Another tutoring session

Chloe woke to the soft gray light of Monday morning and lay still for a few minutes before rising. The weekend’s weight—Aaron’s request, the careful conversation with Josh, the lingering sense that she had already said yes to too many things—still sat somewhere behind her ribs. She chose the yellow sundress again because the day was mild and the fabric felt easy. The thin straps settled against her shoulders; the skirt moved when she walked. Instead of the flat sandals she had worn the last time she reached for the pair of wedges that added a little height and made her legs look longer. She checked herself in the mirror once. The dress was pretty on her. She looked soft and put-together, the kind of pretty that usually drew easy compliments. She did not feel especially eager to spend the next two hours across a table from Nathan, but she had promised.

Campus was quiet between classes. Chloe crossed the quad with her bag over one shoulder, the wedges clicking lightly against the concrete. She found Nathan already waiting near the library entrance. He straightened the moment he saw her, one hand adjusting the strap of his backpack, the other pushing his glasses higher on his nose. He was heavier than most of the guys in their section, soft around the middle, his dark hoodie stretched across a round stomach. His hair was uncombed and a little greasy at the roots. When he smiled the expression was eager and slightly damp-looking.

“Hey,” he said, voice a little too loud. “Thanks for coming. Seriously. I know you’re busy.”

“It’s fine,” Chloe answered, keeping her tone light. She did not love being here with him. The gratitude in his voice only made the obligation sit heavier. She had agreed because she could not stand the thought of him losing his scholarship, because the way he had looked when he asked had reminded her of every underdog story that had ever tugged at her. Kindness, not enjoyment, was what kept her walking through the doors beside him.

They claimed the same second-floor corner table. Nathan dropped his backpack with a soft thud and pulled out a thick notebook already marked with coffee rings and eraser smudges. He smelled faintly of the microwave nachos he must have eaten between classes. Chloe sat across from him, the sundress settling around her thighs, and opened her own materials. She kept her knees together and her posture neat.

“Start with the confidence intervals,” she said. “Show me where you got stuck.”

He flipped pages with thick fingers, then slid the notebook toward her. Their hands almost touched. Chloe pulled the page closer and began explaining, voice calm and patient. Nathan listened with intense focus, nodding too often, scribbling notes in a cramped hand. Every few minutes he muttered a quiet “thank you” or “that makes sense now.” The gratitude was constant and slightly sticky, like he was afraid she might stand up and leave if he stopped expressing it.

Chloe did not enjoy the hour. His questions came in bursts of nervous energy; when he leaned in to look at her work the smell of his hoodie reached her. She kept her explanations clear and her smile polite, the same way she always did when she was doing something purely out of the goodness of her heart. The sundress felt thinner than it had that morning. She was aware of how the fabric sat against her chest, how the neckline shifted when she reached for a pen.

Halfway through the second problem set she caught him staring.

His eyes were not on the page. They were fixed lower, on the soft curve of her breasts where the yellow cotton dipped. The stare lasted a full three seconds before he realized she had looked up. Color flooded his face. He jerked his gaze back to the notebook so quickly his glasses slipped.

Chloe felt a tight, awkward heat rise in her own cheeks. She did not want to call him out. Confronting him would only make the whole situation worse—more embarrassing for him, more uncomfortable for her, and somehow less kind. She simply adjusted the strap of her bag so that it rested across her chest and continued speaking as if nothing had happened.

“So the margin of error is half the width of the interval,” she said. Her voice stayed even. “You multiply the critical value by the standard error.”

Nathan nodded hard, writing with renewed intensity. “Right. Yeah. Got it. You’re really good at explaining this. Most people just get annoyed with me.”

She offered a small, closed-mouth smile and moved on to the next problem. The residual awkwardness stayed under her skin. She kept her arms closer to her body after that, conscious of every shift of the dress.

Later, when she stood to retrieve a textbook from her bag on the floor, the sundress flared slightly with the movement. She bent at the knees the way she always did, but the fabric still lifted a little along her thighs. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Nathan’s head tilt, just for a second, the angle of his gaze sliding downward as if he were trying to see farther up the skirt. The moment was brief. He looked away the instant she straightened, ears bright red, and pretended to study a formula with fierce concentration.

Chloe sat back down more carefully. The wedges made a soft sound against the carpet. She felt a low, queasy discomfort settle in her stomach. She did not love being here with him. The staring, the attempt to look up her dress, the damp gratitude—it all made her skin feel too tight. Yet she stayed. She had told him she would help. Walking out now would feel cruel, and cruelty had never sat easily with her. So she smoothed the skirt over her knees, kept her voice patient, and continued the lesson.

Nathan kept thanking her. Every correct answer earned another soft, awkward expression of appreciation. “I really appreciate this, Chloe. You’re saving my grade. My parents would kill me if I lost the scholarship.” He shifted in his chair and the wood creaked under his weight. “I know I’m not the easiest person to study with. Most girls wouldn’t bother.”

“It’s okay,” she said again, because there was nothing else she could say that would not sound sharp. She walked him through one more regression problem, then another. The sunlight moved across the table. Her wedges pinched a little at the toes. She was aware of the soft press of the sundress against her breasts every time she leaned forward, and she hated that she was aware of it because of the way he had looked.

When the two-hour mark finally arrived she closed her notebook with deliberate care. “That’s enough for today. Review those last three on your own and we can check them Thursday if you still want to.”

Nathan’s face fell for a second, then rearranged itself into another grateful smile. “Yeah. Thursday. Definitely. Thank you. Seriously. You have no idea how much this helps.”

She stood, gathering her things. The sundress settled around her legs again. She kept her bag in front of her as she stepped back from the table. Nathan rose more slowly, adjusting his hoodie over his stomach, and walked with her as far as the stairwell. He talked the whole way—about the midterm, about how much clearer everything felt now, about how lucky he was that she had agreed. Chloe answered in short, polite phrases and kept a careful half-step of distance between them.

Outside the air was cooler. She said a final goodbye and turned toward the path that led to her next class, the wedges clicking against the concrete. Behind her she could feel him still standing there, watching. She did not look back.

The residual awkwardness stayed with her through the afternoon. She thought about the way his eyes had lingered on her chest, the quick downward tilt when she had bent for the book, the damp heat of his gratitude. She had not called him out. Calling him out would have required a kind of sharpness she did not possess, and it would have left him embarrassed and alone with the same failing grade that had brought him to her in the first place. Kindness, once again, had kept her quiet.

By the time she reached her car the yellow sundress felt less pretty than it had that morning. She sat behind the wheel for a moment with the door still open, letting the breeze move the fabric across her legs, and told herself that Thursday would be the last session if she could manage it. Then she closed the door, started the engine, and drove away with the quiet, familiar knowledge that she would probably still show up.