Smoked Success

16.

"Sure." I assure him. It's only fair that I listen to him after I've scolded him.

"My mother's been nagging and asking me if you gave any lessons at home," he starts, rolling his eyes, " she wants to sign me up for whatever that is because that's what she did with Mr. Worthington. She wanted me to get better grades but I don't know why she'd think such thing would help."

"Like tutoring?" I ask him as he nods. I don't usually do that, but if that would make him focus and sort of like economics, why not?

"It's okay if you don't, she just wanted me to ask." He states. I get how embarrassing that sounds to him, but it's actually a good idea.

"Would you promise not to draw and listen if it were so?" I raise my eyebrows. I should be rushing to driving school but here am I caring if a student likes economics or not.

"Can't promise, but I'll definitely try." He smirks. "Is that a yes though?" As if he doesn't know, Andrew's smart, he just doesn't focus on the shit I explain in class.

"Yes, but how many times a week?" I question. I hope it's not a lot.

"With Mr. Worthington, it was two to three times." He replies, looking at his phone. "I'd prefer none, but you're sort of better than him, so I wouldn't mind three."

"Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, does that suit you?" I look at my schedule and choose the days I don't have to go to driving school, which I'll soon be done with.

"Yeah." He shrugs. "Most of my class days are done at three or four p.m."

"Mondays and Wednesdays from six p.m. to seven p.m." I tell him, come on I might finish sort of earlier on Wednesday but I need a little break of teaching. "As for Fridays, directly after school from what? Four thirty till five thirty? This way you don't miss any frat parties or whatever you do."

"Good for me. Friday's my first hour?" He continues doing whatever he's doing on his phone.

"Yeah." I smile at him, trying to give him hope.

"I can drive you home if you want, this way I know the address." He offers.

"I'm not going home, like right now. But we can definitely do that on Friday, I finish at two but I'll wait for you, it's okay." I cannot believe I'm giving him a glimpse of my schedule.

"Great, thanks." He says and leaves. "See you tomorrow." And he's out.

I seriously need to run to driving school, I'm so late.

I'm glad it's Friday, weekend, finally. This weekend, I have to get Angelina, Mom and Dad a gift, or else I'm dead. Angelina's woken up, and she's dying to see me, in two weeks exactly, but she has a broken arm. I'm looking forward to meeting her, but I'm not looking forward to pay for the flight to Washington. I start my day off with sophomores, who weren't so bad, their lessons are though. Since today's one of the short days, I wore an empire long sleeved grey going black dress and a black pair of converse. I'm in a slightly better mood, knowing everything's fine now.

End of the day, finally, now I have to wait two hours, for Andrew. Even if Andrew weren't coming to my house, I have a meeting today, about the student exchange we're doing. I'm not very excited for that, because this year, we're exchanging with London, Oxford University. I see Mr. Graumier, the French teacher, I have no clue what he'd do in this meeting, since it's only major teachers.

"Good afternoon." I smile at the rest of the teachers and sit down in one of the few places left, next to the French teacher.

"Good afternoon Jessica," Henry, that was his first name, greets with his French accent, "how was your day?"

"Assez bien." I reply to him, in French. I used to be in a French school till the age of eleven, good times. "Vous?" It felt good, you know, speaking in a language that you didn't speak everyday.

"Parfait." He smiles at me. "What are you doing for Noel?" Noel's another name for Christmas, if anyone didn't know that before.

"Washington, DC." I answer, looking at my phone for any texts from Mom, Dad or anyone basically. I'll spend Christmas with my parents and the rest of the family, but New Year's will be in Los Angeles, I've got a very tight schedule. "You?"

"Nice." He says, meaning the city in France, not the adjective. The school's headmaster gets in and all teachers stand up, the meeting has started.

"So, this is where I, your economics teacher, live." I give Andrew a nervous smile, opening the door to my apartment. "I'll get you some water, sit down if you want."

"Jessica," he says, hesitant, but continues when he notices I didn't interrupt him to correct the use of my first name, "where's that famous daughter of yours?" Oh that was unexpected, very, I'm surprised as I fill water, which sort of dropped on the counter.

"London, with her father." I tell him, not wanting to complicate stuff, he doesn't need to know that my daughter's been beaten up by her father and that we're changing custody and stuff.

"You're divorced?" His eyes widen, then he takes a sip of his water.

"No." I give him a very confused look, like why on earth would he think so. I mean, yes, I have to share an apartment with two other persons to afford a living, and yes I do not live with my daughter for now, but that doesn't necessarily mean I was married previously.

"He couldn't get a visa to here?" Andrew asks.

"Her father's not even my partner, clear?" I snap at him, sick of his questions. Andrew doesn't say anything, he just stares blankly at the ceiling, trying not to make eye contact with me. "I'm sorry, that was a little harsh of me." I mean, he doesn't really deserve me snapping about this, Jake might be a dickhead for what he did to Angelina, but I won't blame Andrew on that.

"He must be stupid for not dating you." He whispers, but I can still hear him.

"I really hope you understood this time, please tell me you did." I wrap up my lesson, which wasn't so bad, it's easier than explaining it to 35 persons. It's still stressing though, knowing if the person's understanding or not.

"It's not that hard, a little confusing, yes, but not so hard." He answers, smiling, showing his dimples. Yes, mission accomplished. I'm happy he understood. "Thank you for bothering to explain to me, you know like especially me while I'm pretty sure the rest of the class knows what this is." It's my job for god's sake.

"He's five years younger than me, by the way." I say, talking about Jake. He did seem to want to know more about that and Jake's already always on my mind because of Angelina, that son of a bitch.

"Who?" Andrew narrows his eyes. "Oh, you mean your daughter's father."

"Yes, him." I roll my eyes, writing my Christmas list. Wristwatch for dad, makeup set for mom, no clue for Angelina, new pipe for grandpa, yeah smoking sort of ran in the family. "Anyways, you'll see her soon." And that stresses the shit out of me out, if Angelina tells him the wrong thing, I might be exposed all around campus. "You can leave, it's over." I smile at him, and it's a very weak one.

He puts an envelope on my desk, stands up, waves at me as I smile at him and leave. I get the envelope closer to me, for Miss Styles is written in a handwriting that doesn't seem like his. I open that, a small letter in the same handwriting continues, thanking me for welcoming Andrew for tutoring, at the end it signs Mrs. Haddad and one hundred dollars are attached to the paper. Andrew and I haven't agreed about any amount of money for this tutoring thing, my whole purpose of education isn't for the money anyway, I don't get it, why's that lady paying me? I'll give Andrew back the money the next time he's here.

Oh my, it's already the end of Monday. The days are passing so quick I can't, the closer it is to Christmas, the more I stress about Angelina. My mood did seem off today, since I'm very tired of everything. I went out with Smith again this weekend, and he doesn't celebrate Christmas, I have no clue why. Carmel says we'd look very cute together, and that she prefers Smith over Christian. He does drive me home about everyday since I usually finish on his break times, but we're just close friends, that's it. I get out of university just to see the person I was expecting the least. Great, just great.