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Okay, so maybe a little distracting. I can feel the heat of Caroline’s irritation even without looking at her.
I pick up my phone. “Sorry. I’ll turn the notifications off, so it won’t interrupt us.”
She arches an eyebrow at me. “Are you sure? It looks like it’s really important.”
I pretend not to notice the dripping sarcasm, and we start on the reading assigned for tomorrow’s civics class. Then we actually review it. Which seems hella overkill to me, but Caroline’s convinced Mr. Hogan is gonna hit us with a pop quiz on the assigned paragraphs.
She gets me to write out the main points of the reading on five separate notecards (like, paper sized note cards—not the little palm-sized ones a lot of girls use to make study notes). She says she’s gonna get me to place each notecard in a different spot around the room afterwards. According to her, this will help me remember each point, if I can associate it with a specific spot in a place that’s familiar to me. It sounds hella weird to me, but she’s the smart one, so I’ll go along with whatever she says.
As I write on the note cards, I’m aware of her gaze constantly straying to my left thumb every time it starts tapping against the table. And then it’s my knee, too, bouncing up and down. And my palm rubbing at the back of my neck, while I try, as hard as I can, to concentrate on the stupid cue cards. I’m working to just keep everything in check and come across as a semi-normal human being. But the longer we’re at this, the closer I am to leaping out of my chair and legit throwing in the towel. Not because I’m giving up, but because I just…have to move.Do something with my body. I’m going stir-crazy out of my skin.
But just as I’m about to do just that, Caroline pulls the last cue card I was filling out into the small pile she’s made in front of her and pushes her chair back.
“Awesome,” she says. “Let’s take a five-minute break.” Like she can tell I’m about to lose it if I don’t get up from this table in three seconds or less.
I toss my pen onto the table and I’m on my feet the moment the word “break” leaves her lips. I comb a hand through my hair. “Thank fuck,” I exclaim, so dramatically it makes me huff out a laugh afterwards.
Caroline smiles. “Yeah, I was going to do three half-hour segments, with ten-minute breaks in between, but I think twenty minutes with five-minute breaks is probably better.”
And honestly, I’m kind of surprised, because I didn’t peg Caroline as the kind of tutor to schedule inanybreaks. She seems pretty hardcore. Still, I’m embarrassed, because I realize what a dumb putz I must seem like in her eyes. I doubt she takesanybreaks when she’s doing her homework.
“Sorry…” I rub the back of my neck again. “I just—I get kinda antsy when I sit still for too long.”
She shrugs. “I kind of figured. Because of your ADHD.”
I don’t think I sense any condescension in her voice. But then, could be I’m just too dumb to notice. “Yeah,” I say. “I don’t have the best attention span.”
She studies me for a second, like she actually feels bad for me or something. Which is both sweet and also humiliating.
“It must be really frustrating,” she says.
Ha. Understatement of the century.
“You want to go grab something to eat?” I ask, changing the subject.
She looks a little stunned. “But… you just had three ice cream sandwiches. Less than twenty minutes ago.”
“I did?”
She gives me a weird look, and I immediately regret voicing my confusion out loud. Because now she knows I forgot about something I did just twenty minutes ago. And I can tell she thinks I’m a total nut-bar.
For some reason, I find it extra embarrassing with her. Probably because she’s so damn smart and everything. Also, because she’s not entirely wrong.
Chapter Thirteen
Caroline
Sebastiantellsmehewas just joking when he acted like he forgot about eating those three ice cream sandwiches. But the way he said it, then the way he reacted to my expression, makes me think maybe he was lying.
But why would he lie about something like that? And also, I know he’s not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he’s not so dim-witted he would forget something he did twenty minutes ago. Right?
I escape to the washroom for a couple of minutes while Sebastian goes to get… well, probably another three ice cream sandwiches. He’s been a lot more cooperative so far than I thought he’d be. He’s not messing around or being a prankster or anything, the way he is most of the time in class. But then, I think he’s doing his best to stay on my good side, because he doesn’t want me to quit on him again. He has his precious place on the football team at stake, after all.
When I come out of the bathroom, I find Sebastian in the kitchen with Graham and Dale. They’re all laughing as Dale waves two paper printouts in the air.
“You’re just jealous,” he’s saying to Sebastian, “because I only got two tickets. And while you’re down in some friend’s basement playing obnoxious video games, or at some dime-a-dozen teenage house party, Graham and I will be sliding into our section H seats to this epic concert next Saturday.” He gets right up in Sebastian’s face, waving the two ticket printouts as he repeats: “That’s right: section H, Bucko! Read ’em and weep!”
Sebastian shakes his head and stretches his eyes dramatically wide. “You are legit off your rocker.”
