THE BOY I WAS SENT TO DESTROY

4.

Chapter 4: Tutor

Zane POV

My phone buzzed during lunch with the email from the dean. Mandatory tutoring starting today. I had skipped too many classes and bombed two midterms. The message said my father had already been copied. I deleted it and kept eating but the food tasted like cardboard.

That night Dad called me into his study. He sat behind the big oak desk with his tie still knotted tight from the office. No yelling. He never yelled. He just laid out the facts. Blackwell board members noticed. The family name could not carry a son who flunked out. Fix it or the car keys stayed on his desk and the credit cards got cut. I tried to argue that the classes were pointless anyway. He stared until I stopped talking. Then he said the sessions were set for the library after school. Three times a week. No excuses.

I left the study and slammed my door hard enough to rattle the frame. Priya knocked a minute later but I told her to go away. She was the only person who got the real version of me and even she did not need to hear this.

The next day I showed up because I had no choice. The library felt too quiet after the noise of the halls. I walked past the front desk and headed for the back tables where the dean had said the tutor would wait. My bag slapped against my leg with every step. I kept thinking about Zara Collins and how she had not cracked once in three weeks. The notes in her locker. The food on her seat. The whispers Celeste spread like wildfire. None of it stuck the way it should. She just kept showing up with her head high and her mouth ready.

It pissed me off more than I wanted to admit. Most girls at Blackwell would have cried or transferred by now. Zara acted like the whole thing bored her. Like I bored her. That thought sat in my gut like a rock.

I turned the corner into the study area. Sunlight came through the tall windows and hit the long table in the middle. One person sat there already. Notebook open. Pen moving across the page. Dark hair pulled back neat. Uniform skirt riding up just enough on her thighs that I noticed before I could stop myself.

Zara.

She looked up when my footsteps stopped. Her face stayed calm. No surprise. No smile. Just those steady eyes that had looked straight at me in the corridor on day one and called me out in front of everyone.

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

I dropped my bag on the table. The thud echoed off the shelves. Textbooks and loose papers spilled out. I stared at her and the words came out raw.

“You’ve got to be f*****g kidding me. You’re my tutor?”