Would You Run? Crankiplier high school AU

Chapter 16

A/N: back to Ethan's pov unless said otherwise :) enjoy!!

It was Wednesday after last period when it happened. My math teacher told me to meet with her after class, probably about my new tutor. I heavily debated bailing and just going home, but here I am.

Walking through the halls in my way to a class at 2:03 pm when everyone else was on their way to the parking lot felt miserable. I just want to go home.

Today was a really good one; there was pizza for lunch and Riley and I skipped P.E. together, deciding to spend our 3rd period sneaking off to the Walmart a few blocks away from our school instead. I'll be damned if I'm going to let some stuck up know it all 'tutor' ruin my good mood by talking down to me.

I couldn't have prepared myself for what I saw when I walked through the door.

There he sat, talking to this kid in my art class Julien. Mark had a smile on his face as he explained something to Julien. His eyes gleamed and his hands motioned like crazy as if waving his hands around like an idiot would somehow help Julien learn.

As Mark spoke, he glanced up at me and quickly back down to Julien, but did a double take. He fumbled over his words and lost his train of thought when he saw me, but quickly recovered.

I grabbed a seat next to Julien, as far away from Mark as I could while still being seated at the table.

My presence flustered him which is something I'd never expect. If he wants to pretend we don't know each other, two can play at that game. For now at least.

"I have a question," I said confidently while leaning forward and looking directly at Mark. He looked up at me and muttered a quiet "yes?"

"If x = 13," I started. "Then why wouldn't y equal the same considering that it's n equilateral triangle?"

Mark thinks he's the shit, but I bet he's actually an idiot. An equilateral triangle means all the sides are equal, so it'd obviously be 13 there's no question.

Mark was quick to answer. "Well you'd actually be correct if the variable y was referring to another side of the triangle, but we're actually looking for the size of the angles inside of the triangle."

Oh... okay.

"But you're actually kind of onto something," he said with a small smile, turning the worksheet over towards me and pointing at the triangle with the tip of his pencil. "Because it's an equilateral triangle, the size of the angles will be the same just like how you mentioned the lengths of each side of the triangle would be the same."

The way his eyes lit up when he was explaining this to me was almost enough to make me forget about our history. Almost.

"Oh," I said timidly.

"But don't worry!" He said cheerfully and empathetically. "You seem to know the basic principles of equilateral triangles so that's a good thing! This shouldn't be to hard for you."

His smile was soft and his sparkling eyes crinkled at the corners. He seemed really really passionate about this.

It was nice to pretend like I don't know him for a bit. To pretend like he'd never made me cry and I'd never almost kissed him and he'd never protected me from a gunman. In this moment we were just two strangers getting along.

Mark might be a shitty person, but he's a really good tutor. He paid attention to what I already knew and connected that to the things I didn't as he explained them to me. His occasional praise was encouraging and not degrading. Though it was difficult, I had to try and remember that just like me being a customer at his store, he was only being so kind to me because I was his student and neither of us could change that. This didn't mean anything.