His Scarred Love

Chapter 6 - [New Style]

She continued to tutor me every single day after school and I swear to god my marks went flying. I never thought French would be this easy. Or Math. Or Bio. Physics was an ass though, I had to admit.

Plus my teachers were going crazy. One asked me if I switched places with a twin that they don’t know about, and he waI came to school the next Monday looking like a whole new person. I didn’t think I’d actually do it, but I was motivated with the thought that I would be cleared of suspicion of being the guy who kicked that ball.

But I really didn’t think I’d go far enough to see my mom smile at me and compliment me this morning.

I had cut my hair very, very short and got a line up. No more long hair that fell over my eyes and could easily pull into a stubby ponytail. I had even shaved off the beard that I was hoping to grow into a petit goatee.

And then came the clothes I wear. I had completely changed my style. Rather than wearing baggy clothes and pants that were usually worn too low, I was wearing a tight, long-sleeved shirt (which I actually liked because it showed my abs) and my jeans weren’t low anymore. But just to satisfy myself with this change, I had gotten a sick as belt with a hot belt buckle which was shaped like the transformers logo and even had red jewels on it.

One thing that didn’t change was my Nikes. No one could take my Nikes away from me.

I knew this would happen, but I could never get used to the fact that people were staring at me. They did double takes and some even found my sudden change funny. But the staring was getting annoying.

Even Mr. Alton.

He stopped in the middle of the hallway and stared. “Nate?”

I sighed. “Hey, sir.”

“Wow.”

“Does it really look bad?”

“Are you insane? It looks good!” He grinned.

“Really?” I asked as I felt my face brighten up.

Mr. Alton laughed. “Yes, I have to admit, you looked like a crack head before.”

I frowned.

“But, why the sudden change in style?”

I didn’t say anything.

He grinned some more. “Oh… it’s for a girl, isn’t it?”

I shrugged.

“My, my, the things you boy do for these girls. No wonder they’re taking over the world.”

“Maybe it’s that mindset of yours that’s keeping you single.” I started to grin too.

He laughed. “Maybe.” He started walking again but kept his eyes on me. “So I’m assuming that you’re going to stop skipping classes now.”

I frowned. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Good. Because you’re going to have to write me an in class commentary today. How do you like that? Fun, fun, fun.”

I groaned.

He walked past me, chuckling. “I’ll see you in class, Nate.”

As soon as he left, I heard loud laughter. I turned around and saw my friends. “Nate? Holy crap, is that you?”

I sighed.

My friends continued to laugh for quite a while before they could collect themselves and speak. “Where’d all your hair go?!” Justin asked.

I rolled my eyes. “I needed a haircut.”

Tristan slapped my back. “It looks good man.” He said, still laughing. “And I swear the only reason I’m laughing is because I know why you did it and I can’t believe you actually went through with it.”

The rest of them slowly stopped laughing. “Why?”

I hesitated. “Cause Nikita said she’ll go out with me if I look decent.” I admitted.

“What?” Justin asked. “So you changed yourself?”

“You’re the one who told me to make her fall in love with me.”

Justin hesitated. “Oh yeah.” He then turned to Tristan. “I thought you didn’t like the idea.” Justin said.

“I don’t.” Tristan replied.

Justin looked confused. “Then why do you seem okay with it?”

Tristan smiled and shrugged. He was definitely not okay with this, but something made him calm down.

I sighed. “Guys, I’m going to go look for Nikita.” I said. “She better like this.” I added as I walked away.

I walked down to her locker and saw that she was with her friends, including Jen. Jen was the first one to see me and her mouth fell open. “Nathan?”

I ignored her and looked at Nikita.

Nikita turned around as soon as she heard my name and her eyes widened. “Ohmygosh…”

I smiled. “I told you I’d do it.”

She was definitely speechless.

I walked up to her. “Ok, so, I asked about you tutoring me… you never ended up answering my question… so, will you tutor me?”

She hesitated. “Um…”

Jen stepped towards me. “Why the hell are you talking to her?” She asked, getting all up in my face. “I thought I told you to—”

“Jen…” Nikita called softly as she put her hand on Jen’s shoulder.

Jen shut up and looked at her. “What?”

Nikita looked at me. “Yes.” She smiled. “I will. Free of charge… but you have to promise me that you’ll always be on time and you’ll always try hard.”

I grinned. “Sure, I promise.”

“Wait, what? Are you serious Nikita? I thought I told you he was a bad guy!” Jen yelled.

I rolled my eyes at her and Nikita smiled. “Don’t worry.” She said to Jen. “I can handle this.”

“Okay, I’m going to class.” I said, before Jen could open her annoying mouth. “I’ll see you later.”

Nikita smiled. “And your first class is afterschool today at 3:10 in the library. Got it?”

I hesitated. “Oh, okay…” I said. “I’ll see you then.”

She smiled and I walked away.

I was definitely on time after school. She was there already though, reading a book. I smiled as I sat down in front of her. “Hey.”

She looked up at me, a little surprised.

“What, did you think I wouldn’t show?” I asked.

She nodded. “Actually, yes.”

“Well, just to let you know, I actually want to start passing my classes.” I said.

“Which classes are you failing?” She asked.

“Math, Bio, Chem, Physics and French.”

She seemed upset. “What are your marks?”

“I’m getting a 49% in Math, 45% in Bio, 48% in Physics and 32% in French.” I said, truthfully.

She seemed to look like she was trying to hide her amazement at my failure. “Well…” she started, “they’re all fairly high fails so I’m sure that if you work a little harder you can get them over 50%. I think we should start with French. French is the easiest to pass.”

“That why I took the damned course. They said it was easy.”

She frowned. “Even if it’s easy, you can’t pass unless you try.”

I sighed and pulled my binders out of my bag. “I’m depending on you to help me get my marks up.”

She smiled. “I’ll try my best.”

While she taught me, I tried my hardest not to look at her scar. I tried to concentrate on other things, like her smell. She smelled really nice.

But in the end, something strange happened… I actually felt like I was learning something.

Maybe I was actually going to hit more than two birds with one stone.

s serious.

One afternoon, I walked into the library and placed the Math test in front of her. “Eighty-three.” I grinned.

She smiled. “Very nice!” She said as she looked through it. “But you made a silly mistake here.” She pointed at the third question.

I frowned. “Hey. I did pretty well.”

“I know! I’m just saying! What happens if you get a question like this on your exam? You have to make sure that you don’t make the same mistake twice.” She held up her right hand pointer when she spoke. It was something that I noticed she always did when she was trying to... well, disciple me. Along with that, she raised both her eyebrows.

I listened as she explained how to do the problem and then sighed.

“What?” She asked.

“Do I still need to be tutored?” I could be playing basketball with the guys right now.

She hesitated and leaned back into her chair. “Well, I think you’re doing great. So it’s really up to you. If you want to be tutored, I’ll do it, if not then you can stop and we’ll both go our own ways.”

I hesitated. “Wait… what?”

She smiled at me. “I know that you don’t actually like me, Nathan.”

I frowned. “Why would you say that?” I asked. It was true that I really didn’t like her as, well, a crush or anything… but I did think she was a good person and I actually think I like her as a friend.

“Well, everyone’s talking about it… I mean, we all know that you need some help, but honestly, you don’t need to ask me out to get that help. If you just asked me to help you with your work, I would have gladly helped.”

My frown deepened. “And you’re going to believe ‘everyone’ rather than me?” I asked, though ‘everyone’ was right.

She looked down and sighed.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t listen to what ‘everyone’ says.”

“Well it makes complete sense… I mean, no one can actually like me! You know, my boyfriend broke up with me after this happened?” Her normally cute face suddenly changed. She frowned and narrowed her eyes, looking at me strangely. She suddenly looked like mean b***h. I couldn’t believe that she could change that quickly. “How could anyone ever love someone who’s practically handicap?”

“You aren’t handicapped.”

“Yes I am. I’m blind in one eye.”

I hesitated. “So? What difference does it make, handicap or not? Albert Einstein was disabled. Beethoven was deaf. Stephen Hawking is in a wheelchair. And Tom Cruise, my favourite actor, is dyslexic! I don’t think being disabled messes up your life, I think it can make you better… at least, if you let it.”

She stared at me, looking surprised, and her bitchy look completely disappeared.

“f**k your ex-boyfriend. He can go jump off a cliff and die.” I was trying to be nice. “I mean, obviously all he cares about are looks. He’s much more disabled then you’ll ever be. I mean, you may be blind in one eye but you have a good heart.” I smiled at her. “He, however, is totally blind to everything other than good looking girls. I can’t believe he didn’t even see that you are such a nice person and I can’t believe that he couldn’t see that you were still capable of loving people. But there’s a good side to what happened to you, you know?”

She just looked at me, eyes wide.

“Now you’ll know who really loves you. I mean, the next guy that loves you will be the guy that loves you for more than just your looks.” I suddenly felt absolutely uncomfortable… what was I saying?

Her eyes got watery and she started to cry. “Are you serious?” She asked.

I was now confused. “Umm, about what? Why are you crying?”

People started to turn around and look at us.

She shook her head, trying to hold back her tears.

I started to feel bad, had I hurt her feelings? Maybe it sounded like I was calling her disabled.

Then, suddenly, she wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me, crying on my shoulder.

I sat there, frozen in shock.

“Thank you so much… thank you for saying that…” She cried.

I hesitated but patted her back. “Um… I was only saying the truth… it’s what I think.” I bit my lip. Was that really how I felt?

But she pulled away as quickly as she had hugged me. “Sorry…” She said, looking around and wiping her tears.

I put my hand on my neck and looked around too. A lot of people were looking.

She then smiled at me. “Thanks, really.”

I nodded. “Don’t worry about it.”

After that, she continued to tutor me, as if nothing had happened at all. I was surprised by the fact that she wasn’t acting awkward around me… actually, I was sort of happy.

I ended up walking her home after that, of course, there was no romance involved in the walk home. We just talked.

I found out that she has an annoying younger brother and strict parents. She wants to be a music teacher and she loves kids.

She’s also apparently really into Disney. Her favourite movie is the Lion King and her second favourite was Peter Pan. Going to Disney World is one of her dreams.

Another thing I learned was that she loved to read. It was her favourite way to “get out of this world.”

When we got to her house, I realized it was much smaller than I thought it would be. Actually, it was only a bit bigger than my own. She told me that she would love to invite me in, but her parents wouldn’t be too happy with that.

I told her that it’s okay, and I need to get home anyway.

When I turned around and started walking back, she called me. “Nate!”

I looked at her. “Yeah?”

She had a huge smile on her face. “I just thought I should let you know that I don’t think you’re a crack head anymore.”

I laughed.

When I got home, my mom was upset with the fact that I was late. She started yelling at me, at least until I showed her that math test I aced and told her that I was getting tutored.

I was slightly insulted by how speechless she was.