head up to look her dead in the eyes.
“I’m listening,” I lied. My first test was coming up next week, and I felt seriously unprepared.
“Repeat what I just said then.” She cocked her head and snapped her gum as I forced myself not to stare at her lips. “At least pay attention while we’re in here, okay? You don’t have to like me, but I really do want to help you pass the class.”
She thought I didn’t like her. If only she knew the truth. I rearranged some papers with questions and mock problems written all over them for me to figure out and attempt to understand. Who had decided to make letters stand for numbers anyway, and more importantly, whyyyyyyyy?
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” I said before sitting up straighter and grabbing my pencil. “What were you saying?”
“I was trying to explain about graphing linear equations,” she said the words simply, like she wasn’t speaking a completely foreign language.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and instead of silencing it, I reached for it. I looked from the screen to Danika before saying, “It’s my mom,” and answering.
“Hey, Mom. Is everything okay?”
I listened as my mom informed me that I needed to come home for dinner and that she wasn’t hanging up until I said that I’d be there. Then, she threatened to keep calling me back if I tried to hang up on her.
“I actually have an extra tutoring session that night,” I tried to inform her, but she was relentless, refusing to take no for an answer.
“Um”—I looked at Danika, who was watching me intently as my mom continued dishing out commands that I knew I’d obey—“we’ll see. I’m not sure. Listen, I’ve gotta go, Mom. I’ll call you later, I promise. Okay. Bye. Love you too,” I said before ending the call and pocketing my phone.
“You and your mom are close,” Danika announced like it was a foregone conclusion instead of a question she was wondering the answer to.
“Yeah. She’s the best. Harasses me like crazy, but all moms do that, right?”
“Only if they like you.” She offered a half-smile, but it felt like she was hiding something. “Is everything okay?” Danika asked, and I knew we were venturing back into friend-like territory.
I could have been a dick and reminded her that we were no longer friends, but it would have been bullshit. And my mom had put a solid crack in my armor when she insisted that I come home this weekend.
“She was threatening my life if I didn’t come to dinner on Sunday night.”
“But we have tutoring Sunday. You have your first test on Monday morning.”
“I know. She told me to bring you.”
Danika started choking. “She … what?”
“She said that you should come, too, and we could study there. I don’t make the rules. I just have to follow hers.”
“Chance, obviously, I can’t come home with you.” Danika fidgeted like crazy, her body restless.
“I tried to tell her the same thing, but she insisted.”
“I have a boyfriend,” she announced like I wasn’t aware of that fact. “This isn’t appropriate.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I adjusted the bill of my baseball cap before pressing back in my chair, lifting two of the legs into the air and balancing on the back two. “Look, I need the extra help before the test, but I promised my mom I’d come home. Just come with me, please. It will be painless, I assure you. My family is awesome, and my mom’s a great cook.” I gave her my best sales pitch because I honestly didn’t see a way out of this. I could have blown off Danika and gone home without her, but I really needed the extra study session. Failing my test on Monday was not an option. I refused to start this semester off with an F.
She groaned and stared at her feet, her lips pressing together in a straight line. “This is a really bad idea. But fine.”
“You’ll do it?” I found myself getting a little more excited than I had any right to be.
She nodded. “I’ll go … on one condition.”
My jaw clenched, and I wondered what she was going to ask of me. I leaned forward, my chair hitting the floor with a screech. “What is it?”
“We have to be friends, Chance. This”—she waved a finger between us—“up-and-down, emotional craziness between us has to stop.”
“I know,” I admitted before apologizing, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just be normal.”
“I’ll try,” I said, and I meant it.
I