Dear Diary

Chapter 15

"But what I am wondering about is why you are so set on making sure Cole gets to tutor you?"

Her question shocked me that I was left speechless. Why did I want Cole to tutor me? True, I was curious about him. He's mysterious and I've always been curious of people and their stories, but that in itself wasn't enough to override my fear and doubts about him. So, why was I so determined to be close to him? I couldn't have started a crush on him ...

Could I?

-

Soon maths was over and Anne gave me an encouraging pat on my shoulder as she left with the rest of the students. My heart was galloping in my chest from anxiety as I stood up from my seat and walked to join Cole by Mr Tuttle's desk. I instantly took note of how his own figure towered over my own, causing a small twinge of fear to hit my chest. 

What if he did try something? There was no way I would be able to fight him. I took note of the way his biceps seemed to bulge even when his arms were relaxed, hands stuffed in his pockets. Yup, definitely no way of beating him.

Mr Tuttle rummaged through his papers before finally finding what he needed. "Okay, I thought your first session should be going over Friday's test," he said and I wanted to hide my face in embarrassment as the 'F' shone brightly for all the world to see.

Cole didn't say or show anything as he took my paper calmly. Mr Tuttle looked at me and handed me a key. 

"Please lock up my classroom when you're done and give it to the ladies in the office," he said as he stood and grabbed his briefcase filled with papers.

I nodded. "Yes, sir."

Mr Tuttle waved goodbye and, just like that, Cole and I were left alone in the classroom. I clutched the key tightly in my hand as I looked around trying to calm myself. I looked at the camera in the corner of the room. Nothing will happen. I'm safe. I repeated in my head.

I snapped out of my thoughts as I heard scraping and saw Cole rearranging two desks so that they faced each other. When he finished, he looked at me, who was still on the other side of the room, with a slightly raised eyebrow. I gulped and quickly grabbed my stuff from my desk before going up to him, who was already seated and calmly looking over my paper in his hand.

His impressive arms were crossed over his chest and I couldn't help but stare at the swirling ink on his left arm. The tattoos were nothing specific, just patterns of ink that swirled along his enviously tanned skin. I was surprised he hasn't gotten in trouble for those tattoos yet. They obviously weren't part of the school's official uniform; not that they could really do much about it other than force him to wear a blazer to cover them.

I forced my gaze away from his features  and placed my pencil bag on the desk. I dropped my bag down by my feet and prepared to sit. 

Now in our school, the desks we have are connected to the chairs, and the chair works on a hinge action. So if you stood, the chair (which was a plank) would be perpendicular to the ground as the back of your knees would push it upright.

"You're terrible at maths," Cole suddenly stated bluntly.

It wasn't the words that shocked me: it was his voice. His voice shocked me to the point that I forgot to check if the chair was down and I ended up landing flat on my back when I tried to sit.

Cole merely shifted his weight slightly to peer at me over the edge of the desk as I lay on my back, slightly dazed. I've never heard such a nice voice. It was steady and deep, but not too deep, and had such a calming quality to it that I could fall asleep listening to it. I never expected such a voice from him. He has now officially ticked off everything on my list. The only other person to do that was Richard, but he was my best friend so I disregarded it instantly. 

"I haven't got all day, you know," Cole said, his voice revealing the slightest hint of impatience. 

My eyes widened when I realised that I had been lying on the ground for a few seconds.

"Sorry," I muttered with a bright red face and stood before taking a seat again; this time with the plank in its correct position. I grabbed a pen and paper and looked down at my hands. 

I was careful with how I sat. I made sure that my legs stayed securely under my seat so that there was no chance of me accidently bumping his. I've already made a fool of myself once.

Cole was silent as he looked over my paper and I saw the black stud in his right ear catch the rays from the light above us every once in a while.

He leaned back in his seat and stared at me with his deep, brown eyes. 

"Okay, let's begin."

-

I had to hand it to Cole; for a solid hour he managed to sit through my cluelessness without so much as showing a hint of irritation or exasperation. He noticed that I hardly knew any of the basics and so, instead of going through the paper, we ended up doing exercise after exercise on the fundamentals of maths.

He never once complained or groaned when I didn't understand and explained the concept over and over until I understood. I have to be honest though, I could've paid better attention to his instructions, but his voice was incredibly distracting.

On another note, the nice - if not slightly uneasy - thing about Cole was that he could tell as soon as I was battling to understand something. I didn't even have to ask him to repeat; he just knew. I realised then that he is extremely perceptive and it made me wonder if he had picked up on my nervousness before the lesson. It was most probably more than likely.

We packed up silently and I grabbed the classroom key as we exited. I closed the door behind us and made sure the door was locked before turning around to look at Cole, my neck craning slightly to meet his gaze for a moment before looking down at my feet. I was still a bit shy to look at him for long.

"Thank you," I said earnestly as I played with the key in my fingers, keeping my eyes to the ground as I felt a blush form on my face. 

He had been surprisingly helpful. I had thought he would ditch me, but he didn't. Cole didn't respond and I peaked up at him only to see that he was looking behind me. I turned and saw Richard walking up to us.

"Hey, Lizzy, how was it?" he asked as he reached us.

My eyes had widened in realisation when I remembered why Richard had come to fetch me. The moment Cole spoke, it was like all fears and doubts of him ebbed away. Richard completely ignored Cole's presence as he looked me over to see that I was fine. I was touched by his concern, but it did make things awkward between the three of us. For me, at least.

 "It was fine," I said with a smile, not wanting to risk it saying more. I looked down at the key in my hand. "I have to take this to the office," I spoke softly, gesturing to the key.

Richard nodded and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "I'll walk you there," he said and began leading me down the hallway.

I glanced back at Cole to see him staring at us. His gaze almost calculating until he noticed me looking back at him. I quickly turned back to the front, feeling my face heat up yet again, and Richard tugged me closer to his side as we walked towards the office and out of Cole's sight.