Chapter 6
Thursday, everything felt wrong.
Ayara felt it strongly before she left the house. She stood in the kitchen with her bag at her feet and her planner open on the counter.
She couldn’t shake Tuesday from her head.
Her mother stood in the foyer, loosening her shoes and setting her purse down. Quiet end-of-day rituals that marked the house as settling rather than starting.
“You’re tutoring today?” her mother asked, looking at Ayara’s bag.
“Yes.”
Her mother glanced at the clock on the wall. “You’ve got time.”
“I like being early,” Ayara lied, closing the planner.
Her mother smiled fondly. “You always did.”
The smile stayed with Ayara longer than she liked as she drove. Her parents talked about her as if she were already on her way to the life they’d pictured. Reliable. Someone who never surprised them.
She pulled into the Hales’ driveway fifteen minutes early and sat there, hands resting on the steering wheel. The house filled her view, low and wide, its pale siding freshly washed, blinds set at the same angle in every front window. The lawn was trimmed close, the edges clean, the whole place orderly in a way that suggested someone always noticed.
Oren’s shed sat somewhere behind it, out of sight but present all the same. She told herself she was waiting out of politeness. She told herself she wasn’t hoping to see him walk across the yard.
When she finally rang the bell, his mother answered.
“Oh,” Mrs. Hale said, surprise flickered across her face. “You’re here.”
Ayara held her smile steady. “We had a session scheduled.”
“Yes, of course,” his mother said quickly. “I just thought… well, last time…”
The sentence drifted. Ayara knew what Mrs. Hale meant. Last time, Ayara had been waiting in the living room for nearly an hour when his mother stepped out the back door and crossed the yard.
Ayara watched through the window as Mrs. Hale knocked on the shed door, waited, then knocked again, louder. Her mouth twisted with irritation, then smoothed back into neutrality so quickly Ayara thought she’d imagined it.
Then Mrs. Hale circled to the side of the shed, paused, and leaned toward the small side window, one hand braced against the wall, peering in.
Ayara’s heart had picked up then. After a few minutes, Mrs. Hale came back inside. When she returned to the living room, the apology came quickly and without detail. Oren wasn’t feeling well. It was better to cancel.
Ayara hadn’t stopped thinking about it since.
“He’s here,” his mother said now. “In the living room.”
Oren sat at the table, his notebook already open, pencil in hand. He looked up when she walked in and smiled. Her stomach flipped without meaning to.
Oren looked the same and not the same. Same narrow shoulders, same loose T-shirt. His hair fell forward over his forehead in a pale streak that caught the light, like frost that hadn’t melted yet. His eyes looked lighter than she remembered, washed out by fatigue.
Mrs. Hale cleared a stack of mail on the table with brisk efficiency before retreating to the kitchen, close but not hovering.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi.”
“You’re early.”
“So are you.”
He shrugged. “Didn’t want to give my mom another reason to apologize.”
Ayara set her bag on the floor and unpacked deliberately, giving herself something to do with her hands. And time to think of her next words.
“Last time…” she stopped. “I wasn’t sure if you were okay.”
He winced. “Yeah. I’m sorry about that.”
“I’m not trying to pry,” she said quickly. “But it was pretty last-minute.”
“I know.”
He sounded like he meant it. That softened her more than she wanted it to.
They started working. Ayara asked him to walk her through a problem. She watched how his jaw tightened when he hesitated, the way he glanced up at her face as if checking for disappointment.
She registered him in pieces, the way she always did before she stopped herself. Average height. Nothing remarkable about his build. But his face held her attention anyway: lashes and brows darker than his hair. A mouth that stayed soft even when he frowned, lips fuller than she expected, the kind of detail she actively redirected her attention from.
“You don’t have to rush,” she said.
“I’m not,” he said, too quickly.
She let it go.
Halfway through the next problem, a sound cut through the air. Sharp and metallic. The squeal of brakes outside, the skid of tires, followed by the thud of metal striking metal. Oren froze.
Not paused. Froze.
The pencil slipped from his fingers and rolled against the table. His gaze went unfocused, fixed past the wall, past the room itself. His breathing turned shallow, uneven, his chest barely moving.
“Oren,” Ayara said.
No response.
She stood without thinking. “Oren,” she said again, softer. “Look at me.”
His eyes flicked, then locked onto hers. For a split second, she felt it like a drop in her stomach. He wasn’t there. Whatever he was seeing, it wasn’t the dining room. And it wasn’t her.
Then he blinked.
He dragged in a breath, deep and shaky, like someone surfacing too fast.
“I’m fine,” he said quickly. “Sorry. I spaced out.”
“That didn’t look like spacing out.”
He forced a laugh. “Guess I’m more tired than I thought.”
He dragged a hand over his face. She could see the faint shadows under his eyes.
Ayara didn’t sit back down right away. “Do you want some water?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I’m okay.”
She watched him pull himself back together piece by piece. Shoulders straightening. Hands steadying. The version of himself he wanted her to see sliding back into place.
They finished the session without another interruption. Oren worked with an intensity that bordered on obsession, like focus itself could keep whatever had happened at bay. Ayara let him. She didn’t ask again.
When she packed up, he walked her to the door.
“Sorry about Tuesday,” he said. “And… earlier.”
She nodded. “Just let me know ahead of time, if you can.”
“What’s your number?“
She took out her phone, saved his number, then looked up.
“I’ll see you next time,” she said.
He smiled softly.
But that wasn’t what stayed with her.
Driving home, that moment at the table replayed in her mind with uncomfortable clarity. The way his body had locked. The emptiness behind his eyes.
It looked like fear.
By the time she reached her street, she stopped trying to talk herself out of it. She had seen students anxious, defensive, and unmotivated. She had seen avoidance dressed up as exhaustion.
She tightened her grip on the steering wheel.
Whatever was going on with Oren, it wasn’t something that could be tutored out of him.
And that realization unsettled her more than she wanted to admit.