Be Free, Be You

I was on my way to the library after school after getting my homework from my locker. Thankfully, I didn’t have much, just history and English, so I wouldn’t stress myself out while I was tutoring Puck.

I was almost to my destination when Stephanie popped out of nowhere. “Steph, wait up!” she called, followed by her hurried footsteps.

My eyebrow was raised as I turned to look at her, since that was decidedly un-Steph-like. She didn’t really love to call attention to the fact that she had a weirdo younger sister. But there she was, screaming down the hallway.

“I just want to tell you that I talked to Puck earlier and he wants you to keep the tutoring on the down low.”

I stared at her for a second, wondering if she was serious. Once I realized she was, I questioned, “Why the hell would I go around telling everyone that I was tutoring Puck…?”

“I don’t know,” she let out in a huff. “I’m just telling you what he told me. Now I’m going to practice. Bye.”

She brushed past me and hurried down the hallway. “Bye,” I muttered back, even though she was greatly out of earshot.

Shaking my head, I took a few more steps forward and pulled the door to the library open.

As I figured it would be, the room was almost entirely void of students, just a couple nerdy-looking kids mulling around, browsing the shelves. The librarian sat behind the front desk, her glasses perched on top of her head, reading the newspaper with great intensity, as if the article was the most interesting thing she’d ever read in her long life.

Without hesitating, I headed back to the table where Puck had approached me the previous day. When I noticed that he hadn’t arrived yet, I settled down in a seat and pulled out my English book, figuring that I could make a dent in the chapter that was assigned for that night.

It wasn’t until I was done with the chapter and looked around a little bit that I realized Puck was late. Like, really late.

My eyes narrowed as I felt a wave of anger pass over me. Why the hell did he ask me to help him with math if he wasn’t even going to bother showing up? Just to waste my fucking time? How idiotic and ignorant was that jerk?

Val was right about him, always had been: he was just a dick who liked to get girls to like him just to get in their pants or ignore them completely.

A blush filled my face as the realization settled in that I actually fell for it. And I was dumb enough to allow my mind to convince me that Puck could actually be interested in a girl like me. A dumb, plain sophomore who paled disgustingly in comparison to her older, beautiful, talented sister.

Tears stung the corner of my eyes as I threw my English book into my backpack. God, I thought as I took a couple deep breaths, hold it together. It wasn’t like he ever said anything to make you think that he liked you. He asked for a TUTOR, not a girlfriend.

“Hey, where are you going?” a deep voice broke through my thoughts. “Valarie still has, like, an hour left of practice, doesn’t she?”

I blinked a few times to get my eyes looking like normal before shooting an angry glare at the Mohawk-ed boy standing in front of me. “Oh, how nice of you to show up,” I said bitingly without thinking. Right after I finished, my face flushed, since I wasn’t used to standing up for myself. Especially when the someone that I was asserting myself against wasn’t a member of my immediate family.

“I said I’d show up after school,” he defended, pulling a seat away from the table and planting his butt into it, “and this is after school. I didn’t say I’d be here just when school got out.”

“You’re an idiot,” I informed him.

He just smirked, as if he knew this, but it didn’t bother him. “Why do you think I need help in algebra, a freshman class? I am a senior, after all.”

“You shouldn’t say that with so much pride,” I grumbled, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

“Hey, ain’t no use denying the truth, babe.” He winked at me before turning to his backpack to pull out his math supplies. “And I have to say, I should make you mad more often. I like this you way better than the shy person you were yesterday.”

My face blushed fiercely as I snapped my head back toward the table.

“Oh, and now we’re back to the normal you.”

“Yeah, well, I guess I can’t stay mad forever,” I said. There was a short silence, so I cleared my throat and asked, “What did you need help with?”

“Uh…everything, kind of. If I’m going to pass the class, my teacher says that I have to pass a test, kind of like a final, on everything that I ever missed in class. And I’ve never been to a math class all year. I don’t even know where the classroom is.”

I let out a long sigh and closed my eyes for a second. When I opened them again, Puck was staring at me sheepishly, his light brown eyes sparkling. “Alright, we have a lot of work to do,” I stated finally, reaching over and dragging his book closer to me. “And if you’re going to graduate, we need to start working.”

Time flew by as I worked toward making Puck understand simple equations. It was actually a lot harder than I thought it would be, considering I had to spend a good twenty minutes explaining to him that the x itself didn’t have a fixed value, that it changed with each new equation.

“I don’t get it!” he sighed, gritting his teeth. “Why can’t it just have one value?”

“Because the jerks that came up with math didn’t make it that way,” I finally snapped. “Now will you stop stalling and try to solve this equation?” I pointed a few times at a problem that I scribbled down: 3x+4=28.

He stared at it and let out a long breath. “Can we just do this tomorrow? I still don’t really get how x can change.”

I smacked my head against the table, a little too hard, and expressed, “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to tutor you.”

“I think you’re doing a bang-up job so far,” Puck laughed.

Bringing my head up off the table, I glared at him. “You’re a smart-ass.”

“You know it.” He grinned at me, and I was mesmerized at how great his smile was.

“Puckerman,” Valarie’s voice called from where I couldn’t see her, “stop trying to get into my sister’s pants.”

“Hey, it doesn’t hurt to try,” Puck defended, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms behind his head.

I furrowed my brow in confusion, considering I didn’t think that was what he was trying to do at all. But then again, with me staring, awed, and him smiling back at me, maybe that was what it looked like.

“C’mon, Steph,” Val ordered as she pulled to a stop in front of the table. “We gotta get home.”

“See you here tomorrow, Steph!” Puck called when I started walking away from the table. “And this time, I’ll come right after school, just for you.”

A blush flashed across my cheeks, and Val rolled her eyes. “Oh, Steph,” was all she said, her tone showing clearly that she just didn’t know what to do with me, as we made our way out of the school.