Mentors - A Joshler Fic

Chapter 6

I don’t know why I called Tyler cute. Tyler was a boy, I wasn’t supposed to call boys cute. Why I had I said that? I knew why, because I thought he was cute. When he smiled his cheeks scrunched up and his eyes squinted a little and he looked cute. I could say a boy was cute, couldn’t I? It’s the twenty-first century, I can be secure in my sexuality and call a boy cute. It was fine, I reassured myself. I wasn’t gay or anything, I was just being nice. I was just being a nice completely heterosexual male complimenting a friend.

Tyler looked at me for a moment before suddenly becoming very interested in his jacket sleeve, his smile disappeared. I coughed uncomfortably and decided to just let the moment pass without any awkward conversation. “Um I can give you a lift home now, if you need to go.”

“Yeah that’d be good thanks,” he said in a timid voice still overly interested in his jacket sleeve. I rose from the couch and he tried to follow up after me but he was sunk too far into the cushy couch. I couldn’t help but laugh aloud at his attempts to stand from the couch. “Here,” I said offering out my hand to pull him up. He hesitated a moment before grabbing my hand. His small hand fit inside of mine, I grabbed onto him and easily pulled him from the sofa, it didn’t feel like he was much more than a hundred pounds.

“Thanks,” he said standing still clutching onto my hand.

“No problem,” I said standing there awkwardly not letting go of his hand and him not removing his hand from my grip. The sound of the cat meowing startled us and I dropped his hand from mine and turned to the cat beside me. “Let’s go,” I said ignoring the cat’s meows for attention and turning in an attempt to avoid contact with Tyler. We walked to the car in silence and sat in the car in silence for most of the ride. The only time we spoke was when I asked him for directions and he gave the directions.

I dropped him off with a goodbye and a promise to meet tomorrow during last period. I sat in the driveway until I saw him walk safely into the house. I was struck with the state of his house. It looked pretty run down, like it had long since seen better days. The white paint was peeling off revealing the wood beneath it, and the steps leading up the porch sagged precariously looking like they could just collapse at any moment. I put the car in reverse and back out of his driveway and drove home in the dark thinking about the small boy with the cute smile.

******

The next day I walked into school and was met by my Debby waiting by my locker. She gave me a peck on the lips and launched right into a story about something that happened last night at cheerleading practice. Apparently our argument was completely forgotten to her and I wasn’t going to bring it back up, I’m not stupid. I nodded along to her conversation which sounded pretty petty but I nodded and made remarks at all the right parts, acting like I really cared about petty drama. I walked with her to her first period class and then left and raced to my own class hoping not to be late.

I wasn’t late at all, the teacher had yet to appear thankfully. I walked in and immediately my friends hollered at me and waved me over with news about our upcoming game. I took and seat and paid attention to all my friends chattering around me. I managed to sneak a peek at the back of the room, looking intently for the familiar hooded figure of Tyler. There he sat head bowed as if he were praying and his hood up. I stared at him for a moment and he looked up and met my eyes. A small smile appeared on his lips and I grinned back, glad to see his face contorted into a look of happiness as opposed to sadness.

“Dude, what do you think,” my buddy Jared asked me interrupting my train of that as my head snapped back to my friends?

“About what?”

“Meeting after practice today to go to the diner for dinner.”

“Oh yeah sure that sounds great,” I said agreeing more so out of guilt for ignoring the conversation than actual interest the greasy food of the diner we always had team dinners at. At that the conversation continued on with only minimal input from me until the teacher showed up running a few minutes late with the excuse of road construction for his tardiness. I didn’t look back at Tyler again.

I didn’t see Tyler again until last period of the day, I walked into the library and saw him sitting at the same table I had chose last time. I walked over and greeted him, he returned the greeting with a quietly muttered hello. “How’s it going,” I asked as I took a seat across from him and unzipped my backpack to pull out some books.

“Good.”

“Great,” I said laying out all the books in front of me. “So what do you want to work on today, I suppose we should get some studying done.”

“I don’t know...um maybe English, we’re reading A Separate Peace and I’m not sure I get it.”

“Oh cool, thats a good book. I remembering reading it, so what part are you on?”

“Er I think Phinney's just died.”

I nodded and asked if he had the book with him, he nodded and reached into his backpack and pulled out a very worn paperback copy of the book. “So what exactly is troubling you about the book?”

“Reading it.”

“Are you being a smart ass,” I asked chuckling?

“Maybe. I hate reading, it’s difficult. When I read the words keep jumbling up and I can never understand what's going on.”

“Are you dyslexic?”

“What’s that?”

“Its a learning disability where your brain will swap around words and letters making it difficult to read. A lot of people have it and are really advanced readers, it just takes some extra work to learn.”

“I think I’m just stupid.”

“Dude you're definitely not stupid. I’m here to help you, it may take some work but your going to see that you’re smart. Some people just need more work to learn than others it doesn’t make you stupid.” He shook his head like he didn’t believe me but it just made me more determined to prove him wrong. I reached across the table and grabbed his book and cracked it open to the last marked page and handed it back to him. I got and went to sit beside him on the other side of the table. “Okay start reading aloud to me, go slowly and I’ll stop you anytime you mess up and we’ll work on it. And anytime you have questions just stop and ask alright?”

“Sure.” The bell rang signaling the end of the day and we packed up our things. It had gone pretty well, I’d been surprised at how well he was coming along after only forty minutes. Tomorrow we were going to work on math and he warned me he was dreadful at math but I told him not to worry. We parted ways with a smile and a wave and I made my way to the other side of the school to the locker room to get changed for soccer practice.