Dark Ray of Sunlight

Deal? Deal

      Marissa took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down as she walked to the library for her first tutoring session with Finn. It was hard enough to see him in the hallways, but now she was being forced to spend time with him! On the bright side it was bonus that Marissa could get extra time to make fun of him. She chuckled softly to herself at the thought of his annoyed face. NO! What are you thinking! No laughing, Marissa! This is strictly a part of the plan to get the Fairy Godmother's wand, take over Auradon, and finally gain mother's affection.
      Marissa shoved all these weird feelings aside as she entered the library. She hadn't been told specifically where Finn would be so for the time being was searching around the shelves and tables for him. After nearly five or ten minutes of searching, Marissa saw him at the end of a long row of shelves, sitting at a two person table, looking down at a textbook.
      Marissa walked over to the desk and dropped her books obnoxiously loud on the table, starling Finn. He jumped at the sound, and looked up only to come face to face with a smirking Marissa. "Aww," she said, pouting. "Did I scare the baby with the books?"
      Finn rolled his eyes and closed the book he had been reading. He mocked a laugh. "Very funny, Marissa."
       Marissa smiled victoriously and moved the books to the other side of the table. She looked down, noticing the lack of a chair. "Um, where's my chair?" Finn pointed to the seat next to him on his side of the table. Marissa rolled her eyes. "Is this another lame attempt to get me close to you?" she teased, smirking.
       "Actually, I do this thing called tutoring, and usually it's better to have the student seated next to me so they're learning can improve." Marissa could feel the sarcasm dripping from every word he spoke. The corners of his lips turned into a small smirk. "But you can think whatever you want." He winked at her.
       Marissa wanted so badly to gag at his flirting, but instead showed her lack of interest with a signature eye roll. She gathered her things and rounded the table, taking her seat next to Finn.
      "Alright," he began. "Jiminy Cricket tells me that you aren't doing well with your math."
       Marissa shrugged. "I guess not."
      "Well do you know anything specifically that you're struggling with?"
      "Is everything a reasonable answer?" Marissa asked him.
       Finn chuckled softly. "Tell you what," he said, bringing out a piece of paper from his folder.   He handed it to Marissa. "Why don't you go through and complete this worksheet. It'll give me an idea of where you're at and what we need to work on."
        Marissa accepted the worksheet and nodded. Though she couldn't why Finn was acting so genuine. It may have just been because they were not working as enemies anymore, but as Tutor and Tutored. He probably just wanted to stay professional.
       It took about thirty minutes before Marissa completed the sheet and handed it back to Finn who had been patiently waiting for her to finish. He looked it over before placing it in the middle of their table space so both of them could see the sheet.
       "Well, you seem to understand the basics, like order of operations and that's huge in the world of math. But it looks like the first thing we should work towards is solving for a variable, because trust me, that will never go away."
       Marissa nodded, and listened to Finn as he explained to her how to solve for a missing variable. Marissa was shocked by how much sense it made after just another hour with Finn.
      "Not bad, Gothel. Not bad at all," he said when their lesson had finished.
       Marissa smirked. "You weren't to bad yourself, Fitzherbert."
       Finn smiled. "I don't think it'll take you to long to catch up with the rest of the class. I'd say another month or two of this and you'll be ready to get back into it."
       Inside her mind, Marissa was smirking to herself. Another month, huh? In another month I'll be standing beside my mother in the ruins of Auradon. But at the exact moment she was thinking about her mother and Auradon, her heart got another feeling. It was like it had gotten all twisted and wanted to be ripped out of her chest. Marissa didn't know why her heart felt this way, but she wasn't sure if she liked it.