black treacle - matt sturniolo

Chapter Fifteen, Plagiarism is a Sin

Chris was Spencer's first student who didn't fear her.

Well, she chose to ignore how he avoided her eyes and around the halls after their first few sessions together, but he was still the first student who didn't dart out of the library the second their session had ended.

And it was the first time Spencer cared about how her student perceived her.

A student leaving in tears was scientifically proven to be effective. They learnt how in Canli et al's study, the amygdala was found to be sensitive to emotional intensity during information encoding, meaning that whatever horrified you were engrained in your memory more than a boring event.

So her traumatising them was for their own benefit! Even if she'd been doing it long before it was covered in her class...

It was odd, to say the least, because tutoring him was almost... fun?

Compared to the unteachable and disruptive student Nick had described, Chris was an angel. So far they had covered balancing equations - a topic that had almost destroyed her and Robyn's friendship and something to never be spoken about again - and there was not a single meltdown from Chris.

She hate to admit it but Spencer looked forward to tutoring him. They didn't feel like lessons with the objective of passing chemistry but it felt like two friends hanging out.

Spencer would never admit this to Robyn because it was embarrassing to also admit how they had never spoken outside of said sessions and he was worthy enough to be called her friend.

Chris entered their sessions with a list of chemistry puns he had prepared for Spencer as a reward for getting a question correct and would burst into a fit of laughter when Spencer let slip the laugh she was stifling.

In complete honesty, she was suppressing her laughter because she found Chris waiting for her reaction adorable and much more humouredly. But she let him believe that his jokes were funny because if she broke his heart, he might never show up again.

On top of that, she finally had someone in her chemistry class that she liked. The thought of group practicals dreaded her and it was unfortunate the syllabus consisted mostly of that. Being partnered with Nick was the greatest decision her teacher had ever made because she didn't have to worry about flaws in their experiment.

When Robyn slaved away in the newsroom, Spencer and Nick were in the backroom of the library studying together. Could you even consider it studying if they chatted with their textbooks open?

The best part about their friendship was that Spencer could finally express how infuriating it was trying to get Robyn to confess to Matt. It started when Nick had accidentally slipped out how Matt was in the newsroom, 'probably waiting to talk to Robyn'.

The pair grabbed each other's hands when they realised that their hypothesis was correct: Robyn and Matt were idiots and everyone knew about how they liked each other except for themselves.

Even Chris was fed up with Matt, not expecting him to prolong it for this long.

"He's a dumbass. I don't get how they don't see how perfect they are for each other. Or should I say, how they don't notice their chemistry together?"

"Get back to the question, Chris!" Spencer demanded, jokingly hitting him with his notes.

Spencer kept the confirmation of Matt's crush on her to herself while relaying what she had missed during their weekly sessions in the library. It was more fun this way. Instead, she talked about her friendship with the other two Sturniolo brothers.

The topic of men had been becoming prevalent in their friendship. It had been present since they were freshly teenagers, but that was different, it usually revolved around fictional men.