"Trisha, please. Just try to concentrate."
She stared at the paper in front of her. "Just convert it into logarithmic form, right?"
"And transfer the exponent, then combine the equations."
"Okay, I can do this."
He put his hand on her shoulder, "We both know you can."
Trish performed the mathematical procedures, finally coming up with a long, ridiculous equation which made no logical sense whate-so-ever. "Is that right?"
"Yep." He grinned.
"It looks horrible."
Laughing his hand rested against her shoulder. "Nobody said math was pretty."
She laughed. "But seriously, what's the point of these? Why make a simple equation more complicated?"
"Honestly I don’t know. Maybe, it's just for the fun of it." She grinned and began packing her books.
"I feel like I'm really ready for this test."
"You've been working hard."
She glanced at the clock, it was 4:25, almost time to leave. "Ready to go?"
He smiled, "Why I'd love to." He extended his arm, mockingly chivalrous.
"You're selling your car?" Trisha noticed the 'for sale' sign in Mr. Jenkins' blue Honda.
"Yeah, I just bought a new car, and I need to get rid of this one."
She laughed, "I wish I even had a car to get rid of in the first place."
"Well hey, I'd give you a really good deal on this car. If you wanted it, that is."
She was shocked. "Oh, no, we um…we can't afford a car, really."
"You can have it for a thousand bucks. This things in perfect condition. Yeah, the miles are racked up kinda high, but it runs like new."
"Um, well, I can talk to my mom about it."
"That'd be great. Anything I could do to help you, you know I'll do it right?" He held open the door for her.
"Yeah, I guess so."
He got into his side of the car and started the engine. "Hey you wanna drive it? Just to get a feel for it, maybe?"
"No, that's fine." She smiled.
"You're one of my favorite students, ya' know that? Actually, you're probably my favorite of all."
She blushed and stupidly stammered a thank you.
"You're seeing somebody right?"
"No, not really."
"Not really? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, I was kind of with this guy, but he lives really far away, and so we don't see each other too much. And I sort of blew him off, because of that. So I don't think there's a chance between us anymore."
"Really? That's too bad. He's missin' out, really."
"No, he'll be just fine on his own."
Mr. Jenkins smiled. "Nobody's just fine on their own. Especially once they've met someone like you."
"What's that supposed to mean? You met somebody special?"
"Well, sort of, I guess."
"Where'd you meet her?"
"At school."
"Really?" Trish looked confused, all the teachers at her school were old and married, or male. "Is she one of the teacher aids or something?"
"No…"
She cut him off, "That's the apartment building right there."
"Oh okay."
He got out and opened the door for her and she grabbed her backpack. "Trish?"
"What, Mr. Jenkins?"
"Call me Tyler okay?"
"Why?"
"Look, I'm only 24, and you're 18, we could work something out. You're an incredibly special person, and since neither of us are really seeing someone, there's not reason that we couldn't, um…you know, see each other."
She stared at him, her jaw agape. "Yeah there is. Um, you're my teacher."
"I won't be for long."
"Look, Tyler, I mean, Mr. Jenkins, you're a nice teacher. I like being in your class, but I really think that having anything other than a student teacher relationship would be…" She searched for words. Wrong. Inappropriate. "It would just, not be a very good idea."
He nodded his head solemnly. "Alright. I respect that. I'm sorry."
"That's fine. Really." She smiled.
"I, um, I hope this won't cause you to quite the tutoring, I still think you could benefit from it."
"Oh yeah, definitely. But it'll be just, a student teacher tutoring. Right?"
"Yeah, of course." He walked back to his car.
It was just after third period the next day. "Open up, dammit!" Trisha angrily yelled at her locker.
"You don't have very good luck with that thing, do you?"
She turned around, it was Chris. "No. But it's not like you'd really care about that anyway. Seeing how you don't give a rat's ass about anyone but your self."
"Hey, look, I'm sorry. I had no idea you thought it was a date."
"Fine. I can deal with that."
"Then what's the problem?"
"The fact that you made a fool out of in front of half of the gossips in this school. You called me prude, the prude of all prudes, actually. And you belittled me, you made me feel like I wasn't good enough to be shit. And that was embarrassing and unnecessary. I don't see why you had to do that."
"I'm really sorry about that. You caught me off guard. And, as horrible as it is to say, when I get caught like that I lash out. I don't know how to act, and I end up hurting people."
Trisha hung her head and turned back to her locker. "And you definitely hurt me." She turned the dial. "Shit."
"Here." He turned the lock to its numbers and it popped open. "I really need your help."
"I know."
"Please, I know you're a nice person. You actually care about people, and that's why I asked you. Help me out here." He flashed her a pathetic, but sincere, smile.
"Okay."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Hey, um, since you're doing this for me, um, I know I shouldn't say this, but you know my friend Jeremy?"
"Fiselle?"
"Yeah."
"What about him?"
"He wanted to take you out sometime."
"Are you serious?"
"Totally. See I was thinking, Kirsten Dunmire and I were going to go to a movie and dinner and we thought the two of you could come along."
"That sounds nice."
"Okay, give me your number and I'll have him call you."
"Okay." She gave him her number and walked to lunch.
They were eating lunch at their usual table, discussing plans for Kirsten's party.
"I thought we could get like matching clothes."
"Um…no. We're not in the third grade anymore, Jules."
"Well then what do you suggest, Kalli?"
"Let's wear black. It's sexy, it's thinning, and it looks good on everybody."
Everybody nodded. "Okay, so black it is." Sarene grinned, she loved black, black and red.
Julia sighed. "I can't believe it. In a month and a half is the party. God, I'm actually nervous. Why am I nervous?"
"Because you're retarded." Sarene joked.
"Fine." Julia pouted, the other girls laughed.
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