Thankfully, school was taking a break for easter, and we were off for the next two weeks. If I wanted to pass these exams, I needed to start revising desperately. My only issue was, I had nothing to revise. I basically needed to start all of the material from scratch. My attendance hadn't been great. I went to school maybe two or three times max a week. And when I was there, my level of concentration was extremely low. Everything seemed to go in one ear and out the other.
I was grateful my friends had chosen similar A levels to me. I had James in geography, both Olivia and Hannah in psychology, and Hannah and Mark in English literature. This should have made it a bit easier as they all took notes for me, I just didn't have the motivation to read them.
English was the one I was really struggling with, which was surprising as it had always been my favourite subject. But we were studying Chaucer for the exam which was a nightmare to learn because it was written in old English, practically a foreign language. Miss. Brannan translated and annotated a different chapter of The Canterbury Tales each week in class. And I had obviously missed a lot of this. I didn't want to admit it, but I knew someone that could help me. It only took a week into trying to study before I gave in and marched next door.
"Hi Angela, is Quinn home?"
"Ivy, what a surprise. Yes, he's just upstairs in his room. Is everything okay?"
"Yes, just hoping to pick his brain with some English work."
"He's the second door on the left," her eyes lit up as she smiled, letting me through.
I marched up the stairs, trying to stay confident. I was trying my hardest to ignore the thoughts circling my mind. I was meant to hate Quinn. He was meant to hate me. But he confused me. I had been avoiding him ever since he tried to kiss me outside his house, though I couldn't stop thinking about it. The way his hands felt around my waist. The way he looked at me, like he really did want to kiss me, and he wasn't just trying to annoy me. I took a deep breath and knocked on his door deciding to just push it open anyway.
Quinn was lying on his bed, PlayStation controller in hand and a headset on. He was wearing a grey t-shirt with The Smiths on it and a pair of black training shorts. Even when he was just lounging around, he really was gorgeous. It had always been easy to ignore that fact when he was rude and annoying, but recently he had been showing a different side to him. One that was thoughtful and kind and incredibly nice to look at. I didn't even realise I was stood staring until his voice broke me out of my thoughts.
"Can I help you?"
"Uhm, yeah. I was just hoping you would give me a hand with some English revision. I know you got an A on yours."
"What is it on the exam?"
"Chaucer, The Wife of Bath's Tale in specific."
"Easy," he scoffed, "sit down."
Quinn's room was sort of what you would expect from a typical boy with clothes on the floor and empty glasses on his dresser. But it was also mature and well decorated. Thankfully it was big enough to have a small sofa in it too, where I decided to sit. He soon followed, taking his place at the opposite end so that there was considerable space between us.
"So, what part is it you need help with?"
"All of it. I haven't been to many classes."
"Have you even translated it?"
"Not even the prologue."
"Great start," he rolled his eyes. "Wait here."
He began rummaging through some drawers in his desk and picked out a folder, presumably his English notes from two years ago. Hopefully better than the ones Hannah and Mark gave me. He pulled out a booklet that was big enough to be the entire book itself, "right so, this is all the important bits translated." There is no way I had enough time to learn all this.
"So, usually I would start with the main themes and then see what quotes I could use for them."
"Right. So, what are the main themes?"
"Have you been to any classes at all?"
"A few. I just haven't been concentrating that well."
He shook his head, probably understanding the exact reason I wasn't concentrating much in class.
"Okay. Why don't we start with power, that's probably the easiest one?"
To start off with, Quinn made me read through his old annotations which actually turned out to be really helpful. He had even used different colour highlighters to represent the different themes, so it was easier to pick out what quotes I needed. We worked through four of the main themes for almost two hours. I didn't even notice the time passing.
"I've actually got Gaelic training to go to. I should probably get ready."
"Oh, yeah. No worries, I completely forgot about that. I'll get my stuff."
"Do you want to come watch?"
"Watch your training?"
"Yeah, why not."
"Um, yeah okay sure."
It only took Quinn a few minutes to get ready. I followed him out to the car, and we drove more or less in silence. I don't know why he asked me to come watch him train. And I don't know why I agreed. Regret slipped in as soon as we pulled up to the training pitches and I noticed Marks car. I hadn't considered that him, Sean, and James would all be here. They would all wonder why I was here too.
"Will I just watch from the car?"
"What? No, you can sit in the dugout."
"Are you sure? Wont people wonder why I'm here?"
"I doubt they'll care, Ivy, now hurry up," he rolled his eyes as he stepped out of the car.
I followed closely behind him as we approached the pitch, already spotting my friends standing near the dug outs, warming up, along with a few other boys I recognised as Quinn's friends.
"What are you doing here, Ivy?" James looked confused as the rest of the boys turned round, not sure what to make of it either.
"She's watching us train, what does it look like?" Quinn shot back.
"Yeah, but why?"
"Cause I brought her," and with that, they didn't say anything else, just went back to whatever they were doing, "sit here, I just have to go leave my stuff in the changing room, this will probably only last around an hour."
Once Quinn was gone, my friends turned to me again, "Quinn brought you to watch him train?"
"Yeah, he was just helping me study for English then must have been running late for this so brought me with him."
"You live next door to him."
"Yeah, I know that Mark," I shrugged. "Look, I don't know why I'm here, we finished up and he asked me to come so I came. Is it a big deal?"
The boys shared a knowing look between each other, shaking their heads and laughing, before running off to join the rest of their team. Quinn was already back from the changing rooms and walking onto the pitch with one of his friends, Ronan, who shot me a wink. Feeling my cheeks heat up, I gave them a quick wave and turned away, trying to focus on the rest of the team.
Despite what Quinn had said earlier, people were definitely going to care that I came to this. Especially because he seemed to focus more on me than the actual training. Their coach kept making him run laps of the pitch. It got even more awkward when Ronan decided to speak up, "for fuck sake man, she's not going anywhere."
"What?" he shrugged, acting oblivious.
"Are you working up the courage to ask her out or are you just staring for fun?"
"Fuck off Ronan," he grumbled, before doing another lap of the pitch. James, Mark, and Sean were equally as distracted as they tried to look between me and Quinn constantly, while listening to his and Ronan's conversation. This not only earned them laps too but also some choice words from coach. Total disaster.
Eventually, they made it through training, and I waited at the car for Quinn to come back out. He was in and out pretty quick, probably trying to avoid his teammates, unsuccessfully. Ronan caught up behind him, doing a slight jog, "where you off to so fast, you're not going to introduce me to your friend?"
"You've met Ivy before," he shook his head.
"Ah yes, Ivy from next door, that's right!"
"Hi Ronan," I smiled.
"Well Ivy, don't you have a great smile," he smirked.
"Seriously Ronan?" Quinn folded his arms, "fuck off."
"No can do, my friend. Are you going to come to Joes with us Ivy?" Joes was another bar in town, slightly further out from our local. But from what I had heard from the boys, the team were pretty regular customers after training and matches.
"No, she's not," Quinn opened his car door to start getting in.
"That's for me to decide, isn't it?"
"Yeah, but you won't want to go."
"Why wouldn't i?"
"You don't go out much anymore. You don't have to go."
I stood for a second, looking between the boys, who were almost sort of glaring at each other. Ronan looked like he was challenging Quinn. He had invited me to get a reaction out of his friend. He was getting what he wanted too; I was expected not to go. And yeah, I didn't want to. Any other day I would have said no. But there was something about the fact Quinn thought I wouldn't go, that made me have to prove him wrong.
"Actually, I was hoping to start going out again. May as well start now."