8. Kelsey
Chapter eight
Kelsey
Thursday was my first day off since I started working at the Liberty Diner, but my looming evening appointment with Quentin had cast a dark cloud on my much-needed break. Watching a couple of old episodes of Hope Hospital had distracted me, but the closer six o’clock came, the more nervous I got. I had no idea what to expect, but I had a gut feeling it wouldn’t be an especially pleasant experience. I’d debated not showing up, but I wanted to stay on Arlene’s good side, so I would just have to grit my teeth and get through it.
I was eyeing the time on my phone, with a knot in my stomach. 5:55. She keeps it on military time? That’s a little odd because she was just talking about six o’clock. I recommend using “5:55 p.m.”Time to pay the stuck-up grump next door a visit. God, I so didn’t want to do this. With my study guides under my arm, I headed for Quentin’s apartment. We hadn’t even started our first session, and I was already wondering how long we would have to do this to appease Arlene.
I knocked on his door—no way back now. I would just have to get it over with and try not to get into another fight with him. Arlene wasn’t wrong. I could use some extra help, but somehow, I doubted this would end up as a very productive partnership.
When Quentin opened the door for me, he looked nervous. Maybe he felt guilty about giving my headphones away. I was still salty about that, but I wouldn’t embarrass myself by asking him why he’d done it. In my opinion, it had been a pretty thoughtful gift and a nice gesture, but I saw no point in speculating. He was probably just a rude asshole.
He cleared his throat and stepped aside to let me in. “Come in.”
His apartment was almost identical to mine, but unlike my place, which looked like someone had raided a thrift store, his looked like an actual adult lived there, a remarkably tidy adult. The apartment was impeccably clean—no worn clothes on the floor, no empty candy bar wrappers, no unopened mail hastily thrown onto a side table. Everything was in perfect order. Even the books in his bookcase—he had a lot of them—looked like they’d been positioned with a ruler. Ryan would have loved it here. He’d scolded me almost daily for letting things lie around the house.
The only odd thing was a big glass box next to the couch. It was filled with gravel and dirt, branches and stones, and it even had a little .
“Who’s in there?” I asked, pointing at the terrarium.
Quentin quickly glanced in the direction I was pointing. “George Washington.”
“Excuse me?”
“My turtle. His name is George Washington.”
I stepped closer and caught sight of a gray-brown turtle, barely larger than my hand, peeking out from under a branch.
“Big name for such a small fellow.”
“I think it suits him,” Quentin said, a hint of defensiveness in his voice. “Can we begin now? ”
As he walked past me to pull out a chair at the dining table, I noticed a fresh, minty scent. Was he wearing cologne? For me ? I gave him a suspicious side-eye as I sat down. Good Lord, he wasn’t thinking this was… that we would…? Sure, he was attractive, and he definitely smelled nice, but we weren’t exactly on friendly terms, and I’d had enough of men treating me less than. I was here to study, nothing else.
Quentin gestured toward a pile of papers on the table. “This is a mock GED exam. I thought this would be the most straightforward way to determine your current level,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice and pushed a pen toward me.
That didn’t exactly sound like sweet talk to me. Good . He hadn’t gotten any funny ideas about what was going to happen tonight. I relaxed and pulled the exam toward me.
“I just… do these questions?”
“Yes.”
“And what will you do?”
“I will be grading some homework assignments if you don’t mind.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Sure, why not?”
“Good,” he said and pushed a button on his phone. “We start with science. You have thirty minutes per subject.”
“Wait, you’re going to time me?”
“Yes, the real exam is going to have a time limit too.”
“But—”
“You should start now.”
Without further comment, he put a stack of his own papers on the table and uncapped a red pen.
I was a bit taken aback. Quentin didn’t look like he was planning on being a very involved tutor, but maybe it was better that way. I could focus on the task in front of me without him meddling .
The first question showed a graph with colorful lines and a bunch of letters and numbers I vaguely remembered from my high school science classes. The lines didn’t make much sense to me, so I continued with the next question, something about crossing chromosomes. I took my best guess. The next one was about Newton’s laws, and I had no idea how to answer that one either.
I felt my face flush. I was in way over my head, and this idea was stupid anyway, taking this fake exam without studying for it. What would that accomplish, except humiliating me?
I looked up at Quentin, but he didn’t notice, too focused on scribbling comments on his students’ homework. Maybe he’d done this on purpose. Maybe he wanted to embarrass me as some kind of revenge or just because sometimes men enjoyed making women feel stupid.
“So, you teach social studies, right?” I asked just so I wouldn’t have to face my lacking knowledge of Newton’s laws again.
“Hmm.” He didn’t look up.
“Do you like it?”
“Yes, very much.” His tone was polite, but after a brief glance in my direction, he returned his attention to his papers.
“How long have you been—”
“I think you should get back to the test,” he said. “You have fifteen minutes left.”
“Yes, Mr. Avery,” I said, not even trying to ban the sarcasm from my voice.
I freestyled the last few answers in the science section and continued to social studies, his field of expertise. I would score just as badly as I did in science—I already knew that—so I didn’t waste any time on this part. Math was next—finally, something I didn’t totally suck at.
By then, Quentin had finished grading his students’ homework and had moved on to silently watching me, brows furrowed, arms crossed .
The weight of his gaze made me uncomfortable. Could he tell how hard I was struggling?
I glanced up. “Are you just going to sit there and stare at me?”
“Why? Does it bother you?” he asked. “The real exam will be under supervision too.”
I pressed my lips together. “No, it’s fine.”
He shrugged. “If it bothers you, I can make myself busy. Pass me the parts you’ve finished, please.”
“What? Why?”
“So I can start going through your answers.”
I complied reluctantly.
As I moved on to the language section of the exam, he took out his red pen again and had a go at my answers.
I tried to focus on my remaining questions, but the sound of his pen aggressively crossing out my answers put me on edge.
“Do you have to write so loud?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Write… loud ?”
“It’s distracting.”
“I have to mark your mistakes, don’t I?”
“From the sound of it, there are a lot.”
He looked at me for a moment. “Yes. There are.”
I scoffed. “I never wanted to do this in the first place, so stop gloating, okay?”
“Gloating?” He looked irritated. “I’m not gloating, but I’m going to be honest with you. This will necessitate considerable effort.”
I leaned back, glowering at him. “Do you always talk like this?”
“Yes,” he said hesitantly.
A bubble of pent-up anger burst somewhere deep inside of me. I was sick and tired of people treating me like I was stupid. Yeah, maybe I wasn’t a genius. I had dropped out of high school, and I struggled with tax forms, and I occasionally forgot to buy milk and yes, I had no freaking idea about Newton and his stupid laws, but he didn’t need to rub this in my face.
With frustration, I forcefully flung my pen onto the table. “Does that make you feel good, huh? Does it make you feel better about your messed-up face when you can talk down to little trailer-trash Kelsey?”
My words hit him like a bullet. As he looked at me, a wave of hurt washed over his face, almost making me regret what I’d just said. Then his expression hardened, and his eyes went cold.
“I think you should finish your exam,” he said, sounding like he had to work hard to steady his voice.
I thrust the pages toward him. “So you can ridicule me some more? Forget it. I’m done.”
I jumped up so fast that my chair toppled over, landing on the kitchen tiles with a loud clank.
I dashed out of Quentin’s apartment, not looking back, fleeing from his arrogant judgment and a sour mix of my own guilt and shame.