C-2 P-5
1094 Words
“The deal was for the whole semester," I reminded him, staring at the card.
"And you get it for the whole semester," Issac countered, his hazel eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that caught me off guard. "But only if I am standing on that field on Saturday. If I fail the midterm on Friday morning, the card goes back to my coach, and we both lose. Deal?"
I looked at the card, then up at his desperate face. He really was entirely out of his depth, trapped between a failing grade and the crushing weight of a championship season.
"Deal," I said, reaching out and taking the keycard from his fingers. It felt heavy, a dangerous little piece of contraband burning a hole in my palm. I slipped it safely into my tote bag, then turned back to the legal pad with absolute authority.
"Alright, Issac. Sit closer so we look like we're just arguing about a group project. Let's start with the law of diminishing marginal utility—or, in terms you might actually understand, why the first slice of post-game pizza tastes better than the fifth."
Issac let out a quiet, relieved laugh, pulling his chair a few inches closer. "Fair enough. Lead the way, genius."
————-
The fluorescent lights of the library’s basement study room hummed a low, monotonous B-flat that was currently drilling a hole directly into my forehead. It was Thursday night. 11:14 PM. Issac’s make-or-break midterm was exactly nine hours away.
I leaned my chin in my hand, my waist-length brown hair spilling over the back of the plastic chair as I watched Issac stare at a graph of a monopoly’s long-run equilibrium. He’d ditched the fugitive charcoal hoodie tonight, opting for a heather-grey CMC soccer crewneck with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He looked exhausted, the sharp lines of his jaw tight with concentration, but there was a stubborn focus in his hazel eyes that I hadn't expected from a guy who spent his afternoons chasing a ball.
"Okay," Issac muttered, his pen hovering over the paper. "If the monopolist increases production past the point where marginal revenue equals marginal cost..." He paused, his brow furrowing.
"They incur a loss on the additional units," I supplied flatly, tapping the page with the back of my pen. "Because the cost to make them is higher than the revenue they bring in. Come on, Callahan, you know this. We’ve done it three times."
Issac let out a rough laugh, dropping his pen onto the table and rubbing his face with both hands. "My brain is officially mush, Burke. I’m seeing supply curves in my sleep. If I tank this tomorrow, I’m dead."
"You’re not going to tank it," I said, leaning back and crossing my arms. "You actually know the material now. You just need to stop overthinking the math and trust the logic."
Issac dropped his hands, tilting his head to look at me. The exhausted, stressed-out look suddenly melted away, replaced by a slow, crooked smile—the exact kind of practiced, heavy-lidded charm I’d seen on half the guys over at Claremont McKenna. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table, shifting just an inch or two into my space as his voice dropped into a lower, softer register.
"Is that a pep talk from the fierce Anna-Beth Burke?" he teased. "I thought you were only in this for the rare book archives."
"I am," I said, my voice cutting through his low tone like a dull knife. I didn't blink, completely unaffected by the sudden shift in proximity. "If you fail, my access to the Gould folios gets cut off. It’s a purely transactional relationship. Total economic self-interest."
"Right. Purely transactional," Issac repeated, his smile widening slightly as if he took my bluntness as some kind of challenge. He reached out, his fingers casually brushing against mine as he took my green highlighter from the table, turning it over in his hand. "But you’ve been sitting in this windowless basement with me for four nights straight. You even brought me those terrible, stale vending-machine pretzels yesterday because I forgot to eat dinner."
"They were a resource allocation to prevent a total cognitive breakdown," I shot back, completely unbothered. I snatched the highlighter back out of his fingers before he could spin it, capping it with a sharp, definitive click. "An unproductive tutor is an inefficient use of my time. Don't read into it."
Issac chuckled, though a small flicker of surprise crossed his face when I didn't blush or look away. He leaned a fraction closer, trying again. "You know, for someone who claims to only care about narrative architecture and old books, you’re surprisingly attentive. Most people just yell at me when I don't get the math. You actually find a different way to explain it until it clicks. It’s... nice."
"It’s called effective pedagogy, Callahan," I said, raising an eyebrow at him. I could practically see the gears turning in his head, the varsity team captain trying to deploy his usual routine on a girl who spent her weekends studying the syntactic structures of dead poets. It was almost funny. "Look, save the smoldering looks for the stands on Saturday. I’ve known Noah and Levi my entire life. I am completely immune to soccer-player charm."
Issac paused, the playfulness in his hazel eyes giving way to genuine amusement as he realized his standard playbook was completely useless here. He leaned back in his chair, putting his hands up in a mock surrender. "Ouch. Cold, Burke."
"Practical," I corrected, sliding the textbook back into the center of the table. "And if Levi hears you trying to use your post-game lines on me, he’ll convert his defensive skills from the soccer field to the parking lot. Which would also be an inefficient use of everyone's time."
Issac let out a genuine, unbothered grin, clearly accepting that the boundary line I’d drawn was made of solid concrete. "Fair enough. No more lines."
"Good," I said, checking my watch. "We have thirty minutes left before the library closes. Let's do one more problem on oligopolies, and then you're going back to CMC to get some sleep so you don't waste my week of hard work."
"Yes, ma'am," Issac muttered, cracking his knuckles and picking his pen back up. The charm was gone, replaced by the actual, focused student I needed him to be.
"Alright," I said, pointing to the next graph. "Show me the kinked demand curve."
- Writer
