I sit through film at three-thirty without absorbing a single shift on the tape, which is unusual enough that Coach catches my eye on the way out and gives me the look that saysget your head right.
By the time I get back to Hawthorne, the boys are all there. Stanley is on the couch yelling something at the TV. Blue is at the kitchen island. Percy is reading. Rowan is cooking. We talk about the Saturday game tape and about the freshman who is, by everyone’s view, going to be a problem for our defense if Coach insists on starting him. I go to bed at nine-thirty.
Tuesday morning practice goes well. I’m closer to my reads than I was last week. Coach tells me that I’m better. Honestly, I feel like a person who has been told to show up, so I keep showing up. I’m not better, but I take it anyway.
I shower at the rink, go home to eat lunch, and then I’m off to my Tuesday class. I get back to the house with too much time on my hands. I’m starting to feel shaky every time I look at the clock. I’ve never been this nervous over a tutoring session in my life.
I shower again, even though I showered at the rink. I shave. I stand in front of my closet for a long time trying to figure out what to wear, which is something I haven’t done since high school. I pick a clean t-shirt and a good pair of jeans. I pull on a fresh hoodie because my Camden U hoodie is in Lucy’s hands. I brush my teeth. I look at myself in the bathroom mirror and feel stupid for caring this much. I leave the house with too much time and use most of it walking to distract myself from what I’m about to walk into.
I climb the stairs to the third floor of the library ten minutes before the start time. I come around the corner into the hallway, and I see her in 3B before she sees me. She is in her usual chair facing the door. Her hair is up today, exposing her neck. Her laptop is open in front of her. She’s staring at the screen in deep thought. On the chair across from her, draped over the back, is my hoodie. The one I gave her Friday night. She brought it.
I stop outside the door and Camdenthe in. Then I push the door open.
She looks up. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I pause in the doorway. I don’t know about her, but I didn’t think I’d ever see her here again. The tutoring center not having another tutor was just luck on my end. I haven’t thought about what I would say, and now I’m staring like an idiot. I silently clear my throat and then close the door behind me.
I walk to my chair and pick up the hoodie. “Thanks,” I mutter.
“Yeah,” she replies softly.
I fold it once into a smaller bundle and set it on top of my backpack on the floor next to my chair. I sit down in the chair and inhale.
“So, there was no other tutor available it seems,” she says.
I nod. “Seems so.”
Without skipping a beat, she says, “Where did we leave off on Friday?”
“Five-twelve was the last problem I did in front of you. I did the rest of the chapter five practice set Sunday. They’re in my notebook if you want to check.”
“You did the whole chapter on your own this weekend.”
“Yeah.”
She nods. “Okay. Let me see.”
She extends her hand, palm up. I pull out the notebook and hand it to her. She opens it and reads through the work I did Sunday morning at the kitchen island while Rowan made eggs and the rest of the house slept.
After a few minutes, she closes the notebook and slides it back. “Good work.”
“Thanks.”
“We can move into chapter six today.”
“Okay.”
She flips to chapter six. She reads the problems. Her voice is the tutor voice. Flat. Professional. The voice she had for the first session, before she knew me. I do the problems. She checksthem. I catch myself watching her hand on the page once. It’s a lot of awkward tension, back and forth. I look up at the clock, counting down the minutes. I’m aware that she keeps checking it as well.
“Okay. We have a few minutes. Do the last problem on your own, and I’ll check it.”
“Okay.”
I do the last problem. Five minutes. I get it right and slide it across. She reads it. She nods.
“Good. That’s it for today.”
I swallow.That’s it?“Okay.”
