The Thorns To Her Rose

Chapter 12 - Pleasant surprises

Pleasant Surprises

"Okay, so since ABC is parallel to DEF and the angle at AB is 60°, we can conclude that angle DE is?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" Asher asks harshly.

"You're not looking at the triangle properly, and I technically gave you the answer when I said they're parallel. Geez, Asher." I sigh, wiping a hand over my face stressfully.

"I'm not a fucking mathematician." He groans, and rests back onto his pillow.

"The basics of this knowledge come from the eighth grade and you're a senior now." I giggle causing his eyes to snap towards me. I immediately stop.

"Are you making fun of me?" He asks, his eyes narrowing.

"No," I squeak out. "I'm just hinting that you should have probably paid attention and actually studied all those years."

"Not all of us are you." He rolls his eyes. "Besides, my job one day requires my fists mainly."

"What job?" I ask curiosly.

"Police force? Following in my dad's footsteps?" He rolls his eyes.

"Is that what you really want one day?" I ask curiosly.

"Yeah, why not? The pay is good and I can go around punching people without getting arrested."

I can't help but laugh. "Obviously you would say that."

"Can you get on with it please? I don't want you to be here any longer than you should." He says coldly.

Realisation snaps me back to reality. Of course, he is still the same Asher that he was all those years. His slight change in behaviour almost fooled me into believing I could be civil with him. A hour had passed of me helping him with differential calculus, which Asher wasn't so bad at really. I could tell that with some explaining he understood the work, but his ego and dislike towards me was getting in the way. After grasping some topics in calculus, we moved onto Euclidean geometry, which seemed really complicated but really wasn't that hard. Or maybe I was just a bit of a hard worker and over achiever.

I could tell that Asher seemed so bored with the whole situation, and his lack of motivation and enthusiasm to work was keeping him behind. We had to work on his attitude as well as his math skills.

"Alright, let's go over the properties of the different angles once again. The first thing we are going to cover is the angles that are equal due to being subtended by the same chord or arc." I begin. Asher looks at the math text book intently, and I can see the gears churning in his head. It causes me to smile.

We keep going over the angles for the next hour, and I managed to show him how to approach the complicated looking circles and triangles. I was surprised by quickly he caught on and given the potential he was showing, I was glad to say that he might just get his grades up after our tutor sessions.

Time passed by so quickly and before I knew it, it was dinner time. I gawk at the clock and hastily begin to pack my books back into my bag. I promised my mom I would be back for dinner and I'm already seven minutes late for our usual dinner time. I never break my promises, and if I happen to I always find a way to make up for it.

Asher sends me a quizzical look.

"I have to get home." I explain, standing up from his bed and slinging my bag over my shoulder. I realise them that I still have his shirt on so I quickly remove it and grab my own.

"Won't you stay for dinner?" He ask. I freeze and look at him, to see him look shocked himself. "I mean... you used to stay in the past for dinner almost every Friday."