Growing Pains

Chapter 6 - There was nothing tempting about a bad boy

This has definitely worked because she opened her eyes wide, and asked, almost too loud, "What?"

"The tickets. I have to get them myself."

She rubbed her eyes, "Why?"

"I just don't have it in me to ask my mom," I admitted. "But it's fine, I can make some money. I've done it before, right?"

She said, "Right," but she didn't sound like she believed me. I grabbed a pencil and wrote down my options on the margin of my own textbook. I was halfway through the word tutoring, when Daisy laughed, a loud, vibrant, one ah! only laugh.

"You think you can be a tutor?" she asked, but I never got to answer.

"Miss Daisy," the teacher said from the front of the class. "Do you mind sharing with the class?"

I could feel Daisy wanting to die right next to me. I knew I did. Everyone was looking at us. Of course this wasn't the first time it happened. Daisy and I had been forced apart in some classes before because, surprise, surprise, yes, we did mind sharing it with the class.

"I'm sorry," Daisy said, cheeks as pink as her strawberry milk t-shirt.

Mrs. Donovan's face said, I thought so, but her mouth said something about the US government. I turned back to Daisy.

"Why do you need to laugh so loud?"

She hid her face in her hands, elbows prompted on top of her textbook, where she had written a bunch of lyrics from different songs.

"I'm unhinged," she concluded with a heavy sigh.

"A little bit, yes," I said under my breath, pretending to follow the reading of whatever paragraph we were on. I suspected I wasn't even on the right page. "Anyway, what the fuck? You don't think I can be a tutor?"

"Zoey, you need a tutor," she said. I frowned. I wasn't a very good student, but I wasn't that bad. She went on, "You could get a part-time job."

"Do I have the time though?"

"Yes!" She seemed suddenly excited about the idea. "You could work at a cute coffee shop. Or an old bookstore. Or a record –"

"Are you done?"

"Obviously not," she said. "What are you really good at?"

I thought about it.

"I feel like my mom would love to answer that."

"Right," she said. "Besides memorizing song lyrics, writing fanfic, analyzing entire character and story arcs, and –"

"I'm useless," I concluded.

"I bet you're good with kids," someone said from behind us. Daisy and I hit our heads together with the suddenness of it all.

"What the fuck? Are you eavesdropping?" Daisy asked, turning back to one other than Luke Martin.

"I wouldn't put it that way," he said with a shrug. "I just like what you're saying better than whatever she's on about over there."

"You're eavesdropping," Daisy decided. Daisy and Luke were different sides of the same coin, but the same coin still. Daisy had decided she didn't like him and had stuck with it like a kid who decided she did not like broccoli even though she never even tried it.

I had hoped for a love-hate sort of thing, as one does, something exciting to keep me entertained, but nothing ever happened. Luke was Luke, and Daisy was Daisy, none of their fights ever ended up with them making out. I was disappointed, to say the least.

"Fine, I was," Luke said. I looked down at his textbook. He had doodles of funky little creatures all over it. "Did you do the homework for Spanish?"

Daisy narrowed her eyes at him, "Wouldn't you like to know that?"