Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 59489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
The beginning of the semester was much like any other. Some students did great right from the start, and some were in need of help nearly from the first moment of class. It was those students that had inspired me to become a tutoring mentor. There were student tutors available, but I'd found some students didn't respond well to their peers helping them. That was why I started offering my services for specific situations.
I got my first appointments by the second week of class, and by the third week, every slot I offered was booked. It was almost a relief when one of the appointments got canceled. I thought I was going to get a couple of hours to myself to catch up on some things and try to get ahead if possible. But that plan didn't last. Less than an hour before the time slot was to begin, I got a message that someone had filled it at the last minute.
Letting out a sigh, I opened the note to see what the student needed from me. My heart thumped in my chest when I saw the student's name. Camden. I'd managed to keep him out of my mind, or at least at the very edge of it, for more than a week now, and now here he was, right in my face again. I couldn't cancel the session. It was too close in time, and there were policies in place to prevent that from happening. There was no choice but to go through with it.
Bracing myself for gritting my teeth and getting through the session, I went to the assigned library study room and set up my materials. The note on the signup form was vague. It said he needed help with a paper. That didn't really give me much information on what he was having trouble with, or what he thought I was going to be able to do to help him, so there wasn't much I could do to prepare.
Time ticked by, and soon it was a few minutes past the beginning of the session. I was getting aggravated, and by five minutes past the time, I was gathering up my materials, ready to leave. Just before I jotted down a note to tell him I'd canceled for no-show, the door to the study room opened and Camden rushed in.
I didn't even pretend not to glare at him. Turning around to face him, I cocked my hip, planted a hand on it, and narrowed my eyes.
"I see you make a habit of not being where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there," I said.
Camden's eyes widened, and his mouth fell open slightly.
"Kristen?" he asked, obviously shocked to see me standing there. "What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you," I said. "I almost left because you're late. Again."
"The confirmation I got after I signed up gave me the wrong study room number," he said. "I went to the one on the first floor. If that had been the right room, I would have been early. What are you doing here?"
"I'm pretty sure I just answered that question," I said.
"No, I mean, why are you… I'm here for tutoring," he said.
I rolled my eyes so hard it threatened to knock me over backward.
"Yeah, I'm aware. Why do you think I'm here?"
"I'm still unclear on that. The signup confirmation just gave me the place to come and said a tutor would be here. I had no idea you were a tutor," he said.
"I'm not," I said. He looked at me quizzically, and I sighed. "Not a student tutor. I give extra help sessions for certain circumstances. Usually more difficult issues or older students who might be uncomfortable with a teenager helping them."
That was probably a slightly lower blow than I should have gone for. This conversation was rapidly descending into the adult version of petty playground nonsense. Any second now he was going to blow a spitball at me.
"I guess I fit into the second one," he said. "Though I don't think I'd really care who was helping me if I could figure this damn assignment out, so maybe I'm actually the first kind. That and I am just kind of difficult in general."
There was a hint of sparkle in his eyes, and I couldn't help but smile.
"Maybe a little," I said. "All right, well since you finally made it here, I guess we should go ahead and do some tutoring."
He made a face, and I muffled a chuckle as I sat down. Pulling a small computer out of his bag, he placed it on the table, then dug out a notebook stuffed with papers that stuck out from all sides. I stared at it as he plopped it down next to the laptop.
"So, I'm supposed to be writing a research paper," Camden said. "And I'm having a really hard time with all the requirements for the sources and quotes and everything. The professor wants ten different sources, only two are allowed to be Internet-based, and there have to be at least seven properly attributed quotes or paraphrases."