Chapter 35: The Study Session
I hate physics. I feel like all I ever do is work out physic problems or should I say, get confused by physics problems. None of this stuff makes any sense to me. I mean listen to this:
Assuming nothing else blocks their view, how far can two 6 foot tall people walk from each other until they can no longer see each other due to the curvature of the Earth?
How should I know! I throw my pencil at my stupid text book and drop my head to the table in frustration. I’m never going to figure this out and I have a huge test tomorrow. All it’s going to be is problems like this. I don’t even know where to start. I wish I was friends with someone in my class so I could call them for help. Unfortunately no one talks to me at school. It’s a private school and all the girls are stuck up snobs who are too good to associate with the likes of me. I hate school almost as much as I hate physics.
“Having some problems?” Justin’s smooth voice breaks me from my negative thoughts. I raise my head to glare at his smiling face. He’s so cocky about his intelligence sometimes.
He offered to help when I first got here because he’s supposedly some math and physics wiz or something. I, of course, turned him down stating that was smart enough to figure it out on my own”that was a lie.
You are probably wondering why I’m over at Justin’s right? Especially on a school night. Well my mom has some big date with Steve and she offered to let me got to a friend’s house so I didn’t have to sit around all alone. So I called Liz, but she wasn’t home. Elisha was the next person I called and she offered to come pick me up and said that we could go hang out with Justin and Trace. I agreed and told my mom where I was going and after helping her decided between her nearly identical red and black dresses I was on my way. When we got here Trace was waiting for Elisha so they could go out to some club which I was invited to go to. I politely declined telling them that I had a date with my physics book that I couldn’t cancel. Now I’m not sure if Justin was planning to go with them or not but he claimed that he wasn’t. He said he was just going to ‘fool around with his guitar’ tonight and had no intention of leaving. From the way he was dressed I think he was lying. Nonetheless it was a nice gesture and I wasn’t about to complain about spending the night alone with him even if I was going to be doing homework.
“This stuff doesn’t make any sense.” I whine, clutching my pencil between my fingers about ready to snap the annoyingly skinny thing in two. Justin chuckles quietly, setting his guitar to the side and reaching for my pencil. I narrow my eyes at him and don’t let go. He makes a motion with his head for me to hand it over and, reluctantly, I do. “If you look at this and solve it in like two seconds I’m going to kill you.” I warn as he slides my text book from me to sit in front of him.
He squints his eyes cutely as he reads the text before sighing and reaching in to his pocket. He unfolds a pair of glasses and perches them on the bridge of his nose before looking back at the text. That has to be just about the cutest thing I have ever seen”him concentrating so hard with his little reading glasses on. I just can’t help but smile when I notice his lips move silently with every word.
“This is simple El,” He starts, pulling his chair closer to mine so he can better explain. “Now the last point they would be able to see each other is when the line of sight is tangent to the Earth's surface.” He grabs a sheet of college ruled notebook paper and draws a wide arch and then two lines extending to meet up in triangle looking thing, but rounded on the top. He labels the top ‘line of sight, the point ‘center of earth, and the intersecting lines to the arc ‘person’s height.’ This picture means squat to me. “The last point they would be able to see each other is when the line of sight is tangent to the Earth's surface as in the picture.”
All I’m hearing is blah, blah, blah. I’m very impressed the he knows this stuff and I’m glad he’s enjoying himself but I’m just absolutely bored out of my freaking mind. I mean why would I ever need to know this in real life? No one would ever ask me this and if they did I would look at them like they were nuts and say, ‘how should I know.’
“I didn’t know you wore glasses.” I blurt out; I’m sure interrupting his teachings.
He looks up at me strangely, peering over his glasses, again cutely. He’s giving me a, are you paying attention look, that I thought only teachers could do. I offer an apologetic smile and urge him to continue. He starts again drawing more lines on the diagram he already started.
I wonder if he wears contacts all the time or if I’ve just never been around him when he needed the glasses. He looks good in glasses”not that that comes as a big surprise. I would look like a nerd with glasses. I’m really surprised I wasn’t cursed to wear them. That just sounds like it would just complete my long list of self complaints. You now what would be weird? If Justin really just had boring everyday brown eyes and he just wore blue contacts. I don’t think he does though. You can’t get that kind of blue from a contact. And I’ve seen them change colors too. Like when he’s mad they get kind of dark and cloudy, but when he’s really happy and cheery they’re really bright and clear. My eyes don’t change colors. They’re always the same old plain brown. Maybe I should get contacts. I could change my eyes to mach my outfit! How about that? I guess that would be a little strange though.
“Converting degrees to radians is analogous to a unit conversion, so….” He trails off, taking off his glasses and looking at me expectantly. Crap, I wasn’t listening to word he said. “The answer would beeee?”
I clear my throat nervously, looking down at the paper he’s worked the problem out on. This is all just a bunch of gibberish to me. “Uh”twelve?”
“You weren’t listening to a word I said were you?” He shakes his head slowly. I scrunch my nose, silently admitting my guilt. He cracks a smile still shaking his head disapprovingly. “You, missy, need to pay attention.”
“I know, it’s just really, really, really boring.”
“Wow, three reallys.” He laughs. “That’s pretty boring.”
“I can’t believe you actually like this stuff.” I mope, looking at his work and trying to make at least some sense of it. Nothin’ is coming. “This is hopeless, I’m just going to fail this test and them I’ll fail the whole class and have to take it again next year and my GPA will drop and I won’t get into a good college and then I won’t get a good job and I’ll be””
“Whoa there chica,” Justin interrupts my ramblings, holding up his hands in what look like a position of surrender. “I think you may be over exaggerating just a bit.”
“I hate this stuff.” I pout pathetically.
“Why don’t we take a break?” He suggests, snapping shut my text book and standing from his chair.
“We just started.”
“You were working on this same problem before you even got here and you are not going to make any progress if your brain is fried.” He says matter a-fact-ly with his hands perched on his slender hips. I don’t say anything because, well, I can’t come up with anything. “Why don’t you go up to my room and take a nap. I’ll make us something to eat and I’ll wake you in about a half an hour.”
I bite my lip apprehensively. I don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to sleep in his bed. Every time I go in there something dramatic seems to happen. You know the seeing Justin making out with Allison and then I made out with Justin. Of course the kissing part wasn’t really bad was it? But still, if there is going to be any kissing I would prefer it not be in a room with a bed in it.
“El?” He questions after a few minutes of my not answering.
“Okay, but no longer than a half an hour.”
~*~*~*~*~
Don’t worry ya’ll, when I agreed to make up something to eat I didn’t mean I would actually cook it myself. I ordered a large plain pizza. This is what I call brain food.
Well it’s been a half an hour so it’s time to wake up sleeping beauty. Maybe she’ll actually pay attention to what I’m telling her this time. I worked through that entire problem and she didn’t hear one word. To be honest that didn’t really bother me. I thought she looked rather cute while she was day dreaming and even cuter when she realized I had caught her not paying attention.
I walk from the kitchen upstairs to my room where I find her passed out on the bed just barely covered with my baby blue sheets. She’s lying on her back with her legs twisted to the side at her hips. One of her arms is tossed haphazardly above her head while the other is hiding beneath the covers.
I crouch near her head and gently whisper her name. She doesn’t so much as flinch. Man, she is out like a light.
I run my fingers through her messy ponytail and repeat her name only louder this time. She pushes air out of her nose rather loudly. My hand leaves her hair and skims down her forehead and cheek, past her neck and collarbone to come to a stop on her shoulder. I gently shake her and this time I know I’ve awoken her.
“Five more minutes,” She mumbles, blindly swatting at my hand.
“Elli, you need to study,” I say, rubbing my hand up and down her arm. She turns on her side to face me and snuggles farther into the mattress. “I have pizza….”
Her eyes snap open when I say that. I thought that would get her up. I smile as she sits up and stretches her arms above her head before standing up. I follow her to the door and down the stairs. When she heads towards the kitchen I grab her hand and pull her to the living room instead. I’ve set up our studying stuff and ‘brain food’ on the coffee table. I thought we would be more comfortable in here.
“That pizza smells amazing.” She groans, inhaling the scent deeply as she plops down next to me on the couch. “Ooh Sunkist!” She exclaims happily gulping at the orange soda.
“When was the last time you ate girl?” I laugh. She stops in mid bite, looking up at me sheepishly. A blush takes over her cheeks and she drops the slice back into the cardboard box. “Don’t stop on my account.”
She sips her soda and picks the pizza back up, this time taking her time eating. I mock her actions eating as we go over the same physics problem she seems to be having so much difficulty with. After about another twenty minutes I’m about ready to rip what little hair I have out of my head. This is why I’m not a teacher. We’ve gone over the same thing a million times and I can’t figure out if she’s not paying attention or if she’ll just never get it.
She props her elbow on the back of the couch and rest her head in her hand in frustration. “I’m never going to get this.”
“Yes you will.” I encourage even though I’m really starting to think she won’t.
“I feel so stupid.” She whines with a pronounced pout. I suddenly have the urge to lean forward to close the short distance between us and take that perfectly plump lip in my mouth. I haven’t kissed her since our date. That was four days ago. I almost kissed her when if I first saw her, but I just don’t know how to gage her sometimes.
“You’re not stupid, sweetheart.” I coo, slipping closer to her. I gently remove her text book from her grasp and drop it to the coffee table. Is it wrong of me to take advantage of her down mood? “Some people just aren’t good at this stuff.”
She nods sadly. I cup her jaw in my right hand and her body instantly tenses. I hate it when she does that. It makes me feel like she doesn’t want me to be close to her. Wait”does she want me to back off? Just as I’m about to pull back her hands seek out my midsection where she grasps me gently. I smile, leaning back towards hers as her eyes flutter shut. I take just that plump bottom lip of hers at first, sucking it between my own before returning the favor to top. Her body falls limp when both of my lips meet her swollen ones. She returns the kiss tentatively. Using both of my hand I tilt her head to the left to deepen the kiss and give me better access. A soft moan escapes her and from the way she jumps I think it surprised her more than me.
As our lips continue to battle and the kiss quickly heats up I begin to wonder just what she would do if I were to slip my tongue into her mouth for a quick taste. I would be too afraid she would freak out and pull away and that would put an end to our ‘study break.’
My hands trail from her cheeks to the base of her neck. Her hands haven’t moved an inch from my stomach. I can tell she’s still nervous because this is all so new to her so I understand her lack of responsiveness. Eventually she’ll loosen up and maybe someday be the one to actually initiate a kiss.
Feeling brave and deciding to take my chances, I pull her closer forcing her to move her hands to my shoulders. Ever so slowly I part my lips and slid my tongue along the seam of her mouth.
She pulls away suddenly, both of us breathless and gasping for air. I told you that would put a stop to this. “Six.” She mutters through her ragged breathing.
“What?” I ask with a furrowed brow, still not allowing her to pull completely away from me.
“That’s the answer to the problem.” She explains with a light smile. “It’s six.”
I smile back letting out a light laugh. She chooses now to figure that out? I caress her cheekbones with my thumbs and pull her back to me, pressing our lips back together.
What? We have to celebrate that she finally got it right.
TBC.....
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