.
I managed to finally get in bed around 11:45. I was kind of glad that Amethyst was studying with some of her friends so I didn't have to relive the awkwardness of tonight. Although, she'll definitely bring it up tomorrow.
Since my first class on Tuesdays and Thursdays doesn't start until 10:30, I decided to watch a little bit of TV. I knew Amethyst would kill me if I watched Gotham without her, so I decided on Vikings. A little blood and death was settling before bed, right? Unfortunately, I didn't last long. I felt my eyes heavy not even before the beginning credits were ending. I lazily paused the show, placed my glasses on the small table beside me, and knocked out.
The early morning sun peered through my window, waking me up well before my alarm. For once, I was wide awake instead of grumpy and groggy. I'm definitely not a morning person. Without reaching for my glasses, I grabbed my towel and walked into the bathroom. I readied the shower and stepped in, gasping as the hot water made contact with my skin. It painfully felt so good.
After stepping out of the shower I decided that it would be a hoodie and jeans kind of day. I opted for a burgundy t-shirt and I pulled out a pair of black skinny jeans and slipped them on. I had to jump and wiggle a few times thanks to my legs being damp. I found the hoodie that I was looking for and walked into the laundry room to throw it in the dryer for a few minutes.
It was still only 9am. I had a full hour and a half before my first class of the day. I poured a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch and placed it on the coffee table in front of the television. As I was reaching for the remote, I heard feet shuffling.
"Oh no," I sighed. I knew Amethyst would make me tell her about last night. I was in such a good mood, too. I heard as the shuffling moved into the direction of the bathroom that we shared upstairs and after a few minutes, coming down the stairs.
"Good morning, sunshine," she greeted, "you escaped my inquiring wrath last night but let me get a bowl of cereal and I want to hear all about yesterday." She saw my expression turn sour and shook her head and laughed.
"Amethyst, I know that I'm not necessarily a 'people person' but I never knew someone could hate me so much!" I started as she took her seat next to me on the couch.
"I'm sure she doesn't hate you. She probably-"
"No, she hates me. She thinks I called her dumb!" I interrupted.
Amethyst's became amused, "well, did you?"
"No! I simply just stated that I do not work else with others because I have to dumb myself down to-"
This time it was she who interrupted, "Dude, you totally called her dumb. What are you going to do now?"
I sighed in defeat. I did call her dumb. But I didn't mean it! "I didn't mean to. Maybe I'll just apologize when we meet up later?"
"Good idea. Maybe you should bring her a little apology present!"
"I don't think I know her well enough to know what she likes," I replied, hesitantly.
"Think hard, nerd. You must know something! Anyways, I'm going to head upstairs. My classes got cancelled so we can study for the midterms, so I'm going to have a little session. Wanna join?" Her eyebrow lifted in excitement.
"Maybe after class," I replied, "I actually should start heading out. I'll see you later!" With that, we went our separate ways. I walked towards the laundry room to retrieve the sweater. I moaned with delight as I pulled it over and the warmth wrapped my body.
I grabbed my shoes which were near the front door and a delightful aroma filled my nostrils. Maybe I can spare a few minutes. No, no, no. Class!
My classes for the day, IT Infrastructure and Programming, were a breeze to get through. There was no doubt that the midterms would be just as simple. Writing code came almost second nature to me and the networking stuff was basically just some IP addresses and binary to hexadecimal stuff. Piece of cake.
The rest of my day passed agonizingly slow while I was waiting on Lapis to text me to confirm our tutoring session. I powered on my Xbox to distract myself and logged on to play a quick round of CoD.
Somehow, the quick round turned into three when I suddenly felt my phone vibrate. I felt a tightening in my tummy as I checked the message.
Unknown 6:12pm: Running late. See you in 20.
Alright, now I have to wait at least five minutes so it doesn't seem like I've been waiting around all day for her text…or does exactly five minutes seem too planned out? Six. I will wait six minutes. But what should I say?
I started typing the message out, erasing and reconstructing several times before I settled on the perfect reply.
Peridot 6:14pm: Cool.
Shit! My finger slipped, sending the text only two minutes after the original. "Shit, shit shit!" I sighed, "Ugh. Well that sucks." I got up from my chair and grabbed my backpack on my way out the door.
I wonder where Amethyst has been all evening. Probably studying with Garnet and Pearl or something.
I unlocked my car and hopped into the Evo. The weather was perfect enough to have my hoodie on and drive with the windows down. One of the many reason that Autumn is my favorite season. "Deep Down Low" by Valentino Khan thumped out of my speakers as I made my way to the campus library.
It was 6:30 by the time I made it into the building. I looked for the table that we used last night but there was a very stressed-out looking group taking it over. I scanned the area and spotted two seats next to the window. Perfect! The couch-like chairs sat opposite of each other with a small table in between. I plopped my backpack onto the table to claim the spot and walked to the vending machine that was now conveniently around the corner. A Monster for me and a green Red Bull for Lapis. That is what she has last time, right?
I walked back to the table and felt a buzz in my pocket.
Lapis 6:35pm: Marco
Clever.
Peridot 6:35pm: Polo. By the vending machine.
I felt a mixture of dread and excitement when I saw the girl appear from behind a book shelf. I waved to get her attention and she walked over and took the seat across of mine.
"Hey, I'm sorry I couldn't get here at six. Stuff came up," she said as she took her book and notebook out of her bag.
"Oh, don't worry about it. This turned out to be a better time for me too," I lied. I quickly remembered about the energy drink and pushed it towards her end. "Here," I said, "I uh- got this for you. I remembered that you got this one yesterday and thought you might want one"
Lapis looked at me, eyes narrow. "Thanks…but this doesn't mean that I'm over you calling me stupid."
My jaw dropped, stammering I said, "Lapis! No! I never thought you were stupid!"
"You said you have to dumb yourself down for people and I'm still sitting here struggling to comprehend fucking calculus." She shot back.
"I'm sorry, it just comes easy for me. But that doesn't mean I think you're dumb. I just want to help you get a good grade!" I looked at her with pleading eyes and her eyes quickly averted my gaze.
"Whatever. Let's just get this over with." She replied, softly.
I started the tutoring with having her work out some of the problems that I helped her complete yesterday. I checked her work and she seemed to have remembered how to solve them. I gave her a few new problems and she had to ask me for help.
"Okay," I started, "To find the derivative of this function, we do algebra first and then apply calculus rules."
By the time 10:30 rolled around we had worked through the entire study guide so she would have study material to cram before the exam the following morning.
"I feel…slightly better about this test," Lapis said. "Maybe I'll actually pass this one."
"I'm sure you'll do well!" I smiled. "Please do well." I begged.
Lapis gave me a soft smile, almost apologetic. "I'll try Peri. I'm going to go home and cram a little bit more. Thank you for your help." Either way, Lapis Lazuli actually smiled.