Pride and Joy ✓

thirteen

MONDAY. 29. NOVEMBER. 21.

EDITH set two cups of tea down on the kitchen table and slid into the seat opposite Denver's, gently adjusting her styled curls. They almost made her look like an old movie star.

"I thought you were Nate's problem now," she hummed, her eyes twinkling with a familiar mischief and her lips tugging into a wry smile.

"I am," Denver replied, so sincerely that she couldn't help but wonder if he knew that she was joking.

"Then what do you need my help with?" She inquired, narrowing her eyes curiously and sipping her tea.

"I need help with Nate," he frowned, his hands laying on his lap, underneath the kitchen table.

"Go on," she encouraged.

"When he agreed to help me, it was supposed to be a two-way thing," Denver stressed, riddled with concern as his frown deepened and lines drew tight in the flesh on his face. "But I haven't done anything to help him. It's a little hard when he's trying to get me to embrace my emotions and impulses and I'm trying to stir him the opposite way."

"Yes," she agreed, quirking a brow. "Usually people trying to achieve two opposite goals don't actively work together."

"It's not so much that," he sighed, his lips pressing into a thin line. "In theory, we're trying to balance each other out and that makes sense to me. But then I try to practice it in reality and I have no idea what I'm doing. I need a way to actively help him better himself."

Over the past week, Denver had come to the halting epiphany that Nate had very much been playing his part by encouraging Denver to go to parties and inviting him to the city. Since their Tuesday trip into the city, they'd even spontaneously gone to the movies together and went for waffles at a desert place a few miles away from the mall where they'd adamantly discussed Denver's passions for various mythologies and literature.

In fact, Nate was so successful in engaging Denver in conversation that Denver had began illustrating his words with imaginary pictures drawn in the air— he never used his hands so dramatically when he spoke.

Of course, as soon as he had realised that he'd been doing it, he'd quickly tucked his hands away and hadn't used them so passionately for the rest of the conversation, but he had admittedly gotten pretty carried away with himself— and he never did that either. He never got so lost in himself but Nate had lured him down that path seemingly with little effort.

Unfortunately, this only made him all the more aware that he hadn't done anything to help Nate and, when he'd pointed this out, Nate had continued to insist that it didn't matter until he'd been able to successfully drop the topic and change the subject.

"Tutor him," she said easily, so instantaneously that Denver almost felt a little embarrassed that he hadn't thought of something like that himself.

He looked at her, his frown slipping away until there was nothing left of his expression but a blank stare. "Tutor him?" He echoed dumbly.

"Yes," she grinned tightly, sipping her tea again. "Tutor him."

"You think so?" He asked, fiddling with his fingers and studying her intently.

"I think a lot of things, Denver," she sighed, setting her cup back on the table. "I think that you're a good boy and I think that you can help him by just being around, but I know you need to help him with some kind of physical thing to make you feel like you're actually doing something."

"That's not—" he began. "Well, actually, it is kind of true."

"Not kind of, Denver, dear," she said, shaking her head. "It is true. You want some evidence? Tutor him, help him improve his grades, and I should imagine it'll make you feel helpful."

"It depends what he needs tutoring in," Denver frowned.

"Don't be modest," she scoffed, chuckling to herself a little and running her index finger and thumb over a silver bracelet on her opposite wrist. "I've seen your report card."

He hummed. "I'd like to narrow it down," he insisted. "What's his worst subject?"

Momentarily, she pondered and sipped her tea again. Placing her cup back down, she beamed at him. "English," she said.

"English?"

"Mhm. English," she confirmed. "He's actually very strong with his maths and sciences— even his history isn't too bad— but his English. Lord almighty."

"I thought he'd be good at English," Denver said. "He's so good at understanding people and he makes some pretty good points in class."

"You'd think so," she agreed with a faint smile, a glint of endeared pride in her eye, "but he's also very excitable. He gets all these ideas and gets carried away with himself, starts trying to make too many points at once or gets very deeply involved with one point and then doesn't expand enough. His written vocabulary is almost beautiful sometimes, but he's very cluttered with his structure."

"Didn't realise you were an English teacher," Denver remarked dryly.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "For your information, English was and is my best subject," she said, tilting her chin upwards and failing to suppress. "And I'm very aware that it's also yours. I've read your essays, too, remember?"

It was true. Countless times, Denver had taken his essays over to Edith to hear her praise or her critiques, though it was very heavily the former. He was an English teacher's dream come true, she'd said. Not a single one of his essays had ever achieved lower than an A and, as it turned out, Nate was barely passing the class.

"I guess tutoring him could help somehow," he said finally, chewing on the sides of his thumb.

"It could," she muttered. "Listen, any way that you can help him improve his behaviour or performance works. He'll appreciate it."

"Alright," he nodded. "I'll start tutoring him in English."

"Wonderful," she beamed, clasping her hands together. "Now, let me tell you what Valerie said to me at lunch."

note
planned extra updates this week because I'm really starting to get into my rhythm with this story now!! Figured it would be a good use of my extra time to get some more chapters up while I can

Thanks so much for reading! If you enjoyed then please remember to vote and comment as it massively helps my work!! It also lets me interact with lovely readers and I love doing that!!

originally published
Monday. 20. December. 21.