Love and Latin

CHAPTER 2

The next day - after endless pacing and practiced conversations - Alora finally plucks up the courage to approach her new tutor.

As she walks over to his locker - on which he intimidatingly leans - she wonders why he signed up for the tutoring program in the first place.

"Hey." She says but neither him nor his loud chatty friends seems to hear her. She regrets choosing this exact moment to address this but with Silas, it was impossible to tell when he'd be in school. She clears her throat.

"Hello." Louder, she speaks.

"Who are you?" A boy - not Silas - says. She knows immediately who he is by his lanky frame and bloodshot eyes. This boy is named Jason Murphy. Just Murphy to his friends. And he is a complete asshole.

"Silas, can I talk to you?" Alora asks, completely ignoring Jason Murphy's question.

"Like hell you can." Jason speaks. Alora is beginning to get irritated by Silas' lap dog talking while Silas himself just studies her.

Finally, Silas begins to walk away from his friends looking pleasantly irritated. Him and Alora stop walking a little distance away from everyone. They're being watched by his friends but she's run out of the patience to care.

"My name is-" Alora begins but is quickly cut off.

"Alora. I know that." He says, hand casually clutching his bag strap, looking at her expectantly. Alora saves this in the recess of her mind to ponder on later.

"Can you speed up your love confession? We need our boy back." Murphy yells from a distance away.

"This isn't a love confession, asshole!" Alora yells back. The hall goes silent but to Silas she says, "You're my new Latin tutor."

Silas scoffs. "Where's the punchline."

"This isn't a joke."

"Right, because it isn't funny." He adjusts the strap on his shoulder. "Who decided this?"

"Mrs. Porter." Alora was confused now, was he not expecting to get this gig when he signed up? "Why are you surprised? Didn't you sign up for the tutoring program?"

"What about me makes you think I signed up for a fucking tutoring program?"

Alora considers this and resents him for making her feel stupid now.

"Find someone else." He says and begins to walk away.

"Wait!" Alora says, cursing herself for how desperate she sounds. She did ask the guidance counsellor if anyone else was available but turns out, just like her, no one else cared much for the language. He's the only one who signed up. "Please," she all but pleads, "you're the only one who signed up."

She hands him the sheet of paper given to her yesterday. Silas looks at it, looks at her and his eyes soften a fraction. "I'll clear this up." He says, leaving Alora defeated.

~*•~*•

Silas Lane hates a lot of things. He hates bright colours, he hates any music that doesn't involve screaming, he hates un-customised number plates, the word 'yolk', the sound old people make when chewing, his uniform and his name. He especially hates the thought of doing anything for anyone. So, walking to Mrs. Porter's class at lunch, he was filled with dread. Dread over the fact that he was doing this for someone else. Dread over the fact that he was in school today.

Alora to him was a classmate. Just the girl who sat in front of him in Latin and probably Abarcy Academy's top student. Although, because of her lack of Latin skills, maybe not. Alora to him was the girl with a cool name. The girl who always kept her head down. She was merely another girl from school, maybe with more secrets and less diamonds in her ears. Silas thought she was mute when he first spoke to her. Silas also thought she had nice lips.

"What the fuck is this?" He asked Mrs. Porter upon entering her empty class.

"Language, Silas." Mrs. Porter says, typing away at her computer, unfazed, almost like she was expecting this.

"I didn't sign up to tutor anyone. Get her a new tutor." He was trying very very hard not to lose it. He didn't like it when the people he talked to showed no concern for the conversation. That was usually his thing.

"Your brother signed you up. And I think it's a good idea for you to tutor her." Mrs. Porter spares him a glance. "Maybe this responsibility will ensure you report to school more often."

She had some serious balls. "So all this was some elaborate scheme to get me to sit through hell?"

"You're very creative with your words."

"I wish I could say the same."

"And no, this wasn't some elaborate scheme. Your brother thought it would be a good idea for you and I thought it could help Alora." She said. "You are the best student in my class." This last part was a matter of fact.

"I think it's illegal to sign me up without my consent." His voice was bordering on venomous.

"If it's for your own good, I don't think it is."

Silas was beginning to get annoyed at the length of this conversation. "Alora is not my problem." He tries a different approach.

"Don't think of it like that. For reasons I can't discuss with you, she could really use your help."

Silas remembers the desperate way she said 'please', the look on her face before he walked away, the colour of her eyes.

He left the class and stormed off towards the exit. Phone in hand, he texted his brother a simple, meaningful: "Fuck you, shitbag. I hope you get shot in the foot."

Ignoring his brother's call, he stalks over to his car. Contemplating when to call the principal to sort all this out because this tutoring thing was not happening.

Before getting in his car, he looks up and sees Alora unchaining her bike. She looks tired and her hands shake. Now that he thinks of it, he's never seen her with friends, or in the lunch hall, or happy. He reckons if he really thought about it, he could conjure up the reason why she needed to pass Latin. She was a mystery to him in this moment. A girl with secrets, a girl with a scar on her neck.

Silas was not calling the principal.