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You’re waiting in the local library for Barry, who’s running late, as usual. You tap your pencil against the table, drawing a small doodle in the corner of your notebook.
Barry rushes through the door, multiple bags hanging off his arms and shoulders.
“I’m sorry.” He pants out as he drops his stuff on the ground near the table you’re at. “Lacrosse practice ran late.” You nod, giggling lightly at Barry’s bumbling ungracefulness. He had texted you late last night, telling you he totally forgot about having lacrosse, and you agreed to move your tutoring time to accommodate his schedule.
“It’s alright.” You chuckle as he struggles to get a notebook out of his backpack, rummaging around for a pencil.
“Okay.” He sighs as he sits down, letting out a sigh and brushing a stray piece of hair away from his face. “I’m ready.” You laugh lightly before crossing your arms on the table and leaning slightly over them.
“How is this going to work, exactly? We have to tutor each other in different subjects. At the same time.”
“Umm, well, how about I help you for a while, and you help me for a while, and we do some work, practice questions and stuff and then see how that goes?” Barry suggests.
“Yeah, sure.” Barry gets up again to get something from the array of bags he set on the ground, moving and looking through another before finding what he wants. You find yourself looking at him as he moves, baggy shorts draping around a narrow, lanky frame, and a shirt still stained with sweat from lacrosse. He turns back to look at you, a triumphant smile on his face as he holds up the textbook he was looking for. You immediately blush and look away, trying to hide the fact that you were staring at him. You dig around in your backpack for your English book, and set it off to the side on the table as Barry flips through his Chem textbook, looking for the right pages.
He runs his hand through his hair once more before lifting his head to look at you. “Ready to start?”
He starts explaining the sections you’re currently on in class: balancing chemical equations
“So on the left you have your start, and on the right you have the end product.” Barry points across the table with his pencil, but ends up using his left and right instead of yours. He sighs and stands up, lifting his chair and swinging it on the other side of the table, next to you. You stiffen at how close he is but Barry seems unfazed, continuing with his spiel like nothing happened.
“Hey.” He nudges you with his shoulder, forcing you to look at him. His eyes are already on you, studying your features as you blush
~~Barry’s POV~~
“You okay? You kind of spaced out.” I ask her, my eyes scanning over her face. God, she’s beautiful.
Focus, Barry.
“Yeah, yeah I’m fine.” She turns back to the textbook, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear as it falls in front of her face. I’m about to comment but I can sense that I’ll start rambling and think better of it.
“So, the goal is to balance both sides and prove the arrow in the middle true. You have to add the coefficients in. Take this one: __ TiCl4 + __ H2O → __ TiO2 + __ HCl. You have four Chlorine on one side, and right now one on the other, so to balance it we put a 4 in front of HCl. But that’s going to leave us with 4 hydrogen, and on the left there’s only 2, so put a two in front of make 2H2O. And because the 2 is there you now have 2 oxygen atoms, and on the other side there’s also 2, so now it’s balanced.” I explain easily, motioning with my pencil and filling in the blanks as I move along. Y/N looks at the paper for a moment, then turns to face me.
“Did I go too fast?” I immediately ask her. “I tend to do that a lot, I’m sorry.” She cuts me off before I can start rambling again.
“No, it was good. It…made sense, actually” She huffs out a dry chuckle, more to herself than me, before turning back to the sheet, motioning with her pencil to the spaces I had left blank. “What are you supposed to do with these, if you don’t change them?”
“Just put in 1’s.” I say as I do so. “Never leave it blank though, it’s like multiplying it by zero, if you do it’s assuming you’re getting rid of it. Always put in the 1’s. That was my mistake.” I push the homework worksheet into the textbook and close it, pushing it to the side of the table. “That’s all we’ve done in class this week, really. New unit, no point in going back to stuff we finished.” I vaguely explain the reason I’m not teaching her much stuff, which in reality is a fair reason. If she ever needs help with anything we did before I’ll help her, but my job as a tutor is to help her succeed moving forward.
“Your turn.” I comment with a small smile as she drags the English book and sheets towards us.
“Okay, Allen. Ready for phrases and clauses?”
“Not really.” I groan.
Close to half an hour of me trying to understand the difference between a gerund and a participle, and what makes a clause, and the occasional glance at Y/N as she works, we’re both working on our respective homework. I’m back on the other side of the table to give us both more space to work.
My phone is out on the table between us, an earbud sitting in both our ears. I’d suggested music to ease the awkward silence, and Y/N thought it was a good idea, we found out we shared the same taste in music. I look up at Y/N, who’s absorbed in her work, not noticing my glance. She’s lightly nodding her head along to the music, humming quietly.
She lifts her head, and her eyes flick to meet mine before I can pretend I wasn’t looking at her.
“What?” She murmurs softly.
“Nothing.” I say quickly, trying to force down the blush I feel creeping over my face. She nodded, smiling lightly as she started to focus on her work again. I hold my gaze on her for another moment before returning to my work as well.
I told her it was nothing, but really is was everything.
