Four's Game (SEU, #1) [ SAMPLE + UNEDITED FULL VERSION]

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"How is that wrong, Tosha? Tell me exactly how that's wrong!" Four shouted, frustration taking over him as he threw not only the scrap sheet of paper that he was working his problems out on on the floor, but he also flung his laptop off of his lap in irritation.

After dinner with Xan, Four so kindly swung by my place and I changed quickly and got my bag and stuffed some of my work in it. I needed to also get work done and I could do that while helping Four with his. I believed it was smart to simply kill two birds with one stone. Ever since the phone call we shared at the restaurant, I could hear that he was not having such a good day. I didn't know why but he didn't seem like he was in the mood for anything at all really. I questioned to myself why he asked for a studying session if he wasn't in the right headspace to retain the information. He went from zero to a hundred really quickly and the more he freaked out over getting the problems wrong, the more I realized how calm I needed to be in order to handle the situation effectively so he could realize his mistakes.

With that being said, he still needed to get checked for his hysterics.

We sat in his living room, he sat on the couch while I set up my camp on his recliner chair. I was reading my book for class and periodically checking on him to make sure he had understood the techniques I explained prior. Last time I seemed to work too fast for him and I didn't want it to seem like I was rushing him to get it. This lesson was harder than the rest and it dealt mostly with graphing, which was something I had begun to realize that he had trouble with.

I sat my book down on my lap and just stared at him. He had taken off his hat after getting the first two answers wrong and now he was rubbing his hands in his hair viciously.

"Four,"

"What?" He snapped.

My eyebrow raised as his fiery brown eyes met mine. As we stared hard at one another, his eyes softened and he rubbed one of his big hands over his face and leaned back into the couch.

"This shit doesn't make sense. I got the same answer twice. Either there is something wrong with the word problem itself or the graph is fucked up." He discussed trying to calm himself but I could see how defeated he was getting from getting the answer wrong back to back.

Getting up from the recliner, I made my way over to him. I grabbed his Mac laptop and sat it in my lap  and grabbed his scrap sheet of paper.

"I need you to remember that I'm not your enemy here, the problem is so lose the attitude and let's get your head in the game." I grabbed a pencil and handed it to him. "We'll start over from the beginning, alright?" I looked at him but he was still sunken into the couch with discouragement consuming his expression. I tapped at his knee to bring him back to Earth and pushed the pencil in his face. "Come on, stop moping so I can reteach it to you." I needed to encourage him. I needed to be patient with him and guide him to the right answer. I could tell that something bigger was going on that I didn't know of which is why he was frustrated like this.