Attractive Idiot [NaNoWriMo]

01

Alexia’s POV

        I had signed up with my teacher as an AP Chemistry tutor, seeing as I took that class and aced it last year.  

        Despite that it was only the beginning of the year, I already had someone to tutor with failing marks. Great, this should be fun. 

        We ended up having free period in the same time slot, so it was arranged that we would meet once a week during last period on Tuesday and one more time after school on Thursdays. 

        So I got to meet my tutoree today.

        I walked to the library which was the designated meeting place. I had made sure to grab all of my AP Chemistry stuff from last year, and did a very light brush up by going over the study guides I made. 

        Once I reached the library I sat at an empty table, my hands holding up my head as I scanned the room for anyone that looked as if they could be the person I was supposed to tutor. 

        It wasn’t long before I saw a boy with light blonde hair walk in, looking uncomfortable and his hands shoved into his pockets. He was also looking around, bright blue eyes taking in the setting of the library. It almost seemed as if he’d never been in here. 

        Well, I guess this is the guy I’m supposed to tutor. What was his name again? Connor? 

        Getting up, I walked over to him with a polite smile on my face. 

        Once I reached him, I tapped him on the shoulder. “Hi, are you here for AP Chem tutoring?” I asked, and he nodded. 

        “Yeah, are you my tutor?” This time I nodded. 

        “Yup. We can work over here,” I said, guiding him to the table I was just seated at. “So, what grade are you in?” I asked, trying to make simple conversation to get to know him better. “Oh, and my name’s Alexia,” I added as an afterthought. 

        “Cool, I’m Colin and I’m a senior.” He grinned and I couldn’t help but notice what a nice smile it was. 

        “Nice to meet you, I’m also a senior.” After we were situated and he had his things laid out in front of him, I decided that we should probably use as much time as possible to bring his grade up. “So what’s going on with your grades?” 

        He gave me a sheepish look, eyes still bright. “Well, as you probably heard, they’re not doing too well. Actually there just downright awful, I’m failing.” I practically cringed at the word failing. I couldn’t help but wonder how it was possible to fail. Working incredibly hard somehow became ingrained into me and now I didn’t know the meaning of procrastination or laziness. Striving to do the absolute best was now just a part of me. To hear someone say they were failing? It was foreign to me in all honesty. 

        “Okay, so what don’t you understand?” I asked, gesturing to his notes. “Is it a certain lesson? Or just something in general?” 

        He flipped open to a page in his binder before pointing at it to show me. “That,” he said. “All these formulas and how to find percentages and stuff.”

        I looked at his paper, analyzing the notes he had scribbled down. I frowned as I realized something seemed off. Aside from the fact that all the answers he had written were incorrect

        “Hold on,” I told him as I quickly scoured my own notes until I found the right page. “Okay, so first of all, you have the wrong formula down.” Erasing the things he wrote, I rewrote the correct formula. “Secondly, you’re going to need to know how to rearrange the formula in order to solve, say, this problem. Remember that e undoes ln in this situation so this would be the correct formula.”  After writing a few more things, I showed it to him. “See? Does this make a bit more sense?”