Author Note: Well, here comes the slightly boring part. But it gets better in the next chapter, I promise! Please cope with me and read this for the sake of the story. Enjoy!
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"Soh Cah Toa?"
"Yep. Soh Cah Toa." Summer replied, smirking at Freddy's expression. "You see: Sine equals opposite over hypotenuse," She explained, pointing at the triangle on the textbook. "Take the initials and you have Soh. Same for Cosine, adjacent over hypotenuse."
"Hmm," Freddy pondered, a thoughtful expression on his face. One that you would have never expected before the start of the tutoring sessions. "Tangent is what, opposite over adjacent?"
Summer nodded, with a tiny smile. "Right. Now let's tackle these problems, and then we're done. Number 47: if side a of a triangle is 9 inches long-"
"Wait! So is Sine just the name of the angle or what? How does that work?" Freddy had been getting better and better, but lately Summer went just a little too fast.
"No, Sine is just a mathematical function. To find the angle you need to take the inverse on your calculator. Now about the problem-" She tried to continue, only to be interrupted again.
"Can I borrow your calculator?"
"What? No!" Summer replied in an offended tone. Had he not learned anything from her? "Freddy, you know that materials are important and you need your stuff. Besides we might need to set it in the right mode, so go get it!" She commended.
Freddy got up with an overdramatic sigh and dragged himself out of the room. They were both exhausted and Summer couldn't wait to go home and relax for a while. At the same time, though, she had to admit that tutoring was getting incredibly simpler: Freddy seemed to understand most topics fairly easily and soon he wouldn't need her help anymore. She flipped through the pages of his notebook to look at the latest practice problems he had done and check them for recurrent mistakes, when she noticed something. Sticking out the back there were a bunch of messy looking papers, fliers, notes, and other random pages. But among some of them were marked in red pen, in a handwriting that wasn't Freddy's or Summer's. Wasn't that last week's quiz? Summer quickly turned it over to see the grade, the ultimate proof of efficacy of the study sessions. An A minus. Which was surprisingly good for Freddy's standards… She flipped through a couple more pages, checking two weeks ago, three, a month, the beginning of the quarter… Nothing lower than a B minus. The last test dated back to five days after Freddy had asked her about tutoring, and it was a more than acceptable B.
Standing up, Summer quickly gathered her things, scrawled something on the test and marched through the hallway.
"Hey, Sum!" She heard Freddy call when she was in the foyer, but she just slammed the door behind her and headed home through the pouring rain.
Freddy hurried down the stairs, puzzled. Why would Summer leave when they still had to go through all those stupid problems? This didn't make any sense at all. But when he opened the door she had already disappeared from sight. Still confused, he shrugged and headed back to the library, deciding he would call her later to discover what was going on. When he reached the desk whee his books were, he immediately changed his mind: he knew perfectly well what was going on. On the table, lying over the mess of papers, was one of his tests, a single world written in huge scarlet letters all across the page. Summer's neat handwriting, in the rage, had become a blood-colored scribble, but the accusation was still perfectly legible. 'Liar'.
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"Maybe he had his reasons…"
Summer glared at Katie with such ferocity that she muttered an apology.
"You know he didn't. What reason could he possibly have had to waste my time?" Summer asked rhetorically, walking to her locker.
"I dunno. I am just saying that maybe there is something-" Katie tried to reply, only to be abruptly interrupted.
"There's nothing!" Summer exclaimed, exasperated. "Not one possible explanation that would make me forgive him! Gosh, Katie, he just wasted two whole months of my life, killed me with stress and responsibilities I absolutely did not need and you're ready to justify him just like that?"
Even though she was her best friend, Summer managed to really scare Katie sometimes. And right because she was her best friend, the bass player knew perfectly well when to stop arguing with the fierce band manager. Freddy Jones was in big trouble and Katie wouldn't have traded places with him for a million dollars.
"So what are you going to do, now?" Katie asked, opening the padlock and shoving her books inside.
"What do you mean? There is nothing I should do." Summer fought with the combination and kicked her locker.
"Well, you're still going to see him, you know? School, band practices, all that good stuff." Katie watched amused as her friend battled the lock. "Want help?"
"No." She tried the combination once again. "I am just going to ignore him. And if he only dares-"
"What?"
Summer had stopped, staring at her opened locker with a shocked expression on her face, her mouth open and her eyes wide with surprise. The contents of her locker had disappeared and had been replaced by what seemed the most accidental collection of items: postcards from Europe were hanging from colored ribbons attached to the top of the locker; a bunch of familiar-looking novels, among which Summer recognized some of her favorites, orderly filled most of the shelves; at her eye-level, sat a cd by Blink 182, a dvd of "The Nightmare Before Christmas", some very random flowers, various chess pieces, and, most visible of all, two drumsticks with carved initials. FJ.
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"Where are my books?"
Freddy turned away from his locker, unperturbed by Summer's harsh tone. "Well, hello to you, Summer," He said optimistically, but did not dare to smile.
She glared at him even harder. "Cut it out Jones!" She replied, a little too loud. "Give me my books back."
He shrugged. "I don't have them," He said in a casual tone.
Summer's eyes were ablaze with anger, and she was struggling to control herself, wanting nothing more than hitting Freddy. "Liar!" She accused him, her tone dangerously growing in volume. "You are lying again! I can't believe the nerve you ha-"
"Alright, I have your books," Freddy cut her out, before she could get them both in trouble. "But not here."
"Not here?" Summer repeated incredulous. "What the hell did you do with them?! I swear, if they're ruined-"
"Don't worry, they're safe and sound," He said, rolling his eyes. Summer gave him a deadly glance for mocking her. "They're at my place, ok?"
Summer crossed her arm. "Sure, ok. Go get them."
He stared at her disbelieving. "Are you kidding? I can't miss school to go get your books."
"Really?" Her tone was drenched in sarcasm. "I bet they wouldn't care, now that you're a straight-As student."
"Sum, plea-"
"Oh, no. Don't you even start," She interrupted him. "What am I supposed to do without books? Did you think about that, before stealing them?"
"I didn't steal them!" Freddy replied, exasperated and offended. "You can have them back tonight, alright?"
"Oh, how very kind of you!" She said mockingly. "And until then?"
Freddy turned back to his locker and searched trough the mess inside it. "There," he said, handing her a notebook. "You can take notes on that. I'm sure your teachers will be more than understanding."
Summer could not disagree, she knew teachers would not have said anything to her. "Fine," She accepted, a little less furious. "But I want my books back tonight."
"Alright!" He replied smiling. Summer glared at him, but said nothing more and walked away.
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