244Sorry it took so long, it's hard to write the beginning because nothing's really happening yet. Anyway, chapter 2!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything mentioned below.
"Hey, Rae?" asked Gar about an hour into their tutoring session. Rachel sent a death glare his way, and he winced, making a mental note never to call her 'Rae' again.
Rachel had barely said anything, besides a few words when he needed help with explanations. She got by on nods and shakes of heads. Even so, in the past hour, Gar had mastered the seventh grade pre-algebra book she'd brought, something he hadn't been able to do at the time.
"You wanna hear a joke?" he tried. He'd been asking the same question for a while now, and every time, Rachel raised one violet eyebrow or shook her head. She did both this time. "Aw, come on! It's a really good one! I bet you'll crack up!"
Rachel rolled her eyes. "I don't laugh," she answered monotonously. "Problem three."
"What about it?" Gar asked confusedly. Then his eyes widened in realization. "Oh. I mean...it's...uh...x equals twenty?"
Rachel nodded indifferently and Gar pumped his fist into the air, yelling, "SCORE!" Maybe it was just his imagination, but he thought he saw the corner of Rachel's mouth twitch a little bit.
"Go me! It's my birthday! Not really! Something, something, I don't know the rest!" he yelled cheerfully. This was the reason the other book had taken so long. He had to congratulate himself after every problem he got right.
Once he'd calmed down, he closed the book. "Now what, oh great master of all things school-related?" Rachel flipped the book back open.
"Problem four."
"But Rae...chel! We've been working on this for ages! Let's play football, one on one!"
"No."
"Video games?"
"No."
"Swimming?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows. Rachel looked disgusted.
"No."
"Trivial Pursuit? I'll even settle for girl talk!"
"I don't do girl talk."
Gar sighed in exasperation. "Then what do you do?"
"Tutoring."
"Oh ha, ha. You're hilarious, Rachel. And yet, you won't listen to one of my jokes! Just one, okay? Then I'll learn 'til I drop."
"Fine."
"Okay, you might want to prepare yourself. The correct laughing position is to hold your ribs, like this, and double over, like this. You might want to close your eyes, too." Gar guided Rachel into the 'correct laughing position' and she glared at him again, straightening. "Fine, whatever. Anyways, why did the fish cross the road?"
"Fish can't walk."
"Okay, then, why did the fish swim across the road?"
"How do you swim across roads?"
"There was a river in the road, okay? Just answer the question!"
"A road is for cars to drive on. Cars wouldn't be able to drive across a river."
"Then there's a bridge!"
"Then the fish isn't really crossing the road, is it now?" asked Rachel with overexaggerated patience. Gar growled in frustration.
"I give up!"
"Problem four."
The front door of Gar's cozy, but messy, house opened. Mrs. Logan stepped in, smiling at her son.
"Hi, sweetie, I just went over to the dry cleaners. I couldn't get that stink off your socks, what was it? Oh, you brought a new friend! What's your...name?" Mrs. Logan's voice faltered as she looked over Rachel. The tutor was dressed completely in black, almost casual-looking clothes. Her hair and eyes were purple, and her skin almost white as snow. But her fancy-Goth outfit wasn't what bothered Gar's mom the most, it was her expression. She did not look happy.
"Rachel Roth," the girl replied, turning away from the interruption. "Gar, you still haven't done problem four..."
"Um, hey mom," Gar said, laughing nervously. "This is my tutor, Rachel. She's like one of those Mensa geniuses."
"Genii," Rachel corrected.
"Who?"
"Well, then, I'll just be in the kitchen. Please get some real tutoring done in there," Mrs. Logan said with a fake smile.
"Of course," drawled Rachel. Gar shrugged and waved goodbye to his mother.
"She seems nice," Rachel commented.
"She is," Gar answered. "Most of the time. I don't think she likes you very much." The boy quickly slapped his hand over his mouth, hoping he hadn't offended Rachel. There was no telling what she'd do when she was mad.
She sighed. "Yeah. Parents usually don't. I think this is the fifth time I asked you to-"
"Okay, okay. Um...y equals fifteen?" Rachel nodded. "GO ME! I rock! Who's the best? Say it!"
"It."
"Aw, come on Rae...chel. For someone who doesn't laugh, you sure make a lot of jokes." Rachel said nothing. "You've got purple hair! You've got to have a sense of humor to go with that!" Rachel just flipped the page, looking bored. "How come your hair's purple, anyway?"
She didn't answer for a minute. "Prank. A couple of cheerleaders thought it'd be funny to put purple hair dye in my shampoo bottle when we were showering after gym. But I ended up liking the color."
Gar winced. "Cheerleaders?"
"I hate them. Jocks, too."
"I'm a jock," Gar told her, his hurt evident. Rachel thought about that for a minute.
"You're different. Problem five."
"You know, not all cheerleaders are that bad. I mean, sure, there are girls like Kitten Moth and her posse, but they're not all like that. There's this really nice one I know. Her name's Kory Anders."
Rachel practically steamed, and Gar was alarmed at the very sudden change. "You mean that fake, red-headed piece of plastic? Yeah, she's really nice." It was the first of any emotion that Gar had heard from Rachel, but he didn't realize it. She'd just insulted one of his friends, and he wasn't going to stand for it.
"For your information, Kory's not a fake. And I hate seeing her miserable, especially for someone like you, who doesn't even appreciate her. You'd better apologize," he warned. Rachel scoffed again and picked up her things.
"Well then, why're you here trying to learn a subject that doesn't even matter to you with someone like me when you could be off comforting the future Mrs. Logan?"
"Excuse me?" exclaimed Gar.
"I'm done here," Rachel said in her usual, cold, calm voice. She walked out the front door, leaving a furious Gar in her wake.
She couldn't believe he was actually friends with that...thing. Kory Anders was at the top of Rachel's 'Most Hated' list.
Flashback
"You stupid Goth! Ha! You live in a shack! Look at this place!" some cheerleader sneered. Some seven or eight of them had gathered outside her house around ten o'clock and were currently throwing every insult they could find at her. Rachel was having an extremely hard time keeping her cool.
"Get away from here," she warned. The girls just laughed.
"Ready, now!" Kitten Moth yelled.
Food was flying everywhere, hitting the windows, the walls, and even Rachel. "Stop!" she yelled, but in vain. A redheaded cheerleader climbed up the steps to her house and threw her to the ground, smiling triumphantly as who-knows-what now flew into the open door and broke one of the only decorative items Rachel had; a picture frame. Rage coursed through Rachel's veins, and she got up, pushing the cheerleader out of the house and on to the ground. "Leave me alone!"
Kory Anders stared up at her, confused for a second, and then she ran away, just like her other friends. Rachel picked up the picture, the only one she had of her mother, and a single tear fell on to it.
It took her a month to clean up the mess.
End Flashback
That had been almost a year ago. Rachel's hatred of those eight or so girls had not vanished. That didn't count the number of times they insulted her in the hallways, the jocks tried to run her over in Gym, or the disruptions they were in class. As if she didn't already have enough on her mind.
Gar put away the algebra book, still fuming. Rachel couldn't stereotype people like that, especially not Kory. He was far too angry for his abnormally tiny attention span to notice that Rachel Roth had actually talked during the last fifteen minutes she'd been there. He had no idea how much that really meant.
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