Learning Sucks

Author's Note - YAY, NEW STORY! I feel comfortable posting this because I've been working on it like CRAZY and I've got almost three "chapters" done. Anyway, this is the sequel to "Kiss Him" the truth-or-dare story. I don't think you have to read that one to get this one, but it wouldn't hurt! (Besides, Kiss Him is pretty short.) Oh, and as for the video that inspired "Kiss Him", here it is: (go to youtube dot com /watch?vgiizTfYqKWk ... ) Fictionpress clearly does like web addresses.

---

It wasn’t even three months into my junior year of high school (two months and twelve days to be exact, not that I was counting or anything) and already things were going downhill at full speed. Let’s see how many ways we can make Dante’s life suck, shall we? Put Dante’s ex boyfriend Asshole – I mean Aaron – and his new boyfriend in Dante’s first period class so the poor boy has to see them every morning and try to concentrate on Wuthering Heights at the same time. Which is pretty impossible, and a guaranteed recipe for an “F” on my progress report, which made my mom mad, and Mrs. Schulz (my English teacher) decided that she, Mom and I needed to have a meeting. So we had a meeting and Mrs. Schulz told my mom about all my missing homework assignments (I hadn’t realized there was so many) and then suggested that I get a tutor to help me. And I argued and whined but Mom thought it was a good idea and so Mrs. Schulz made an appointment for me to come after school on Wednesday to meet my tutor and stuff.

So it’s Wednesday and I just walked into Mrs. Schulz’s room and she’s not here at all. Instead, there’s some redheaded kid. He looks pretty tall (but he’s sitting down so I can’t really tell) and he’s kind of big, like chubby but not really. His hair is cut kind of close to his head and his ears stick out. Plus his nose is kind of big and he has these dorky-looking glasses. Not the hot emo-boy rectangle glasses, but round ones like nerds wear. I guess maybe he is a nerd, though, but he doesn’t look nerdy like Mariel is, you know, with her obsession with math and Star Trek. He looks like the nerdy where he reads a lot and always has to answer questions first.

“You must be Dante,” he said, and I wanted to say something stupid like ‘no, I’m Elvis Presley, want an autograph?’ but I decided that being an asshole wasn’t worth it if this guy was supposed to help me get a good grade.

“Yeah, I’m Dante,” I replied, “Where’s Schulz?” I asked, not that I wanted her to be there but being with a strange nerdy guy in a classroom in a school that was pretty much empty was kind of weird.

“She has things to do, and she said we didn’t need supervision. My name is Ethan, by the way. Have a seat,” he said, and did that weird gesture thing that people sometimes do when they’re telling you where to sit. So I pulled out the chair that was next to him and sat down.

“Okay, well let’s get started, I got stuff to do,” I said, folding my hands on the table in front of me. Ethan rolled his eyes.

“I hope you don’t take offense, but it’s obvious why you aren’t doing so well in English,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, wondering if I was supposed to be offended or not, since I didn’t really know what he meant.

“You should have said ‘I have things to do’, not ‘I got things to do’. You used the wrong word, and therefore I can see you doing poorly in English if you can’t even speak properly,” he explained. Oh, great, so I got a pompous nerdy weirdo for my tutor. And he wasn’t even cute. This was going to suck.

“Whatever. Look, can we just get this over with?” I asked, sighing. I fiddled with the rainbow of jelly bracelets on my wrist and wondering if maybe I should get some more.

“Why don’t we start with the book? How far have you read so far?” he wanted to know. I stared at him blankly.

“What book?” I asked. It wasn’t that I was trying to be dumb, but I couldn’t remember what it was we were supposed to be reading.

“Oedipus Rex,” he said, “have you even looked at it?” he asked. I shook my head. Ethan rolled his eyes, but grabbed a book out of his backpack and handed it to me. Oedipus Rex? What happened to Wuthering Heights I wondered.

“We can’t do much until you get started. So, go home and read the first 20 pages of this, and we’ll meet again after school on Monday,” Ethan suggested.

“That’s it?” I asked. He stood up and started putting his things back in his backpack. I was a bit confused.

“For now, yes,” he replied, looking a little annoyed with me. I didn’t say anything in reply to that, and Ethan left the room. Well this was a complete and total waste of time, I thought to myself. And he wasn’t even cute or anything. I know I already mentioned that, but it bugged me that I couldn’t even have a cute tutor like the girls in the movies always did. My life officially sucked.

---

Author's Note - I swear, I'm not like Ethan. I don't correct people's grammar or the way they talk... much... (actually, my friends get annoyed, especially when I told one of them that "alot" is not a word... it's 'a lot' for those that didn't know.) BUT IT'S ALL GOOD! The world needs more people that know proper grammar!