Prelude to Destruction

“Johnny Christ?” I repeated stupidly. I was doing it a lot lately.

He snickered. “Yeah, it’s what all my friends call me. You know, it’s kinda ballsy, so I just went with it.”

Well, yeah it’s ballsy, I thought sarcastically.

“Well, Johnny,” I said, “the bell for class is about to ring. Let’s go back inside…” I began to walk.

He finally dropped my hand. “Wait for a minute, till my cigarette’s all smoked up,” he mumbled, cigarette already planted between his lips and lighter to his mouth.

“Alright,” I said uncomfortably, and waited impatiently. I didn’t like the smell very much.
I think he could tell, because he smirked and said, “Aww, little girl afraid of getting caught?” he teased.

“No! …I-I just think cigarettes smell bad,” I added.

He shrugged. “You’ll get used to it.”

I doubted that.

“So what class do you have next?” he said, trying to fill the dead air with me.

“I don’t know,” I said, rifling through my bag for my schedule. “I think I have Industrial Technology…” I mused. As I glanced at my schedule, I saw that I was right. “Yep, Industrial Tech with Mr. Gordon. Room T114.”

“Right on,” he said enthusiastically. “I have Tech too, with Mr. Webb. They teach together; we’ll be in the same class. Sort of.”

“Small world,” I tried to respond with as much enthusiasm as he had. Johnny sort of made me uncomfortable; I saw the way his eyes had lowered when he kissed my hand. “Um, so maybe you could show me the way there, then, since I don’t have any clue…”

“Sure,” he said. “It’s just over yonder,” he said, pointing to the building in left of the main one . “I’ll take you there if we stop by my locker first. I left all my stuff in there when I left.”

***

Johnny and I walked together into T114. He took a seat with some boys I didn’t know, but there was an empty seat next to him. So I walked up to him and set my bag down next to him. “Is it alright if I sit here? I don’t know many people here yet,” I explained unnecessarily, uneasily.

“Yeah, I saved it for you,” he said, casually, tapping the table we were going to be sharing, before turning back to his other friends. When the bell rang, they all scattered to their seats and two older men I could only presume were Mr. Gordon and Mr. Webb walked into the classroom.

Johnny pulled out some ripped pieces of paper and a workbook immediately and stared at it blankly. “Fuck, I don’t get this,” he murmurred to no one in particular. He looked at me and said, “Can you believe that asshole gave us, like, real work, on the first day back?” he whined.

I looked at it. It was Geometry; I’d taken that course when I was in seventh grade. I vaguely remembered it. “Oh, I took that a few years ago,” I whispered since class had started, not realizing how snobby that sounded until it came out. “I-I mean, I could help you with it if you want after school sometime,” I offered, backpedaling. “I’m really good at math, and I might be tutoring another kid too, a senior,” I trailed off, remembering how good Matt looked in his green sports shirt that morning. I wouldn’t mind getting out of bed in the morning if I got to see that…

“Do you charge?” he whispered suspiciously. “’Cause I don’t have any money.”

“Oh, but you have plenty of money to get some cigarettes,” I said so quietly that I don’t even think he heard me. And then I said, “Uh, no, I don’t charge. I like tutoring. And it’ll look good on college transcripts,” I added.

“Good, cause this is so hard,” he mumbled, quickly putting his books away when the man who introduced himself as Mr. Gordon came walking down our aisle. “Can we meet up after class tomorrow in the school library?”

***

“So I think you should definitely help me with math soon,” Matt suggested, turning around in his seat to face me before class began the next day. “This is all review, and I still think I got everything wrong,” he said sheepishly, holding up his crinkled and messy worksheet.

“Let me see it,” I asked, reaching for the worksheet.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong… wrong. I cant even read that one, I thought to myself as I studied his worksheet.

“Oh, you’re not too horrible,” I fibbed. “But tutoring would probably really help you. I’m tutoring someone else too, actually, after school. You could come along, and I could help you both together,” I offered.

“Yeah? Who else are you tutoring?” Matt inquired.

I shrugged. “Um, a sophomore. He’s in Geometry, but I could work with you both at the same time. Um, his name’s Johnny… Johnny Seward, I think.”

Matt’s face broke into a huge dimpled grin, and he chuckled. “Christ? What a nutter. You’re helping him too?”

“Small world. You know him?” I asked, recalling the boy’s audacious nickname. “What a silly nickname,” I added with a roll of my eyes.

“We’re actually in a band together. He’s our bassist. I’m the singer,” he boasted, puffing out his chest ever so slightly. “…And I helped come up with that nickname, by the way,” he added, giving me a Look, but I don’t think he was actually offended; I could tell by the smile he was trying to suppress.

“You’re in a band?” I asked, intrigued. “What kind of music do you play?”

“Uhm, kind of hard rock, I guess. I scream a lot. It’s kind of hard to describe.”

“Mr. Sanders!”

Matt and I both jumped. It was Mr. Billowe, not looking entirely pleased with our direct ignoration of class starting. “Shut up and pay attention,” he said icily. “The Good Lord knows you’ll need it.”

“Right after school in the library,” I whispered to Matt, before sitting back in my seat and taking notes on Mr. Billowe’s lesson.

***

“Hi, Matt,” I greeted him, hoping to seem enthusiastic enough to see him without seeming dorky.

“Hey, Rosalie,” Matt replied, taking a seat next to me. “What do you prefered to be called? Just Rosalie?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t care. Rosalie, Rose, Roise, Rosa, Ro… whatever you like,” I said.

“Alright.”

“Alright,” I repeated. “So! Um. What I was thinking is that we should review the concepts from Algebra 2 that we’re going to be using all year, since you said you just scraped by. You really need to grasp Algebra 2, or you’ll never survive Pre-Calc or beyond, trust me. Math’s a building process. And then I thought that after we reviewed that I’d help you with today’s lesson,” I suggested.

He sighed tiredly and rubbed his face in his hands. “Yeah, that’s probably for the best,” he agreed. “What makes you like math so much?”

“I don’t know,”I mused. “I guess it’s just my thing, like singing is yours, you know? I’ve just always been good at it. It makes sense and it doesn’t matter where you are or what language you speak; you’ll always get the same answer. …Hey, Johnny!” I called, waving him over.

Watching Johnny’s face change from recognition to amusement to confusion was actually really entertaining. “Shads, what the fuck are you doing here?” he said, grasping Matt’s hand in greeting.

“Shads?” I said, raising a brow. “Is that like your Christ thing?”

Matt and Johnny nodded. “It’s short for M. Shadows,” Johnny explained. “We use them when we perform. Which isn’t that often.” He turned to Matt. “Hey, did you ever hear back from Chain Reaction?”

“No, but I–” Matt began.

Before they started getting into the specifics of musical performances, I said a little too loudly for a library, “Guys! Geek it out later, okay? I can only be here until 4:30, and that’s not a lot of time. Math time.”

Johnny snorted. “Yeah, we’re the geeks.”

“Shut up, you!” I giggled. “Get out your books,” I said to both of them.

“Okay, okay, princess,” Johnny said, taking my hand and kissing it for the second time in two days.

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything. “Okay, Matt, I want you to look over this,” I said, handing him the list of key Algebra 2 concepts. “See if anything rings a bell, and see what doesn’t. …And for you, Johnny, I want you to tell me specifically what you don’t understand. Like, is it the formulas and plugging in the numbers, or do the radicals trip you up, or is the fractions…?” I prompted him.

He shrugged. “I get all my numbers confused all the time. Like, I see my sixes as nines-” (there was a short ‘ha!’ from Matt at that), “and my sevens as fours and stuff. And I have trouble keeping all my formulas straight.”

“Okay, so it sounds like you just really need to slow down,” I said. “And definitely look over your work a second time before you turn it in. I know it’s a pain, but I swear you’ll thank me when you get an ‘A’ for the term. And for the formulas… I’ll bet you don’t study much, do you?” I guessed knowingly.

He averted his gaze and a small smile played upon his lips. “I have better things to do.”

“Yeah, like smoking cigarettes,” I muttered darkly. “Well, first things first, you can not, I repeat, you CAN NOT skip class. I’m not going to help you if you don’t try to learn it first, okay? I’ll try to help you think of little sayings and stuff to help you remember which formulas are for which shapes, but you’ll have to practice on your own or you’ll never pass. …Look over them right now, and I’ll help you understand the weird ones in a minute,” I instructed, turning back to Matt.

“What can I help you with, sir?” I said pleasantly.

He moved his arm to gesture with, and he brushed my shoulder. I shivered (with delight, but I hoped he didn’t know that!) as the tingly feeling where he touched me radiated out through my whole body. I lowered my lids and tried to focus on what he was saying.

I could definitely get used to this.