Extra Credit - S01 E19

8 months ago

Extra Credit - S01 E19

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 19

Lincoln

"Something told me I'd find you here."

Cali's melodic voice had me turning away from the punching bag. Her petite frame stood a few feet away from me, engulfed in an oversized sweater. Her worn book bag hung off of her shoulder. She looked like she had just gotten out of class. The tips of her fingers were red—matching the colour of her full cheeks. Sometimes I forgot about how cold the weather was outside now that fall was transitioning into winter. Most of the time I wore shorts right up until the first snowfall of the year.

I dropped my gloved hands, trying to steady my breathing. My lungs were greedy for air, my arms searing with the tearing of muscle fibres. I probably appeared wild to her—feral even. I didn't need a mirror to realize that I was slicked in sweat and had an unruly head of hair.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, wiping the moisture off of my forehead with the back of my arm.

Cali smiled. "I figured now would be as good a time as any to get some studying in."

I scoffed at that. "Yeah, okay." Moving a few steps towards the boxing ring, I grabbed my towel off of the ropes. I patted at the back of my neck before moving to my shoulders. "Why are you really here?"

Cali's tongue darted out across her bottom lip. It was a nervous twitch. An innocent action that I noticed that she would occasionally do when she was deep in thought. It wasn't the first time I'd seen her do it. But for some reason, this time a feeling erupted somewhere in the pit of my stomach. I turned back to the ring, hanging my towel up as an excuse not to continue looking at her.

What the hell was going on with me?

"I wanted to try something."

I tensed, listening to her take a couple of steps towards me across the rubber flooring.

"Are you sure you want to bother trying it with me?" I said in a rough tone. In all honesty, the sound was a little more aggressive than I would have liked, but there was no taking it back now.

"I'm sorry," Cali mumbled, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I was frustrated the other day and I took that out on you."

"Because I was what was making you frustrated."

The corners of her lips twitched upwards. "Yeah, but I still shouldn't have said what I did. I'm not the only one under a shit ton of pressure. I need to do a better job of remembering that."

"Yeah well," I said while removing my gloves. "It would help if I wasn't so difficult to work with."

A teasing smile graced her smooth face. "As long as you realize that."

I rolled my eyes at her. I guess I had walked myself into that one. "What is this thing that you wanted to try out?"

Cali's face brightened at the question.

"You know how you sometimes have a hard time focusing during our study sessions?"

I scoffed. "I always have a hard time focusing during our study sessions."

"Well, I was doing to research—"

"Of course you were."

"And there are these things called learning preferences. Some people have an easier time absorbing information when they watch videos or demonstrations, some people prefer to read or discuss the details of a lesson, others—"

"What are you getting at, California?"

"I'm saying that I might have been going about this tutoring thing the wrong way," Cali said, throwing her hands out as if she'd made an ingenious discovery. "I've been teaching you in ways that have worked for me, but I wasn't considering what might work for you."