Paralyzed ▹ Luke Hemmings

06

Luke quickly solved his first 10 calculus problems with ease. He loves the fact that he was absolutely gifted at mathematics, mainly because Ashton sucks at it. Luke secretly loves the feeling when he zips through an equation and gets a perfect answer because it makes him feel very accomplished.

Luke was so into his calc homework that he didn't even realize someone sliding into the seat across from him. It wasn't until his eyes caught hold of her bright, emerald eyes that Luke froze, so forcefully that he almost snapped his pencil in half.

Luke looked up and saw Samantha sitting there with her arms folded neatly over the table, a warm smile on her face. "Hey, Luke!" she said sweetly.

Luke was lost for words. How did she know he was here? How did she see him? How did she remember his name? What was he supposed to say? "I...hello," Luke stuttered and looked back down at his homework. "H-hi, Sam...Samantha- Sam."

Sam giggled under her breath, flicking a few strands of hair out of her face. "Hey," she said again. "I'm so sorry for bothering you, but I need your help with something."

Luke laughed internally at the irony that Sam thought she was bothering him. As if Luke's time was too good for someone like her. That will never be the case.

"Okay," Luke swallowed hard and nodded his head, still refusing to meet her gaze. He glanced from side to side and he could tell she was noticing his struggle for eye contact. "What d-do you need h-help with?"

Sam flipped through her binder and pulled out a piece of paper. They haven't spoken since they're first tutoring session last week. "Well, I just had a quick question about what we're learning right now," she said, somewhat shyly. She slid the piece of notebook paper across the table and pointed at a random chemical formula. "For the compound's name, why is there a roman numeral next to copper?"

Luke still couldn't believe that Sam had taken time out of her lunch period, leaving her friends and her boyfriend, to walk all the way across campus to ask him something that could wait until this afternoon. He didn't even answer her right away. Sam must've figured that Luke just wasn't understanding her question, but it was really because he was so nervous.

"Like...you know what I mean? There's a roman numeral two next to copper," she said, a hopeful look in her eyes. Luke nodded and ran his hand through his hair. He could feel his armpits starting to sweat.

"Uh- yeah. It's because you can give copper any charge, p-pretty much. Because it's...it's in the D block of the periodic t-table..."

Luke trailed off because he had to take a deep breath before he passes out. He couldn't tell by the look in Sam's eyes if she was concerned, or just really uncomfortable. "So the r-roman numeral two is to indicate that copper has a charge of positive two for this specific compound."

Sam leaned back in her seat and held the paper up to her eyes, scanning over it carefully. "Oh..." her voice dragged on and she nodded her head. "Okay, okay. Cool. I think that makes sense...sorry, I know you're coming over today but I wanted to ask you this now because it comes up a lot in my homework. I didn't want to waste time trying to figuring out later because we only have an hour...you know?"

Luke almost forgot that they're supposed to meet today. It's already Thursday, and Luke was just as nervous as last week. "Right," he gulped, looking off at the wall behind her head. "Thursday."

A humored smile spread across Sam's face. "Yup," she laughed. "Thursday."

She stood up and stepped away from the table, slinging her purse of her shoulder and grabbing her binder. "Well, it's Thursday. So I will be seeing you after school, yeah?"