The next morning, my body felt more tired than ever. It was probably because of the fact I had to wake up at 6 am to get ready for the prison they call "school." I yawned and ran my hand through my tangled brown hair. I looked at the window sadly. Well goodbye summer I guess.
After cracking my spine in three places, I smiled in satisfaction and dressed myself. Today's outfit was a plaid skirt paired with a black blouse and Doc Martens to top it off. If I was going to be in a tired mood all of today in school, I might as well look tired in style.
"Liên breakfast!!" my mother yelled from downstairs. I ran down the stairs, clomping on the wooden stairs as I went.
"Liên no shoes in the house!!!" my mother screeched.
"Oh sorry. I haven't worn these yet though," I said sheepishly, but I took them off anyway. My mother shook her head at me, exasperated. Even though we were running late, my mom always forced me to eat a full breakfast every day before school.
My mom set down a plate of steamed rice rolls in front of me. The aroma woke my senses and I shoveled it down hungrily.
"Slow down. You're going to choke if you eat like that," my mom twisted her mouth in disapproval at me. I smiled and grabbed my backpack. I said a quick bye to my mother and my dad dropped me off at school. Before I closed the car door, my dad called out, "Hey Liên, get good grades okay?"
I sighed and nodded. Typical Asian parents telling you to get good grades on their first day of school, I thought. I looked down at my schedule. I was taking 5 AP classes and I prayed that I would make it through the school year.
My eyes roamed the school yard, looking for anyone I knew. Students were walking everywhere, chatting amongst themselves. A couple of girls screamed and hugged each other. Then I spotted a familiar blonde head. Hailey!
Squeezing my way through the huge crowds of students, I tapped my friend on her shoulder.
"Guess who it is."
Hailey turned around and gasped in surprise, swinging her arms around my neck in a tight hug, "ALLY I MISSED YOU TERRIBLY."
I laughed and hugged her back. "I missed you too idiot," I said affectionately. I pulled back and looked at her apologetically, "I'm sorry about yesterday by the way."
Hailey smiled kindly, "It's alright Ally. Piano practice right?"
I nodded dully.
"Let's get to class first," Hailey said, grabbing my arm and dragging me to our AP Physics class. First class of the day was a Physics class...classic, I thought.
I could hear the familiar chatting and murmurings of students as I walked in the class. It was strange knowing these faces since freshman year and I probably won't ever see them again after graduation.
The teacher, Mr. Porter was a short stout man with a bushy moustache. I heard from the previous seniors that he was known for his 2 hour long ramblings during class. As he did roll call, he said my name, "Allison um Neh goo yun?" He pronounced my last name with uncertainty.
My classmates chuckled a little bit. A long time ago I would have been embarrassed, but now I'm just used to it. My last name was pretty hard to pronounce.
"Here," I raised my hand. "It's pronounced Nguyen," I said in a Vietnamese accent.
"Right," he said awkwardly before moving onto the next student.
Next to me Hailey whispered, "I've known you for years and I still don't know how to pronounce your last name." I smiled at her, "It's okay."
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After an uneventful morning because first days of school were usually casual, lunch rolled around. Grabbing my brown paper lunch bag, I made my way to the cafeteria with Hailey and some other friends.
The cafeteria was bustling with students as it was packed with lunch tables and a long cafeteria line. Looking through my lung bag, I realized that my mom had packed me some homemade pho in a small bowl container. I sighed. As much as I loved my mom's phá», I never ate Vietnamese food at school. I always reminded my mom to pack me American food for school, but I guess she forgot today.
"Hey Ally, what's that?" asked one of the girls at the lunch table. It was second grade lunch period and I had been excited to eat my lunch since morning.
I excitedly unwrapped the bánh xèo that my mom made for me. It was kind of like a Vietnamese fried pancake. I savored its heavenly aroma, slightly smiling to myself.
"It's a Vietnamese pancake called bánh xèo. Do you want to try a piece?" I asked her.
Classmates sitting at the table looked at it curiously. She wrinkled her nose in disgust and said, "Um no thanks. It looks weird."
My face fell a bit and I mumbled, "Oh."
Some girls giggled, "Why do you eat that anyway? It looks gross."
Suddenly the lunch I had been excitedly waiting for didn't seem as appetizing as I thought.
I turned to Hailey, smiling apologetically, "Hey I need to go check up on something really fast. I think I left my textbook in the classroom. I'll be right back."
Hailey nodded absentmindedly, chewing her sandwich while scrolling through her phone. Grabbing my lunch and backpack, I stepped outside the cafeteria. Surveying the outside quad, I spotted a secluded area behind the school.
I sat on the steps leading to the back doors of the school and took out my lunch. Nothing, but the sound of my chewing could be heard. I slurped up my pho in 5 minutes flat. No surprise there because it was delicious. As I was throwing away my lunch, the bell rang and I quickly darted to my last class of the day, Math. It could only be described in one word and that word was HELL.
I chose one of the available seats in the middle. Not too close to the teacher and not too far away where I would be too blind. My vision was absolute shit. Suddenly a math workbook flew at my head from behind me and I angrily scowled and whipped my head around to see who the idiot was. Much to my surprise, it was Hailey. She was laughing really hard and said in wheezing breaths, "S-sorry... I didn't... mean... to throw it that hard. I just wanted to say hi."
I scoffed and playfully chucked it back at her, "Try that again and I'll break your face."
"Alright class welcome to the first day of school. I'm glad you guys challenged yourself to take Calculus 1 with me. Hopefully I won't have to fail any of you guys," the teacher, I think his name was Mr. Peters, smiled slyly. Everyone chuckled nervously. As he continued to explain the boring instructions of the class, I heard Hailey whisper behind me, "Psst Ally! There's a really cute guy sitting across from you!"
Now THAT was something that sparked my interest. Trying to be subtle, I glanced at the seat across from me and Hailey was right! Sitting across from me was a tall, muscular boy with dark blonde hair. He looked like the stereotypical hot quarterback football player you would see in the movies. He suddenly knocked his pencil on the ground and as he leaned down to pick it up, I was able to see his face more clearly. He had small brown freckles dusted across his face and piercing blue "orbs." Hailey whispered to me again, "I told you."
I could say nothing except give a small mhm because he really did look magical.
"Since I need to take roll call, I'll call out your names and you just have to say here, okay?" Mr. Peters' voice interrupted my blatant gawking and I suddenly smiled because I would get to know what his name was! As he was calling out names, Hailey and I not so subtly kept glancing at him to see when he would respond to his name.
"Alex Harper?" called Mr. Peters. The blonde boy raised his hand and with a smooth, velvety voice, he said, "Here." Hailey and I sighed wistfully in unison. Even his "Here" was like the sound of angels singing.
Once the bell rang, I was reluctant to see him go. I would not have minded staring at him a bit longer for sure. Looking at the clock, I groaned. I forgot I had to tutor kids today after school!! I was not in the mood. Slamming my locker closed after I dropped off my textbooks, I headed over to the classroom I was supposed to be tutoring kids in.
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I sighed deeply as I knew I wouldn't be here if it weren't for my strict Asian mother. I could be doing tons of other things with my valuable time! Like.. naps and drinking Calpico. As I entered, I took a quick survey of the room and there were multiple high schoolers like me sitting with kids at separate tables. The room was relatively quiet except for the hushed whispers that were exchanged between the kids and the tutors. A pretty Asian girl with dyed lavender hair approached me with a warm smile, "Hi! Are you one of the tutors? Just sign in here please."
She handed me a clipboard and pencil which I reluctantly took and signed my name on. "I'm Zoey Cho by the way," she introduced herself and paused for a second to look at the clipboard, "Okay Allison you can work with.. Amanda over there," she pointed at a young girl with pigtails sitting in a corner.
"Okay thanks," I said. I was not looking forward to this.
Zoey smiled at me and gave a small wave at me before running over to the next person who entered the classroom. "Okay Amanda right? Let's go sit over there," I said half-heartedly, pointing at a random empty table.
The girl looked up at me and scoffed, "My friends usually call me Mandy, but you can call me Amanda."
"Okay Amanda let's go sit," I sighed. I had no time for this little girl's sass. She plopped down in the chair across from me and pulled out a packet. I caught a glimpse of it. They were math problems. I was absolutely terrible at math. I suddenly got traumatic flashbacks when 10-year old me was sobbing over my math workbook while my stereotypical Asian father was yelling at me. I shuddered at the memory.
I glanced at Amanda working diligently on her packet. She seemed very focused on it. I bit my lip. Okay so hopefully she won't need TOO much help on the problems. I mean how hard could they be anyways?
I closed my eyes and was already about to doze off when Amanda started poking me with her finger. I opened my eyes and grumbled, "What?"
She frowned at me, "I need help on this problem."
She pointed at her paper. I sighed and pulled her packet towards me to look at it. Oh good, it was just a simple algebra problem. It shouldn't be too hard.
"I just need help on simplifying this equation because my answers don't seem right," Amanda muttered, twisting one of her pigtails with her fingers.
I cracked my knuckles, "Leave it to me. Let me solve this problem myself first." I got to make sure I look like I know what I'm doing.
I started working out the problem and things seemed to be going smooth until... the answer started getting bigger and bigger. Uhhh yea there was no way this was the right answer. I bit my lip anxiously as I kept erasing and erasing the paper until there were dark smudge marks.
"Stop! You're ruining the paper!!" Amanda complained loudly. She grabbed one of the erasers and started furiously erasing the marks.
"H-hey what are you doing?! I was still working!" I exclaimed.
"It's been like 10 minutes and you still haven't solved it. Just admit that you don't know how to do it," Amanda huffed in frustration. "Sure I do, just give me some more time," I said defensively.
Amanda grabbed her packet and stood up. "Hey where are you going?" I asked. She couldn't just leave like that!
"To that boy over there," she pointed at a boy in a dark t-shirt sitting at a table with his back facing us. "He's really smart and I know he can solve this problem," she said, walking over there.
"Hold on, Amanda, wait!" I huffed frustratingly. This was the reason why I didn't like kids. They were just so irritating! I ran after her and when I reached the table, I saw that Amanda was nodding her head as the boy she pointed at earlier was pointing at stuff on her paper and saying things I couldn't hear.
"Hi, sorry Amanda doesn't need any help. I was just in the middle of explaining-" the words cut off when he looked up at me. He looked familiar with his long dark brown hair and slightly bored look. Wait, it was that Asian boy from the counseling office yesterday! He looked just as good looking as I remembered, but then I remembered that incident where he bumped into me and immediately I wasn't baffled by his looks anymore.
"She couldn't help me so I asked you instead," Amanda smiled smugly at him. I glared at her. That little snitch!
I cleared my throat, feeling a bit embarrassed. "Actually-" I started, before I was cut off by Luca, I think that's his name. "You just had to cancel the numbers here and divide both sides by 6. You divided by 3 instead. It wasn't supposed to be hard," he explained, raising an eyebrow at me.
I crossed my arms, feeling defensive. "Yea I knew that so thank you for the explanation," I lied. Luca stared at me for a minute and suddenly I felt a teensy bit self conscious. I wonder if he recognizes me?
He then scoffed a little and said, "Yea whatever you say." He turned back to his own kids with the same emotionless expression as before. I internally rolled my eyes. What a brat.
"Thanks Luca you were very helpful!" said Amanda cheerfully. I stared daggers at her. Luca gave her a small smile and said, "Anytime."
I grabbed her arm and started dragging her back to our table, "Yea I think we're good so thank you for your offer." When we reached our table, Amanda sighed as she sat in her chair, "I like Luca. He's a lot more helpful," she complained, glaring at me.
I sighed, "Okay, but I'm your assigned tutor so sorry, but you'll be sticking with me."
She crossed her arms and looked away. I bit my lip thoughtfully. "Um how about this, if you don't wander off and actually let me help you, I'll bring you a bag of your favorite snack every session how about that?" I offered. This girl was a brat, but I had to compromise somehow or this would be an ever-lasting nightmare.
She looked up immediately and a curious look crossed her face, "Really?" I smiled a little, "Yes really."
"Hmm okay bring me Froot Loops and you have yourself a deal," Amanda smiled smugly. I rolled my eyes jokingly, "Okay Princess I will be at your service." I tipped my imaginary hat. Amanda giggled. I guess tutoring this brat child won't be too bad. You give a wolf a bone and you tame it like in Minecraft. I smiled at the thought of Amanda as a bratty Minecraft wolf.
The hour flew by quick and Amanda was surprisingly more cooperative. As she packed up her things to leave, she gave me a small wave followed by a "I expect some Fruit Loops next time!"
I jokingly rolled my eyes, but smiled a little.