The first session was awkward.
Neither of us had spoken since the quiet or mumbled "Hey" when they sat down.
The air between them was thick with unspoken words. The fight from few days ago lingered sharp, unhealed. Viola kept her eyes on her notes, but her jaw was clenched, her posture rigid. James stole a glance at her, hesitated, then looked back at his book.
James sat across from me at the library's math help center, his eyes scanning the problem set I had brought with me. Cami sat at a table nearby pretending to scroll through her phone, but I could feel her watchful eyes every time James leaned too close or I hesitated too long.
The clock ticked louder than it should have, each second echoing in the silence between us. Our books were open, notebooks aligned, pens poised. But it wasn't until he started speaking that the shift happened.
It had been four days since she approached him after class.
"She needs help," she told him simply. "You're the best one for it."
I hadn't wanted her to. But when the paper came back with a bright red 39% scrawled across the top, I felt like I was drowning. And Cami, as always, threw me a life vest even if it was the last one I wanted.
"Okay," James said, finally breaking the silence. "Let's start with what's been giving you the most trouble."
I tucked my hair behind my ear and opened to the logarithms section. "Honestly? All of it."
He gave a small smile, the first I'd seen on him in days that wasn't on a social media post. "We'll start there then."
For the next hour, he was just James the tutor. Calm, clear, patient. He explained the basics again, didn't mock my confusion, and only once did his eyes stray too long to my face.
He broke down each concept like he was handling glass careful not to let anything shatter between us. His voice, steady and low, guided me through the basics again. No sighs of frustration, no sarcastic quips. Just explanations. Diagrams. Quiet encouragement.
When I got something wrong, he didn't laugh. Didn't roll his eyes. Just rephrased the question, gently nudging me back toward the answer like it was no big deal. It shouldn't have meant anything but it did.
By the time we finished, my notebook was filled with neatly corrected math problems and my chest with something I couldn't quite name.
He closed his book, the soft thud punctuating the silence between us. I started packing up slowly, unsure of what to say. If I should say anything at all.
That first session ended with a simple, "Same time tomorrow?" and I nodded before I could talk myself out of it.
And that was it. No lingering glances. No apologies. Just the faintest flicker of something trying to mend itself in the silence.
By the second session, the air had changed.
He met me outside the library with a coffee black, just how I liked it. "Peace offering," he said. I didn't ask what he was apologizing for. We both knew.
That day, we sat in a tucked-away corner, our voices hushed but the space between us closer. He didn't try to explain himself, and I didn't ask. We kept the focus on math.
Mostly.
"Hey, remember in high school when we had to write proofs and no one knew what they were doing?" James asked as we worked through a trigonometry question.
"You mean every single math class I've ever taken?" I joked.
He laughed, and for a second, it felt normal. Like we'd paused time and stepped into a world where the past two months hadn't happened. Where Alana didn't exist. Where there weren't shards of glass still embedded in my chest.
When our hands brushed as he reached for my notebook, neither of us flinched.For a moment, there was nothing but the soft warmth of his skin against mine, the brief, lingering touch that shouldn't have felt like anything and yet, it did.
But we didn't talk about it either.
Not about the fight, not about the touch. We just carried on as if it was nothing, as if we hadn't both felt the same pulse of awareness under the surface.
He grabbed the notebook. I gathered my things.
"Same time tomorrow?" he asked again, voice steady.
I nodded, swallowing the words I wanted to say.
And just like that, we were back to the same uneasy rhythm. Neither of us willing to address what had passed between us, or what might have changed.
By the fourth session, it was harder to pretend.
He showed up late, hair messy, eyes a little red. I didn't ask where he'd been. He didn't offer.
"I almost didn't come," I admitted as I opened my notes.
"Why?"
I shrugged. "Because this... us... it's confusing."
He looked at me then, really looked. "I know."
I tapped my pencil against the desk, heart thudding. "So why are you here?"
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he turned to the problem on the page and started working through it. "Because you asked for help."
"And if I hadn't?"
He set the pencil down. "Then I guess I'd still be hoping you would."
We didn't speak for a long time after that.
The fifth session was the hardest.
Because I almost didn't go.
I sat in my dorm room for twenty minutes debating whether to show up. But the midterm was in three days, and I still wasn't ready. I wasn't sure if I ever would be.
When I arrived, he was already there,earl as always,waiting with a table set up near the window. Light streamed across the pages of his notebook like it was trying to soften the truth between us. I sat down with my coffee, eyes flicking over my notes in a mix of frustration and concentration.
"I wasn't sure you'd come," he said without looking up.
"Me neither."
This time, I let the silence linger.
We worked through exponential functions, our voices low and steady. But my hands trembled. And when I got a question right on my own for the first time, he smiled like I'd just moved a mountain.
"See?" he said, tapping the correct answer. "Told you you could do it."
"Only because you helped."
He met my eyes. "You did the work. I just reminded you how capable you already are."
The warmth in my chest hurt. Because I wanted to believe him. I wanted to go back to that version of us the one where we built each other up instead of tearing everything down. Where our conversations were laced with laughter, where trust came easy and the silence between us meant comfort, not avoidance.
I missed that version more than I could admit out loud.
But we couldn't rewrite the past.Couldn't unsay what was said or undo what was broken.
We could only keep showing up, maybe hoping that somewhere in the routine, the wreckage would start to resemble something like healing.
Even if it still hurt.
Even if nothing was certain.
Still, I showed up for session six.
It was the night before the midterm. James had reserved one of the private study rooms. Just the two of us, notes scattered everywhere, energy drinks half-finished.
"You ready?" he asked.
I exhaled. "I guess I'll find out tomorrow."
He reached over and squeezed my hand. Brief, hesitant. But it sent sparks up my arm all the same.
"You've got this, Vee."
That night, after we packed up, I lingered in the doorway.
"James," I said, voice low.
He turned.
"I don't know what this is anymore. But... thank you."
He stepped closer, eyes searching mine. "For what?"
"For seeing me when I couldn't see myself.
He paused, his fingers still holding my notebook, as if weighing something in the quiet space between us. For a second, I could see it in his eyes,the desire to say something more. To reach past the awkwardness, past the unspoken hurt.
Maybe he wanted to apologize again. Maybe he wanted to explain everything he never did, to untangle the mess we'd left hanging between us.
But instead, he just nodded, his expression tightening ever so slightly.
And with that simple motion, he let the moment slip away, as if nothing had happened at all.
I stood, grabbing my bag, and the space between us filled with the weight of things unsaid. His gaze lingered for just a beat longer, but it was like he was fighting the urge to speak.
"Good luck tomorrow."
And just like that, we parted again.
Not with answers. But with something almost as valuable.
Understanding.
Neither of us made a move to walk out together. We just... moved on. As if nothing had changed.
But it had. And we both knew it.
Maybe it wasn't a clean slate. Maybe it wasn't forgiveness. But in that quiet, in the shared glances and unspoken truths, something had shifted.
Not a reconciliation born of fiery declarations or peaceful closure.
But maybe, just maybe, the start of something new
built not from fire or calm,
but from fragments and formulas
finally starting to make sense.