Scribbles of a Broken Heart

“My parents allowed me to tutor. They both agreed that they didn’t like me home by myself and that it would be good for me to see how ‘hard’ it is to earn money. I basically did the same thing that I was already doing. I would come over and tutor everyday that we had Biology. St. Joseph’s runs on block schedule; four classes one day and the other four on the next day. We call them ‘A’ and ‘B’ days, Biology’s on A days. So depending on the week I would tutor either two times a week or three. They paid me ten dollars a session, every session being two hours.”

“Did Garrett and you actually get some studying done?”

“Yeah,” I smiled, “in between.”

“In between…what?”

”Garrett, no…stop it,” I pushed his face away from my neck where he tried to finish a trail of kisses.

“I’m trying to teach you something,” he muttered before nibbling at the skin below my jaw.

“What, how to hide a hicky from the ‘rents?”

“It could come in handy.”

I scooted away from him, “Stop. If your grades don’t get better I get fired.”

“Fine, fine,” he finally gave in. “Quiz me on vocab.”

I took the Biology book from the floor and placed it on lap. “What is…population density?”

“Uh, population density is how many…how full an area is with that animal.”

I looked at him with disbelief, “Population density is the number of individuals per unit area.”

“Same thing.”

“No, Mr. Yenen specifically told us that the ‘number of individuals of a population per unit area’ part was important.”

Garrett let out a groan. “Mr. Yenen is so strictly dull when he isn’t yelling at me to swim faster at the pool.”

“Well, he won’t be yelling at you for how slow you swim ‘cause you won’t be on the swim team anymore if you don’t pull up your Bio grade.”

“So mean,” he pouted.

I ignored him, “An easy way to remember this is to think of it as an equation. Population density equals the number of individuals over unit area.”

He leaned in to kiss me, but I blocked his lips with my hand.

“Garrett, be a good boy and repeat after me.”

“Garrett, be a good boy and repeat after me,” he mimicked.

“Gah!”

“Is everything okay?” Stacey stepped inside of Garrett’s room; we had to leave the door wide open at all times.

“Everything’s fine sweetie,” I held my arms open and Stacey ran over and plopped down on
my lap. “Why do you ask?”

“My mommy told me to check on you,” she easily admitted.

“And why is she making you do that?” I turned my head to look at her baby face,

“Because she said that she didn’t want any funny business.”

I glanced up at Garrett and he returned the look.

“What did she mean by 'funny business?'”

“I don’t know. Like kissing and stuff I guess.” She face scrunched up when said ‘kissing.’

“Well you don’t have to worry,” I coaxed and tapped her nose with my index finger. “I wouldn’t ever want to kiss your brother. Kissing’s icky.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, “kissing’s icky!”

I looked up to see Garrett glaring at me. I just smiled at him.

“It’s almost four, Stacey. Isn’t your show on right now?”

“Oh yeah.” She got up fast and raced out of the room.

“‘I wouldn’t ever want to kiss your brother. Kissing’s icky,’” Garrett said as he
exaggerated an imitation of me.

“Shut up, I sound nothing like that.”

“What you said really hurt,” Garrett said dramatically.

I looked out into the hallway before laying a quick kiss on his lips.

“Now, what’s exponential growth?”

“Your parents were alright with you tutoring Garrett even though there was no one else in the house?”

“Well, my parents trusted me. And Mrs. Carpenter had Stacey checking up on us every commercial break on Disney Channel.”

“Do you think Mrs. Carpenter trusted you?”

I looked down, “Even to this day…I’m not completely sure.”