Novel Full Chapter 46: [2.19] The Tutor’s Proximity is a Critical Hit!
Chapter 46: [2.19] The Tutor’s Proximity is a Critical Hit!
Cassidy Valentine was experiencing something deeply unsettling.
She was paying attention.
Not fake paying attention, where you nod along and think about literally anything else. Not spite-paying attention, where you memorize random facts just to prove a point. This was genuine, honest-to-god engagement with educational material.
What the hell is happening to me?
The history textbook lay open across her lap, pages spread to a Chapter about the Reign of Terror. Isaiah sat in the armchair across from her, his voice low and steady as he explained how Robespierre went from revolutionary hero to paranoid dictator in the span of a few years.
“So basically,” Cassidy interrupted, “the guy who started the revolution became the thing he was fighting against?”
“Pretty much. Power corrupts.”
“That’s depressing.”
“That’s history.”
She should have been bored. She should have been playing on her Switch. She should have been anywhere else, doing anything else, with anyone else.
Instead, she found herself leaning forward slightly, actually curious about what happened next.
This doesn’t mean anything.
The thought came automatically, a defensive reflex honed over years of academic failure.
He’s just less boring than the other tutors. He tells it like a story instead of reading from the textbook like a robot. Anyone could do this. It’s not special. HE’S not special.
Isaiah turned a page. “The Committee of Public Safety was supposed to protect the revolution. Instead, it became a way to eliminate anyone Robespierre considered a threat. Real or imagined.”
“How many people did they kill?”
“Estimates vary. Somewhere between sixteen thousand and forty thousand.”
“Jesus.”
“The guillotine was considered humane at the time. Quick. Painless. Democratic, even. Everyone got the same death, whether you were a duke or a baker.”
“That’s so messed up.”
“That’s France.”
Cassidy snorted.
Do not laugh at his jokes. Do NOT give him the satisfaction.
The problem was, she understood what he was saying. The Estates-General thing had clicked. The three estates: clergy, nobility, commoners. The commoners had the numbers but no power. The system was rigged against them from the start.
When Isaiah had asked why the peasants stormed the Bastille, Cassidy had blurted out the answer before her brain could stop her mouth.
“Gunpowder. They needed weapons, not bread.”
Isaiah had looked at her then. Just for a second. His expression hadn’t changed, but something in his eyes had shifted.
Like she’d surprised him.
Like maybe she wasn’t as stupid as everyone assumed.
The memory made her face feel warm, and she hated it.
Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about HIM.
“Here.” Isaiah stood from the armchair. “There’s a map that shows how the revolution spread. It’s easier to understand if you can see the geography.”
He walked around the coffee table and sat down on the couch.
Next to her.
Close to her.
Their shoulders were maybe six inches apart. She could feel the warmth radiating off his body. Could smell something clean and faintly masculine. Soap. Coffee. Something underneath that she couldn’t identify. Rain on concrete, maybe. Or the subway after midnight.
Why is he so close?
When did he get so close?
Why didn’t I tell him to move?
She opened her mouth to demand he return to his armchair where he belonged. To remind him about personal space and professional boundaries and the fact that she was his EMPLOYER, technically, and employers didn’t sit this close to the help.
Nothing came out.
Isaiah pointed at the map in the textbook. His finger traced the borders of revolutionary France.
“See how Paris was the center of everything? The revolution spread outward from here, but the further you got from the capital, the less control they had.”
Cassidy nodded. Her eyes were on the map. Definitely on the map. Not on his hands.
His hands.
She noticed them against her will. They weren’t soft like the hands of boys at Hartwell who’d never worked a day in their pampered lives. There were calluses on his palms. The kind you got from actual labor. From lifting things and carrying things and doing things that didn’t involve swiping credit cards.
Working hands.
Strong hands.
Hands that could probably—
She squeezed her eyes shut.
NO. We are NOT going there.
“You okay?”
Her eyes snapped open. Isaiah was watching her with one eyebrow slightly raised.
“Fine! I’m fine! Just… processing. The map. Very informative. Continue.”
Isaiah’s gaze lingered on her face for exactly two seconds longer than necessary. Then he turned back to the textbook.
“Anyway. The Vendée region resisted the revolution. They were Catholic, loyal to the king. The government responded with what some historians call genocide.”
“That’s dark.”
He kept talking. Something about counter-revolutionary movements and military campaigns and political purges.
Cassidy’s attention drifted.
Not to the window. Not to her phone. Not to literally anywhere else.
To his jaw.
It was sharp. Defined. He hadn’t shaved today. There was a faint shadow of stubble along his chin and up toward his cheekbones. It made him look older. Rougher. Less like a high school student and more like someone who’d actually lived.
He’s not even that attractive.
He’s the help. He’s a scholarship case. He probably eats instant ramen for every meal and sleeps on a couch and has never owned anything worth more than fifty dollars.
None of that changed the fact that her heart rate had increased by approximately thirty percent since he sat down.
I’m not attracted to him.
I’m NOT.
This is just… proximity. Hormones. The natural physiological response to having an objectively decent-looking male in close range.
Isaiah turned another page.
His arm brushed against hers.
The contact lasted maybe half a second. A tiny, insignificant collision of fabric against fabric. The kind of thing that happened a thousand times a day to everyone everywhere.
Cassidy’s brain exploded.
The shower stall.
The memory hit her like a truck. The wet tile against her back. The steam in the air. His body pressed against hers in that tiny space while the cheerleaders chattered outside. His hands on her waist. Her hands on his chest. The way she could feel his heartbeat through his shirt.
What if she hadn’t turned on the water?
What if she had looked up at him instead?
What if his head had tilted down toward hers, and their faces had gotten closer, and his mouth had—
STOP.
STOP STOP STOP.
BAD BRAIN. VERY BAD BRAIN. WE ARE NOT DOING THIS.
Cassidy shook her head violently. The motion was so sudden that her wine-red hair whipped across her face.
Isaiah paused mid-sentence. Both eyebrows went up this time.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“YES. Crick in my neck. Old injury. From tennis. Keep talking about the guillotine.”
She grabbed a throw pillow and hugged it against her chest like a shield.
Isaiah studied her for a long moment. His dark eyes were unreadable. Then he shrugged one shoulder and returned to his explanation.
“Robespierre’s downfall came from his own paranoia. He started accusing fellow revolutionaries of being traitors. Once you start executing your own allies, it’s only a matter of time before they decide to execute you first.”
His lips were moving.
Cassidy watched his lips move.
Are they soft? They look soft. What would it be like if he just stopped talking and looked at me and leaned in and—
Cassidy made a strangled noise in the back of her throat.
Isaiah stopped talking again.
“…You’re making weird sounds.”
“I’M FINE. Just. Agreeing. Enthusiastically. With the history.”
“You were agreeing with Robespierre getting his jaw shot off?”
“YES. He deserved it. Tyranny and whatever. Go on.”
The flush on her cheeks had spread down her neck. She could feel it burning beneath her skin. Her ears were probably red. They always turned red when she got flustered.
This is disgusting.
He’s the HELP.
I don’t even LIKE him.
His lips are STUPID.
His jaw is STUPID.
His hands are STUPID.
Everything about him is STUPID.
Isaiah closed the textbook.
The sound made Cassidy jump like she’d been caught doing something illegal.
“Not bad.” His voice was calm. Neutral. Maybe, if she squinted and looked sideways, slightly approving. “You retained most of that. Asked good questions.”
He’s praising me.
Why does that feel like warm honey in my chest?
STOP IT.
“Ready to try a different subject? We should hit some math while you’re still focused.”
The word “math” landed like a bucket of ice water dumped directly on her head.
Every warm, confusing, absolutely unacceptable feeling evaporated instantly. Her walls slammed back up so hard she could almost hear them lock into place.
“Math?” She crossed her arms over the throw pillow. “Absolutely not. I’ve reached my learning limit for the day. Brain’s full. No vacancy.”
“We made a deal.”
“What deal? I didn’t agree to any deal.”
“You threw a pillow at me and said ’fine.’ That’s an agreement.”
“That’s assault, not a contract!”
Isaiah didn’t argue. He just sat there looking at her with that infuriatingly calm expression. Like nothing she said could touch him. Like her tantrums were weather patterns he’d learned to predict.
“The numbers don’t stay still,” she heard herself say.
The admission came out small. Quiet. Before she could shove it back down where it belonged.
Isaiah tilted his head slightly. “What do you mean?”
“On the page. They… move around. Mix themselves up. I look at a problem and by the time I get to the end, I’ve forgotten what the beginning was.”
She hadn’t told anyone this. Not her tutors. Not her sisters. Not even her father, when he was alive.
Why am I telling HIM?
Isaiah was quiet for a moment. His expression hadn’t changed, but something behind his eyes had shifted.
“That sounds frustrating.”
“It’s not FRUSTRATING, it’s—” She stopped. Swallowed. “Yeah. It’s frustrating.”
“We’ll work on it.”
“You can’t FIX it. It’s just how my brain is.”
“I didn’t say fix. I said work on it. There are different ways to approach math. The standard methods don’t work for everyone.”
She stared at him.
This infuriating, unflappable, annoyingly attractive scholarship boy who had somehow made her care about the French Revolution.
Why doesn’t he react?
Why doesn’t he get flustered?
Why does he look at me like I’m a puzzle he’s already figured out?
And why…
Why do I want him to look at me like something else?
Cassidy grabbed the throw pillow and hurled it at his face.
“FINE. Get the stupid math book. But I’m going to hate every second of it.”
He caught the pillow without breaking eye contact.
“Noted.”
His lips quirked. Just barely. The ghost of a smile that disappeared before it fully formed.
I hate him.
I hate him so much.