Falling For Preston.XCOMPLETEDX(editing)

Chapter 4

                 Title: Until Christmas

                  Now that the semi-easy part of getting Ethan to be my tutor was over, I just had the hard part left: telling my parents. If my mom and dad found out that their genius daughter was getting tutored by a hot boy, all hell would break loose. Emily, who was happy to finally not be the only dumb Castillo, (even though I told her repeatedly that having a tutor in an idiotic subject like psychology did not make me dumb) kept pressuring me to tell them by sending me obnoxious texts like,

Just tell them, Sapphire! Do it for Marcus! And PLEASE?????

It was the third or fourth time I'd gone over to Ethan's to study, and it was the third or fourth time Tyler hadn't been there. I was irritated because I couldn't understand what he was talking about and Emily had been texting me little frowny faces for the past three hours. Finally, I wrote back,

I'll call them if you shut your damn mouth and stop bothering me.

Deal.

Sighing, I said, "I need to make a call really quick." Ethan looked up, annoyed, but nodded. I dialled my house number and listened to it ring, praying that nobody would answer.

Unfortunately, I was out of luck. "Hello?" my mother's crisp, clipped voice filled my ear.

"Hello, Mother." Ethan glanced over at me with renewed interest, but I glared at him so he respectfully turned back to the book. We were going over a homework assignment I hadn't done so well on.

"Oh, Sapphire, darling! I was just wondering the other day how you were. How is everything at school?"

"That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about . . ." I figured there was no point in beating around the bush.

"What? What happened?"

"I . . . kind of have a tutor," I mumbled.

There was silence. "You're tutoring someone? It's October for heaven's sake. Really, Sapphire, I don't think this is the best thing for you, you'll be busy with classes and you know homework has to be your first and top priority, so maybe you could —"

"Mom, that's not what I meant," I interrupted. "I meant that somebody is tutoring . . . me."

Another silence. Then, she demanded, "In what subject? What is this person's name? How old are they?"

Psychology. His name is Ethan. And he's nineteen." Ethan was staring straight at me now; I could see him out of the corner of my eye. I stood up and crossed the room, standing over by Tyler's bed with my back to him.

"Sapphire, I sincerely hope you are joking right now."

"I'm not," I practically whispered. The only two things I was afraid of in life (besides crowds and dogs) were my parents when they were angry.

"Oh, look, here's your father right now. Steve, Steve, come over here."

I heard my dad's voice in the background and I cringed. "What? Who are you speaking to?"

"It's Sapphire."

"Oh, hello Sapphire," my dad said affably. "How's school?"

"That's precisely it." I could picture my mother's eyes flashing in the dangerous way. "Apparently your daughter has acquired herself a tutor." She said the words like one might say pit of pythons or Ethan Preston.