Page 17 of Choosing Her
His brows furrowed. “She tried to convince you not to do it anymore?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, she thought I looked gross every time I came home from lessons. But she’s not really into anything that involves sweat or dirt or… well exercise in general. Not her thing.”
“Huh,” Crossy murmured. “She always seemed happy to talk hockey with me.”
She’s good at faking interest,I wanted to say. Instead, I decided it was probably about time that I steer the conversation toward our reason for being here. I pulled my feet up on the chair so I could sit cross-legged and tugged my bag toward me, though I didn’t get out my math textbook quite yet. “So, what are you having trouble with in particular?”
“Math,” Crossy said immediately.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I didn’t think that would be the right tone to set off this tutoring session with. I wanted him to feel like I was taking him seriously, not making fun of him. I may not have been happy about doing this whole tutoring thing, but if I was going to bother with it, I was going to do it well.
“Yeah, I gathered that. But was it something in particular that was difficult? One unit or…”
He shrugged helplessly and said again, “Math.”
I tried not to be annoyed with Crossy, since I was sure he was just overwhelmed by this course, but I was a little annoyed with Mrs. Gao for giving me zero direction on how to become a good tutor. She’d just thrown me in the deep end and expected me to figure it all out as I went—and would probably be annoyed with me if I did badly at it.
“Okay,” I said slowly. I played with the edge of my textbook’s pages as I thought about my game plan. “Do you have any ofyour old tests or anything? Maybe then I could see what you weren’t understanding and we can go from there, so we don’t waste time on material you already know.”
Crossy didn’t seem to be listening to me at all. “Have you ever tutored anybody before?” He asked.
I debated whether I should lie and say yes to make him happy. Who would want their last hope of passing a required class to hinge on someone who had never tutored anyone before? But maybe it was better if I didn’t make him happy. Then he would realize this was a terrible idea and could go tell Mrs. Gao she needed to find him a new tutor, letting me off the hook. Except that according to Coach Anderson, there were no other tutors available at all.
“No,” I admitted. “The guidance counsellor suggested that it could be a good idea for me and now here we are.”
“The guidance counsellor suggested it?” Crossy asked, looking surprised. “Huh. She never suggests anything like that to me.”
“Probably because she knows all you care about is hockey,” I muttered.
He scoffed. “As if you care about anything other than horses.”
Okay, he had me there. I avoided eye contact as I flipped through the pages of my textbook, feeling like I should have an idea of what to suggest we do now, but really have no clue. As I reached the middle of the textbook, a small card fell out of the pages, landing softly on the arm of the chair. When I glanced at it, I realized it was another one of my parents’ postcards—this one from Ireland, when they were there at the beginning of term. I’d received it just after I got this textbook and I’d stuck it in here to throw out later, and completely forgot.
Like all the other postcards, there wasn’t even an obligatory “wish you were here” or “we miss you”. Just another variation of bragging about the trip and passive aggressively talking abouthow much nicer it was to travel without us. At least this one hadP.S. Say hi to Rebecca for us, which meant they hadn’t completely forgotten my existence.
“Another obligatory postcard?” Crossy asked, glancing at it. I quickly snatched it back and stuck it back in my textbook.
“Don’t call them that,” I muttered. I was allowed to be annoyed with my parents and roll my eyes at their actions, but he wasn’t. That wasn’t his place in my life.
“Sorry,” Crossy said softly. “That’s just what Naomi always called them.”
I felt a flare of annoyance in my chest as he said Naomi’s name. I hated to think about them together, about her sharing her life with him, even if I knew they were connected in a way I couldn’t be with him. I’d gotten one night with him. She’d gotten a whole relationship. How could our experiences compare?
“I don’t know how much studying we can do today,” I said. “So, you can just go back tonight. And next time, bring me some of your old tests and make a list of units you were confused by, and I can build an actual plan for us.”
“Do you have somewhere you need to be?” Crossy asked. When I finally peeked a glance at him, I realized he looked a little hurt. Like he was offended that I told him he could go home. Ever since the school year started up, it seemed like Crossy actuallyenjoyedspending time with me, which was the total opposite of the summer, when we’d both avoided each other like the plague.
“I just have some homework I need to do,” I said. I put the math textbook back in my bag and pulled out my science book instead. Crossy’s eyes landed on it and his brows furrowed.
“Here?” He asked.
“Uh-uh.” I settled deeper into the chair and opened my textbook to where I’d put the worksheet that was tonight’shomework in it. “And I’m sure you want to get back to your friends, so I don’t want to keep you.”
“I’ll stay with you,” Crossy said.Huh?“I need some of your good studying mojo to rub off on me.”
“My good studying mojo?” I echoed.
“Yeah. You’re passing all your classes, right? Maybe if I study with you, it will rub off on me.”
