Something About September
Prologue
Dear Diary,
It’s only a week into my final year of high school, and I already wish I could time travel to next fall. When I’ll be in Toronto, at university, far away from here, and my whole life will finally be different.
We didn’t actually invent autumn. I guess that’s obvious.
Anyway, today’s disaster happened after English class. Mrs. Albemarle asked if I’d tutor Cort Adams. Apparently he’s in danger of getting kicked off the football team if he doesn’t keep his grades up, and English is his worst subject because he “hates reading.”
Mrs. Albemarle usually looks like she’s just bitten into a crab apple, but she actually smiled when she talked about Cort.
She went on about how he’s our “only chance” at keeping the town’s football pennant dynasty alive, how he’s a “legendary quarterback, just like his father.” I may have pointed out that “legendary” was a stretch.
Cue the crab apple frown. But I said yes.
Because even though Grannie Lenore says she’s been squirreling tuition money away for years, I know the diner isn’t exactly lucrative.
I want to help as much as I can. If tutoring Cort means extra credit, and extra credit means keeping my English average above 95 so I can get the best scholarship, then I’ll do it.
And I can admit: Cort might not be entirely awful, even with the whole jock-swagger thing he has going.
The other day, when the rest of the football team were shooting spitballs at poor Crispin Klune in the cafeteria, Cort told them to knock it off and actually helped Crispin clean himself up.
And, okay, it’s hard not to notice the whole broad-shoulders, crooked-smile thing.
Or the way he looks at you like you’re the only person in the world.
I know this because after school today, he caught up with me in the hall.
His hair was all floppy and he tossed it out of his eyes in this ridiculous way and said, “I can’t believe the smartest girl in class is going to tutor me—I hope I don’t embarrass myself.
” My heart started racing, my palms went all sweaty, and I turned bright red.
Which is bad, because I’m not in some 1980s rom-com movie where I suddenly take off my glasses, realize how beautiful I am, and get to be prom queen.
That is not what I want! I just want a scholarship, not to become a complete cliché if I fall for the quarterback while tutoring him. In English. I mean, c’mon.
Of course, when I told Sabrina, she practically fainted.
“Who cares if he’ll never get the difference between a metaphor and a simile?
He’s so cute!” she squealed. The most accurate simile for Sabrina is that she’s like a walking, talking ray of sunshine, which is usually nice but today just made me crankier.
Because she’s not wrong. Cort is cute. So cute that when he said that thing about me being the smartest girl, I literally couldn’t form words.
Send help,
Rebecca