The boy I’d loved since childhood refused to open his front door when I asked him for help with one physics problem.
Chapter 1
Instead, Nicholas Lund sent me a twenty-dollar tutoring link and a message that hurt more than anything he’d ever said to my face.
“Marissa, people are calling you the gum stuck to my shoe. Can’t you stop following me around for five minutes?”
I stood on his porch with my textbook pressed against my chest. Through the living room window, I could see Nicholas sitting beside Haley Lane, the prettiest girl in our senior class. His favorite varsity jacket was draped over her shoulders, and he was patiently cutting an apple into small pieces while she studied.
Another message appeared.
“I’ve paid for thirty days of online tutoring. It only costs twenty bucks. Use it instead of constantly bothering me. Haley and I need to concentrate on our exams.”
I stared at the screen for several seconds.
Nicholas and I had known each other since kindergarten. Our families lived on the same street in a quiet Columbus suburb, and we’d grown up sharing everything from birthday parties to summer vacations.
When I was eight, he’d promised we’d always be best friends. When I was fourteen, he’d held my hand at a school dance because I was too nervous to join the others.
Somewhere between those moments, I’d fallen in love with him.
And somewhere along the way, he’d started treating my affection like an inconvenience.
I had spent years making excuses for him. Nicholas was brilliant, always at the top of our class, and everyone expected him to attend an Ivy League university. I told myself that his impatience came from the pressure he was under.
But through that window, I watched him lean toward Haley with a smile I’d once believed belonged only to me.
“Don’t worry,” he told her gently. “I’ll explain it as many times as you need.”
My throat tightened.
He wasn’t naturally impatient.
He simply didn’t have patience for me.
I turned away from the house and opened the tutoring link.
The tutor’s profile was simple. He went by Shane and offered mathematics and physics instruction through messages and audio calls.
I sent him a photograph of the problem I’d been trying to solve.
“Hello. I’m sorry to bother you, but could you help me understand this question?”
His reply appeared almost immediately.
“You’re not bothering me. Let’s start with what you already understand. What information does the question give us?”
I blinked.
Nicholas never asked what I understood.
He usually glanced at the problem, wrote down the answer, and expected me to follow.
When I didn’t, he’d sigh.
“Marissa, I’ve already explained this. Why can’t you remember anything?”
Sometimes he’d take my pencil away.
“Forget it. I’ll do it myself.”
I had become so afraid of disappointing him that I often pretended to understand.
Shane was different.
He walked me through each step, explaining why the formulas worked instead of simply telling me which ones to use. When I made a mistake, he calmly showed me where my reasoning had gone wrong.
Ten minutes later, I understood the entire problem.
Then he sent two alternative solutions.
“Sometimes a different approach makes everything clearer,” he wrote. “Don’t worry about getting it right immediately.”
I read those words several times.
For twelve years, I’d believed I was slow because Nicholas said I was.
Yet a stranger had helped me understand something in ten minutes without once making me feel foolish.
That evening, Shane sent me a thirty-day study schedule.
He divided my remaining time into manageable sections and suggested focusing on the topics that caused me the most trouble.
During our first audio session, he noticed something strange.
“Marissa, why do you keep stopping before you write an answer?”
I looked at my notebook.
“I’m afraid it’s wrong.”
“Then let it be wrong. That’s how we discover what needs fixing.”
I laughed nervously.
“Nicholas says careless mistakes are proof that I don’t think hard enough.”
Shane was quiet for a moment.
“Mistakes aren’t proof that you’re unintelligent. They’re part of learning.”
By eleven-thirty, he told me to stop studying.
I protested.
“I can keep going. Nicholas says slow birds need to wake up earlier.”
His response was gentle.
“You’re not a slow bird, Marissa. You need rest as much as you need practice.”
I sat silently at my desk.
Nobody had ever told me that before.
The next morning, I didn’t leave my homework notebook on Nicholas’s desk.
That had been our routine for years. I’d place my questions beside his books before homeroom, and he’d correct them whenever he felt like it.
Instead, I opened the explanations Shane had sent.
During our morning break, Nicholas approached.
“Did you finally figure out yesterday’s problem?”
“Yes.”
He waited.
I kept reading.
“Well? Aren’t you going to ask me to check it?”
“My tutor already did.”
His expression darkened.
“You’re seriously trusting some random online tutor more than me?”
“He explained it clearly.”
Nicholas crossed his arms.
“Marissa, nobody understands your weaknesses better than I do.”
I looked up.
“Maybe I don’t need someone who understands my weaknesses. Maybe I need someone who helps me improve.”
He stared at me.
Before he could answer, Haley walked over holding his water bottle.
“Marissa, you can have Nicholas back this afternoon if you need him. I don’t want you thinking I’m taking up all his time.”
Her smile was sweet.
I closed my notebook.
“That’s okay. I have my own study schedule now.”
Nicholas frowned.
“Don’t start acting ridiculous.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why are you being so stubborn?”
I looked at him calmly.
“Because I’m trying to study.”
For the first time in years, I walked away without waiting for his approval.
Over the following week, I stopped arranging my life around Nicholas.
I no longer waited outside his classroom after school. I didn’t save him a seat at lunch or check my phone every few minutes to see whether he’d answered my messages.
Instead, I followed Shane’s instructions.
We reviewed mechanics, electricity, calculus, and probability.
When I struggled, Shane didn’t get angry.
He simply tried another explanation.
One afternoon, our physics teacher, Mr. Reynolds, wrote a complicated question on the board.
Nicholas solved it quickly, earning admiring whispers from our classmates.
Then Mr. Reynolds asked whether anyone knew another approach.
My hand rose before I could lose my nerve.
I walked to the board and used a method Shane had taught me.
When I finished, Mr. Reynolds studied my work.
“Very good, Marissa. That’s a thoughtful solution.”
I returned to my seat, my face warm with pride.
Nicholas leaned toward me.
“Don’t get carried away. Getting one question right doesn’t make you a genius.”
I smiled faintly.
“I know. That’s why I’m still studying.”
He looked irritated.
But this time, his irritation didn’t ruin my afternoon.
A few days later, our class was asked to write down target scores for the final practice examination.
Nicholas had always chosen mine for me.
This time, I wrote my own goal and handed it directly to the teacher.
Nicholas watched me with narrowed eyes.
“Without my help, you’ll be lucky to maintain your usual score.”
I didn’t argue.
That night, I told Shane what he’d said.
After a moment, Shane asked, “Does Nicholas’s opinion still matter that much to you?”
I thought carefully before answering.
“Not as much as it used to.”
“Then you’re making progress in more ways than one.”
I smiled at my phone.
What I didn’t know was that Shane wasn’t an ordinary online tutor.
And the twenty dollars Nicholas had spent to get rid of me would soon become the greatest humiliation of his senior year.
