I really shouldn’t have signed up for summer classes, not that my parents would hear any of that nonsense. Sometimes it’s easier to go along with what they want rather than starting a fight about it. And by sometimes, I mean, I’m hoping eventually I’ll grow a spine and tell them to back off and let me make some of my own decisions.
Elijah and I part ways and I head toward the Math Center a few blocks away. I randomly walked past this place right after I moved here last year, and I remember having the strangest flutter of excitement at the thought of tutoring younger kids in math. So, I went inside and signed up as a volunteer. Since then, I’ve been tutoring a few nights a week, whenever I can manage to fit it into my schedule. Which is another great reason to de-prioritize sex right now.
A smile automatically spreads over my face when the building comes into view, Alfie, one of my favorite students standing right in front of it, shuffling his feet against the sidewalk.
“Aw, waiting for me, kid?” I ask when I get close. He looks up and his frown turns into a halfhearted attempt at a smile.
“Just hoping if I stand out here long enough, I might magically become good at math before I go inside.” He stuffs his hands into his pockets and lets his shoulders sag.
“First of all, no one here is good at math, that’s the whole point,” I say with a wry grin.
“You’re good at math,” he argues, shaking his head to get his bangs off of his forehead without having to take his hands out of his pockets.
I roll my eyes. “That’s why I’m the tutor. If I was bad at math, we’d all be fu-in trouble.” Phew, close catch. Can’t be dropping the f-bomb in front of ten-year-old kids. At least I’m pretty sure you can’t. He’s probably the only ten-year-old I’ve been around since, well, not even since I was ten. I was already in advanced classes at that age and spending most of my time either studying or trying to fit in with older kids.
“I guess,” he grumbles.
“And second of all,” I add, “no one is bad at math. We just haven’t found the right trick to fit your way of learning. Which makes this really all my fault, not yours.”
He smiles a little again, just barely a tilt of the corner of his mouth like he doesn’t want to give in that easy. “You suck then,” he jokes.
“I’ll try harder,” I promise. “Ready to go in and give those multiplication drills another shot?”
“I guess,” he agrees, scuffing the toe of his sneaker against the sidewalk again before finally pulling a hand out of his pocket and reaching for the door handle. I’m about to follow him in when my phone starts to vibrate in my pocket.
“Go on in, I’ll be right there,” I tell Alfie before stepping over to the side to lean against the building. Taking a deep breath to brace myself for the conversation I know is about to happen, I then reach for my phone. “Hi, Mom,” I answer lightly.
“Hi honey, you’re finished with classes for the day, right?” she asks as if she doesn’t have my schedule taped to her refrigerator at home along with my exam schedule and copies of each syllabus.
“Yes.”
“Oh good, I wouldn’t want to interrupt you if you were on your way to class. How’s the semester going so far? Are you studying hard? I know it might be tempting to start coasting, but you’ve made it this far, and if you play your cards right, you—”
“Can do great things,” I finish for her. It has been her and my dad’s constant refrain since the second I was born, probably while I was still in the womb actually if I know them. “I’m working hard.” Well, hard-ish. Hard enough.
“Of course, you are. You’ve never shied away from hard work. Some people with your gifts might have tried to skate through life, but that’s not you.”
“No, Mom,” I agree, trying not to sound too wary of the same old motivational speech about how Monroes earn what they have and about how my intelligence is a gift I can’t waste. Considering I’m nineteen and an aerospace engineering PhD student, I’m pretty sure I’m living up to my potential. But the way she and my dad talk, you’d think I was walking through life with a needle in my arm. “I have to go. I need to study.”
“Oh, of course,” she agrees in a hurry. That line never fails to get her off the phone. God, that sounds bad. I love my parents, I really do. They’re loving and supportive, and they didn’t blink an eye when I told them I was gay a few years ago. Sometimes I just wish they wouldn’t push so hard.
We say our goodbyes, and I put my phone away, taking a second to shake off the distinct weight on my shoulders that always follows a phone call from her or my dad, and then I put on a smile and head inside to see if today will be the day Alfie can get all the way through the tens on his multiplication drills.
Theo
The sound of the oven timer beeping pulls my attention from my Adolescent Psychology textbook. The smell of vegetable lasagna and garlic bread fills the kitchen as I grab my favorite oven mitt that says Dear Freud, your mom on it, and pull dinner out. A quick glance at the time tells me Alex should be home anytime now, and as if summoned by my thoughts, the buzzer sounds. I chuckle, guessing that he forgot his key, again. We’ve been living together a grand total of two weeks, and I’m about ready to have the thing surgically attached to him, so he won’t keep forgetting it. I shudder to think what he had to do when he lived alone. Maybe left his window open so he could scale the building to get inside?
I’m still smiling at the mental image of Alex pulling a Spider-Man as I walk over to the door to buzz him in, making sure the door is unlocked too so he won’t have to knock.
When a knock sounds anyway a minute later, another involuntary smile curves on my lips. That’s not Alex.
“I keep telling you to use the key I gave you,” I tell my best friend, Elijah, as I pull the door open. He shuffles his feet, his cheeks turning a soft shade of pink and his glasses slipping just a tad down his nose. I told him to stop and get them adjusted so they’ll stay on better, but he either keeps forgetting or he feels too awkward to go and ask someone to do it at the Target Vision Center.
“I don’t want to barge in if you’re busy,” he reasons, stepping inside. He runs a hand through his wild curls, and my heart gives an affectionate flutter, urging me to wrap my arms around him.
If I’d have known how things would turn out, I might not have called Pax last year to ask him to take Elijah under his wing and show him around Pasadena.
That’s not fair.
As much as it sucks to have lost him to my brother, I can’t deny how happy he seems to be.
The front door swings open again. I grab Elijah’s arm, yanking him out of the way just in time before Alex comes barreling through the door, no doubt completely lost in his own head as usual. Aside from the key issue, in the past two weeks I’ve learned three important things about my new roommate: he loves math puns, he’s scary smart, and he walks into things at least twice a day because he’s never paying any attention to his surroundings.
“Oops, shit. You okay?” Alex checks, doing a quick eye check of Elijah.
“I’m fine.”
“Perfect timing from both of you. I just pulled dinner out.”