Redefine Us

5- realizing

A/N: If you see any misspelled words, misused punctuation, or a sentence that doesn't make sense, let me know in the comments.

Colin Pov:

It's only my first study session with Mel, and she already looks like she would rather be anywhere else right now but here.

"What do you want to start with?" she asks, sitting on the floor with her legs crisscrossed and different math textbooks scattered on the ground in front of her. "I'm pretty sure you're my tutor, so that makes it your job to choose what we should start with," I reply, placing myself down on the floor across her, mirroring how she's sitting.

She rolled her eyes, flipping through the pages of her notebook. "You and I both know you don't need a tutor, Colin."

"Yet here you are."

"I'm only here because one, I was assigned to be your tutor, and two, you chose football over your grades. You're not dumb, Colin. You are just choosing to be."

She's right, but I honestly don't care.

"Algebra 1," I said right before snatching her notebook away from her. "Dick," she shrugged, biting her lip, which caused me to look down and hide the smile that had made its way onto my lips, unintentionally.

***

"Can we take a break now? My brain hurts," I
let out a dramatic sigh, plopping down onto my bed. "It's only been 20 minutes since we started,"

My eyes widened, and I jolted up, looking down at her sitting on the floor, "20 MINUTES?"

She laughed, slightly shaking her head. "An hour. It's been an hour,"

I knew it couldn't have been 20 minutes, but it definitely didn't feel like an hour either. With Mel it felt like seconds? I don't know, but it was kind of fun.

I moved further back on my bed, leaning my head against the headboard with my eyes closed.

I heard Mel clear her throat with an "Ahem" sound, probably trying to get my attention which I would gladly give her.

I opened my eyes and led them to where Mel sat, noticing that she was already looking at me with a bewildered expression.

I raised a brow, "What?"

Her eyes moved toward the part of my arm where the fabric of my shirt had slid up, revealing the lower half of my tattoo there. "When did you get that?"

"Over the summer?" I tried to say, but it came out as more of a question.

I watched her every move as she got up and sat on the edge of the bed. "What's the meaning behind it?"

Oh.

How do I tell her that there was no meaning behind it? If I'm being honest, that would be easy to explain to her, but I mean, how do I tell her that the only reason I got it was because I wanted to feel pain?

I don't. Instead, I lie.

"There's no meaning behind it. I just liked the pattern of the little birds and decided to get it tatted on my arm,"

She doesn't need to know the real reason because then she'd think I'm insane.

Mel hummed in response before getting off the bed and opening her bag to put the textbooks in.

"I should get going now," she says, pointing a finger toward the door.

Fuck.

"You can stay until Elmay gets here. We could even watch a movie like old times," I laugh, getting off my bed to grab the remote on the nightstand. "Uh... I would, but-"