Page 54 of Tutor With Benefits
“It wasn’t my idea, it was Taylor’s,” he reminds me. “He thought of it after I said that she was in love with Johnny and I had to watch her stare at him all the time in class.”
“Shit,” I say. “That’s right. Well. You should have said it would be better for us to get her to fall in love with us anyway. He could have had his idea, and you could have made it better and told him we should make her forget about that buffoon and turn her attention to the real studs in school.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I figured that she wasn’t that cool or whatever and we were just going to have to do what we had to do to get our grades up. I mean, before Tori, hockey was the most important thing in my entire life.”
“I wish I could say it was still the most important thing in my life.” I sigh. “But now that she’s gone with that other guy, I can’t stop thinking thatshe’sactually the most important thing in my life.”
“Clearly I feel the same way, considering I’m here with you moping about the way this entire thing backfired rather than being at hockey practice with everyone.”
“Well, yay to me. I guess I’m not alone in my misery. Misery does love company you know,” I tell him.
“Fuck you, man, I’m just saying I can relate to what you’re feeling,” Zach retorts.
“Pretty sure Taylor is feeling the same way,” I say. “He’s just not sure how to deal with it so he’s at practice. It’s the only thing that makes sense to him, you know?”
“Right,” Zach says. “He’s said enough over the past week how pissed off he is seeing her with Johnny. It’s like it would just be easier if the three of us could call him out in some sort of duel for the girl. I don’t know how well that would go over, especially since, you know, Tori wanted this.”
“Fuck man, we all wanted this,” I argue. “The only thing we had our minds on at the time was to make sure we weren’t benched for the rest of the season.”
“I pretty much figured hockey was the one and only thing that would ever matter to me, and that’s what I went with. I don’t know why things changed. But then, I also don’t know how I didn’t think I would fall in love with Tori, either,” Zach says.
“That’s fair. Once I got to know her even a little, I can’t believe it took me that long to notice her.” I say.
“Not like she wanted to be noticed,” Zach replies. “You saw her. That day we were trying to find her to ask about tutoring in the first place she was impossible to hunt down.”
“Fuck,” I say. It’s all I can really think to say about this anymore. I’m hurting and I’m pissed off, and I’m frustrated about the fact that there isn’t anything I can do about it.
“Fuck is right,” Zach says. “What the fuck is wrong with us? This is a girl we’re talking about! Girls are a dime a dozen. It’s not like we can’t go out and have our own girlfriends by the end of the day if we really wanted to. I mean, there’s a part of me that almost wants to go out and do that just for the sake of not having to sit here and think about the fact Tori is out there with Johnny.”
“There’s a part of me that wants to go out and get a girlfriend, and then follow those two around just so she can see that we’re able to have other girlfriends in our lives and be happy, too,” I reply.
“I don’t think she ever questioned that,” Zach laughs. “But you know, I think the best way for us to think about her from here on out is that she was just an experiment. You know? Like she was just some girl who we felt sorry for and we wanted to see if we could make her more desirable. So we worked our magic on her, and we matched it up with what we thought this other guy would like. And what do you know? It worked!”
I laugh. “So you want to turn this into us being scientists? Pretty sure that’s some sort of horror movie when the scientists fall in love with their experiment.”
“If it’s not one, then it should be,” Zach says. “Maybe that’s where you and I are going to rise to fame. We can cast Taylor as the token guy who has to get murdered first, just because he’s not here to voice his own opinion on the matter.”
“And the experiment in the movie can look enough like Tori that we can feel better about ourselves,” I say.
“Unless it backfires all over again and you fall in love with her.” Zach smirks.
“Fucker, you say that like you aren’t also pining after the same girl I am!” I shoot back. “Or like Taylor isn’t out there beating his head against the wall over the same thing.”
“Fair, but I’m going to throw shade every chance I get. It makes me feel better,” Zach says.
“Same. So go for it. Just know you’re going to get it back,” I tell him with a grin.
He scoffs again.
It does feel good to get some of the pain we’re feeling out in the open. Not that it’s doing us any good as far as fixing the situation, but it is helping us feel a little bit better about ourselves in the long run. The fact that we’re able to talk about this and how we both feel about it makes me think I’m not stupid for letting my emotions get the best of me during the time we had together.
“You want to go pick up Taylor?” I ask. “I walked home, but I bet he’d like a ride after he’s done with practice.”
“Sure,” Zach says. “We can tell him how we let it all out and to just do the same. He’ll feel better if he does.”
“I think he’ll feel better to hear that we’re all in agreement that we regret teaching Tori how to get Johnny,” I say.
“I don’t know why it helps, but it does, a little,” Zach agrees.