A disastrous book

Chapter 9: The trope

Riley's POV

The class went on as "the professor" kept explaining sciency shit that I wasn't even listening to, too busy fuming over the fact that they finally met, and their reaction was exactly like what I had feared.

To be honest, I never had a name for him. Weird, I know, but I never named the male lead character. He'd always be called professor or....some other things.

But let's just stick with "the professor" for now.

During the class, he kept stealing not so subtle (well at least to me) glances at her, while she kept her entire focus on him, not daring to look away, and the rest of the class is completely blind.

The bell rang, and I couldn't get up from my seat fast enough. I waited for Alex and Riley at the door so we could leave together, until his voice stopped us.

"Riley, I need to talk to you." Of course. Here is where it all starts. He'll talk to her and then they'll start their forbidden love affair, and I'll be watching from the sidelines, as usual.

She freezes and starts making her way to his desk, and I try my best to move my feet and not eavesdrop on their conversation, though I am dying to.

"No, the other one." Now it's my turn to freeze.

"Riley?" He calls out and Alex nudges me to turn around and answer.

"Yeah?" I manage to croak out.

"A word." He says impatiently since we wasted enough of his time.

Riley looks a bit disappointed as I walk past her, and she leaves with Alex, leaving me and "the professor" alone.

"So," he starts "I think you know why I pulled you aside to talk."

Oh my God, he knows. He fucking knows and he's going to call me out and expose me. He's going to-

"It's about your grade."

Then again, what does he know?

"Now, I know it's only the beginning of the year, and I don't expect students to do well on the first day considering they mostly forgot everything they learned last year, but I looked into your record and saw your grades along the year, and miss Sinclair, they are quite alarming."

My face heats up from the embarrassment. I was already insecure because of my looks around him, now my intelligence was another thing to add to the list.

"If you keep up at this rate, you will risk failing this class, and if you fail this class, you will be putting your chances of graduation in danger." He strictly says and I flinch, feeling like a piece of trash.

He notices and he sighs and says more softly "I'm just looking out for you. I've seen your grades in other subjects and you're a good student. I wouldn't want you to have to fail this year just because of this one class ."

I curse as a feel a tear stream down my cheek. I always hated chemistry and felt extremely overwhelmed whenever we had a test. It just didn't make sense in my brain.

"I just don't understand it" I quietly say and he nods in understanding.

"It's okay, you probably won't even need it in the future, but for now, you're kinda stuck with it." He says lightheartedly and I chuckle.

"Okay." I nod.

"That's why you'll be getting private lessons from me." He says casually and my eyes pop out of my head.

Say what now?

"I- Sir, you don't have to do that-"

"I do." He interrupted. "I may only be a substitute, but I take teaching seriously, and I won't have any students failing. Not if could do something about it." He determinedly says, and I have to give it to him, he is one hardworking caring professor.