Stuck on You, 10: Loser.
Jenny Shay.
The first day of tutoring went better than I expected. So far, the primary kids were behaving alright, and surprisingly, Andrew hasn’t been annoying the hell out of me like he always does.
Another shock for me was that, he seemed to be enjoying himself teaching the kids math and I must say, he’s pretty good at it.
“Ms. Shay!”
It was a sunny but cold Wednesday afternoon and Andrew and I decided to give the class we were tutoring a few exercises.
“Yes, dear?” I walked towards a little girl with freckles on her cheeks, a small nose and grey eyes, her red hair was tied into a neat pony tail, “Just call me Jenny.” I added with a smile.
She gave me a cute grin, “And you can call me Tina.”
“Okay then, Tina. What can I help you with?”
“Well, I’m not really good with multiplication…” She admitted.
“Oh I see.” I pursed my lips, “Alright, let’s start with the table of 2, okay?”
“Okay.”
“So, here, 1 multiplied by 2 is equals to 2.” I told her.
“But how come it’s like that?” She asked.
“Well, see here,” I held up two fingers in the air for her to see, “Let’s just say this is a group, inside it, two fingers.”
“Okay.” She nodded.
“So, this is… one group of two, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Mind helping me solve it?”
“Yeah…” She looked up, as if completing a puzzle, “So that’s, one multiply by two?”
I smiled, “Yeap—”
“That’s right.” A voice said.
I looked up to face a smiling Andrew. I rolled my eyes and stood up to face Tina, “Good girl, Tina. So what’s two multiplied by two?”
She gave me a grin in return. “Um…” She held 2 fingers on each hand and counted them slowly, “Four!”
“Atta girl.” Andrew said. “Keep it up and you don’t have to see boring ‘ol Jenny here.”
I hit Andrew’s arm, hard.
“Ow!”
Tina giggled, “I like Jenny.”
“Thank you, Tina. You go ahead and do your work.”
She nodded and continued doing so.
I faced Andrew and hit him once more.
“And again, ow! What the hell was that for?”
“I’m not boring.” I said it through my teeth.
Andrew scoffed, “Sure you’re not.”
“You want me to hit you again?”
Andrew actually took two steps back and held up both his hands in the air, surrendering himself. “Eh, no. I still want to keep my arm, you know.”
I rolled my eyes, both annoyed and amused and gave him a smile.
“Alright kids,” I started to say, “Pass up your, exercises to either me or Mr. Andrew—”
“Just Andrew!” Andrew said.
“—please!”
“You know,” Andrew said with a playful grin on his face while he collected exercises from the kids, “You’d be a great teacher one day.”
I winked. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Jackson.”
***
Andrew Jackson.
“See you next week, Mr. Jackson!” A boy called Marco said.
“See ya, kid.” I waved him good bye, “And it’s Andrew!” I called out as he disappeared into the hallway.
“What’s up?” Jenny asked me as she locked the door of the classroom.
She wore a purple cardigan along with a matching beanie and scarf, her curly brunette hair was lose and her eyes were like the colour of the sea.
Whoa. Okay, I hope I didn’t say that out loud but… Whoa.
“Errr…” I shook my head and finally said, “Yeah.”
She smiled, “Well, I better get going. It’s late. You coming?”
“Oh, alright. Well, I’m all set. Let’s go.” I gave her a small smile.
“Okay.”
***
“You walking home or something?” I asked her as we headed towards the main entrance of the school.
“Yeap.” She said, “My dad’s usually at work at times like this.”
“Oh. Where do you live anyway?”
She pouted and looked up, thinking. “About… Fifteen minutes from here?”
“That’s gonna be a long walk.” I told her.
“Yeap.” She giggled a bit, “But I’m used to it.”
We stopped walking. ”Well, my ride’s here.” I told her.
“Alright. Well… I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Oh, sure.” I felt disappointed a bit. I don’t know why. “Alright. I guess I’ll see you at school.”
“See ya.” She smiled in return and walked away.
And then, I made the biggest mistake of my life. “Do you want me to send you home?” I blurted, loud enough for her to hear.
She turned around, an eyebrow raised up, “Sorry?”
I closed my eyes hard and I had no choice but to repeat what I just said, “Er… do you, want me to send you… home? To your place, I mean?”
It took awhile for her to reply me back while I was standing there looking like some idiot who just asked a girl he met from school if she wanted a ride back home.
I want to kill myself.
I had no idea why that even came out from my mouth.
Note to self: Drown yourself later.
Finally, Jenny smiled. “Nah, it’s alright.”
Another feeling of disappointment filled through me, but I was slightly relieved.
“Bye, Andrew.” She waved goodbye and I watched her walk away till she was out of sight.
“You’re sucha loser, Andrew.” I told myself and headed inside my limo.
