Dare

Three

EDITED: December 2020

After school the next day, Theo came over to my house to start with this tutoring thing. 

"You really don't understand math at all, do you?" He asked, flipping through my test file. Geez, dude, just call me a dumb bitch and go.

"Isn't it obvious?" I asked, rolling my eyes. 

"Well maybe if you'd stop doodling in your book and actually listen to Mr Douglas, you'd get somewhere," He said with a teasing smile. 

"How can anyone listen to that old dinosaur?" I scoffed. 

No literally, Mr Douglas is like seven hundred years old. 

"Alright," He chuckled. "You really have no idea what's going on in geometry, so we'll start with that."

The next hour was spent with Theo explaining all these geometry things to me, but I honestly had no idea what was going on. 

"Theo, this is hopeless," I groaned, getting up from my desk and flopping down onto my bed. 

"Ella, you can do it. It really isn't that difficult if you apply yourself," He said, coming over and sitting down next to me. 

"I'm not a logical person," I sighed. "I'm creative."

"Yeah, I know," He said, smiling a little at me. "I've seen your sketches and paintings for art."

"And it's not like I'm ever going to use any of this stuff after school," I grumbled. 

"Oh yeah? What are your plans?" He asked. 

Sitting up and grabbing my heart shaped pillow, I began to tell him about my future plans. "I want to become a photographer. You know, photograph celebrities, models, that kinda thing."

"Those your own?" He asked, pointing to the photographs in frames on my wall of either scenery or my family. 

"Yeah," I nodded with a small smile. 

"You're talented," He observed. 

"Glad someone thinks so," I said with a sad smile. 

"What? No one else thinks you're good?" He asked, sounding a little surprised. 

"Well, it's not that they don't think I'm good, my parents, well just my dad actually, just... He doesn't think I need to make a career after high school," I muttered.

"Why not?" He asked with a small frown. 

"Well he and my mom have got my sister and I set basically for life, so they don't think we need to pursue stuff after school," I told him. "My dad grew up dirt poor in Boston and spent most of his childhood and teen years struggling to get by. He always says education is important but he's worked hard to make sure Kendall and I can live comfortably for the rest of our lives without stressing about things like school."

"But if photography is what you love to do, then you shouldn't let anyone stop you," He said. 

I couldn't help but smile a little at him. "Yeah, I guess," I said.

"What's that?" He asked, pointing to the words painted on my wall. 

"Oh, my mom did that before I was born," I explained to him. 

"Tu puo essere a tre, tredici o trenta, ma sarai sempre la mia bambina," He read, pronouncing each Italian word perfectly. "You can be three, thirteen or thirty, but you'll always be my baby," He translated. 

"Yeah," I nodded. "She had it done in Italian so I'd never forget my roots."

"You're Italian?" He asked. 

"Uh huh," I nodded. "Mom's Italian and dad's American. My mom came here to live with her aunt when she started high school and she never left," I told him. 

"Well now I know something more about you," He said. 

"Yeah, you do," I said, giving him a small smile. "Wait, you speak Italian?"

"A little bit," He answered. "My mom's from Spain but lived in Italy for a few years so we speak Spanish at home and the slightest bit of Italian when we speak to my mom's friends over there."

Oh, okay.

"You ready to tackle that geometry again?" He asked, returning the smile. 

"Theo, I'm hopeless at math," I pouted. 

"You'll get through it," He said as we walked back to my desk. 

"You think?" I asked, my grey eyes looking into his blue ones. 

"I know so," He said. 

I nodded, and then opened my math book, ready to try and at least understand some of this geometry. 

*

"So uh, we'll go over this again on Friday," Theo said as we walked down the winding staircase. 

"Yeah, sure," I nodded. 

"And Ella, you can totally get your grades up by the end of this semester," He said, smiling at me. 

I couldn't help but blush at the form of encouragement. "Thanks," I said.

As he left, I couldn't help but look through the peephole at him as he got into his jeep and drove down the driveway and then out the main gates of my home estate. 

Going back up to my room, I grabbed my phone and clicked on the Instagram app. I quickly checked my notifications and then typed in Theo's name in the search bar. 

Luckily for me, his profile wasn't private, so I could go through his posts. He seemed to post a lot of pictures with his friends, particularly Indigo Halsing. I only know Indigo because we have history and drama together. Hmph, maybe she's his girlfriend or something. Not that I care or anything. 

As I went through his page, something then occurred to me. Something I thought that maybe I should be slightly freaked out by. 

I'm stalking my tutor.