(Sara)
Her first day home went pretty much as Sara had expected. It sucked. She was 'clean', yes, and had every intention of staying that way, but her father, Frontier Frank was doubtful. She could see it in the way her looked at her. She knew he was just waiting for her to mess up and smack up. And he had made it more than clear that a druggie daughter was not welcome in his home. The Sara that went into rehab would have mentally flipped him the bird and headed straight to her dealer.
The Sara who came out, while still of a mind to send him the Ol' tweetie, had other reasons for staying away from heroin. While inside she had met a woman, Sandy, who had started using at Sara's age. The woman was now 27, but looked at least twenty years older. And her story was enough to scare even the most devote addict straight.
Sara had left with a slightly different attitude towards using, but now that she was 'free' she was feeling antsy. While inside it had been easy to stay clean; scoring had been impossible. But now that she was home, a fix was only a phone call away.
She was pacing the floor, her body itching with need, a purely psychological need at this point; she no longer suffered from the hell of physical withdrawals, when the doorbell rang.
She made her way to the door and threw it open, any distraction from her thoughts welcome.
"What are you doing here?" The words flew from her mouth.
But she was glad to see him; hell the grim reaper would have been welcome if he could keep her from making that phone call.
"Forget it just come in," She grabbed him and pulled him inside.
"So? What are you doing here?"
He smiled and held up some books and folders.
"Am I psychic…What you want, Michael?"
"I'm you're tutor, Sara, small world, huh?"
She stood looking at him, her arms crossed over her chest.
"Yeah, minuscule."
She remembered her father saying something about a tutor to help her get caught up at school, but this guy? She sighed and shut the door.
"Come on I'll get us some cola."
He followed her to the kitchen and plopped down the books and folders.
"I figured we could go over some stuff and see how much you have missed, and then I'll work out a schedule for us to follow."
Was this guy for real?
"Why don't we just start somewhere and not make this a life long objective?"
He laughed. "Okay we'll just start somewhere. Where do want to start?"
Sara just stared at him. "I don't care, just pick something."
She had a feeling this was going to be a long day.
Two hours had passed and Sara was suffering from severe data overload. Michael was like a machine, the freakin' energizer bunny of academia. She was studying him boldly when he looked up.
"How do you know all this stuff? I mean why do you know it so well? It's so… dry."
They were engrossed in her Art history text book, well Michael was anyways; Sara had been picking at the little pieces of paper stuck in the rings of her note pad for the last fifteen minutes.
"I dunno, I guess I just kind of have a thing for knowledge?"
She nodded, totally not getting it, but decided she didn't really care. It made sense that her father would hire a total brainiac to tutor her. He always did take the overkill approach.
She studied him some more, a question totally irrelevant to learning coming to mind.
"Why did you help me that night? I mean after the rude way I dismissed you, why didn't you just walk away?"
He met her eyes and then pushed up his glasses.
"I dunno, I guess I just thought you needed someone to make sure you were okay. I didn't see any of your friends around to do it, so…" He was looking at her book, but then his eyes met hers.
"Yeah, my friends were probably passed out somewhere, so thanks for, um… thanks."
Michael smiled, his glasses sliding forward on his nose again.
"You're welcome, Sara, anytime."
And then his nose was back in the book leaving her to study him.
She had to admit he was pretty cute for a nerd. Not really her type, no piercings or tattoos. And he dressed like most of the guys she shunned at school. Still he did have nice eyes.
"So in which pieces was the basic theme of silence vividly portrayed?"
He looked up to see her staring at him. Sara blinked. "Um...what?" Michael took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair looking at her.
He took off his glasses to rub at his eyes, squinting a little.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Um, Sunflowers?"
He just looked at her for a minute and then shoved his glasses back on. "Let's read through this again, okay?"
(Michael)
He eased down onto the couch, his body feeling like he had just run a marathon. If someone would have told him yesterday that tutoring a seventeen year old girl would be so draining he would have laughed in their face.
But now…He rubbed a hand over his face and closed his eyes. Sara was something all right. He just wasn't sure what to make of her. She seemed different somehow, but then he had to remind himself this was the first time he had seen her when she wasn't strung out on smack. But maybe just maybe rehab had had a positive effect on her.
Part of his job was to look for signs of her drug use, and if and when she did shoot up, she would be tucked safely away for another thirty day stint.
That was a report he was hoping not to have to make. He wanted this case. No he needed this case. Sitting around waiting the last thirty days had been torture.
Feeling his energy renewed as his mind wrapped around the particulars of the case he jumped up and headed for his computer. He knew he would have to bone up on pre-calculus if he were to keep up his flawless nerdy façade.
