Downfall [h.s]

↞ Chapter 9 ↠

[Please keep in mind I am not a professional ballerina. Enough said!]

I reserved the right to change my mind: tutoring with Mr. S was terrible. If his attitude the first week of school was any indication of how our session might go, then I should have known not to get my hopes up and expect him to be nice. If anything, he was more grumpy than usual. And here I was thinking that his smiling at me during class meant that he was in a better mood.

We started off with a review packet of the math from last year that Mr. West had created. For the most part I remembered a lot of it, but there were some things that I couldn't figure out how to do for the life of me. Right off the bat I could tell he was frustrated. He kept speaking to me in short, sarcastic sentences. It was clear he had no patience for me which made learning with him hard.

"This really isn't that hard. Mr. West was talking about it during class today. Oh wait, I forgot you weren't paying attention," He snapped after I had gotten the answer wrong twice. I shot him what I could only hope was the angriest glare he had ever received. He blinked at me but was otherwise unfazed. "Try it again."

"I've tried it twice and I still don't understand how the hell I'm supposed to do this. Why don't you try to teach me the topic rather than expecting me to pull an answer out of thin air," I reprimanded, dropping the pencil from my hand as I leaned back in my chair. If he wasn't willing to teach me then I wasn't willing to try. I crossed my arms and pursed my lips, hoping that would further push the point that I was angry with him.

The sigh that came from his mouth was one of frustration. He looked down at the sheet and glanced over it. His lip tucked in between his teeth, the pink skin flushing under the rough edge. After a few seconds, his tongue darted out to wet his lips before he stuck them back under his teeth. He almost looked cute when he was concentrating.

I blinked hard and looked away, trying to shake the thoughts from my head. He was not cute. He was annoying, mean, and rude. He was anything but cute. I repeated that like a mantra until I was angry with him again. It was easier to be mad at him than to be distracted by him.

"Okay, if you can manage to pay attention long enough then I think I can help you. But make sure you listen because I'm not going to fucking repeat myself."

Surprisingly, he managed to explain everything to me calmly enough that I understood. I still wanted to kill him but at least know I could kill him and then find out the slope of a line given a graph. With his help, we worked out the problem in the packet and I was finally able to come to the correct answer. Pride in myself for actually solving it made a smile pull at the corners of my mouth. My spurt of happiness was short lived when Mr. S decided to speak up.

"See, if you actually listen to what the teacher is telling you then you can actually learn something," He grumbled under his breath. The patience he had, had for the past couple of minutes had vanished and now the snarkiness was back. He changed so quickly between hot and cold that I was getting whiplash. "Now get your head out of the clouds and move on so we can get out of here."

As everything he said throughout the past hour alone began to pile up, this small comment was the straw that broke the camel's back. I was so done with him. I glanced up at the clock and saw that 45 minutes had already passed. It wasn't exactly a full hour like I had told Mr. West our sessions were going to last but I had had enough of Mr. S and his attitude problem. I would suffer a bad grade if it meant not having to spend any more time with him. I'm sure Juilliard would understand.

So without saying another word, I started to angrily toss all my stuff back into my backpack haphazardly. I didn't even bother to zip it all the way before I shot up from my seat and beelined for the door. Mr. Styles just stared at me in shock, either not understanding what was going on or not believing it was actually happening. I was halfway down the hall when I heard him run after me. He caught up to me a lot faster than I had expected, gripping my arm and then spinning me around. The hold he held on my arm was somewhat painful with his fingers digging into the fleshy part of my bicep, which was sure to leave a bruise.