Wendy found her way to the small classroom where she would be being tutored from now on ninth period. She had no clue who was going to be tutoring her, but she figured it would be a teacher, and that made her incredibly nervous. The sheer amount of schoolwork that was late and unfinished could make anyone dizzy, and Wendy hated to think about it. She waited at one of the desks, playing around with her pencil, trying to calm her nerves. After about ten minutes of waiting, the door pushed open, and a small face peeked inside. Wendy was shocked to see her tutor was going to be Irene, and she watched with a puzzled expression as Irene gave a shy smile and shut the door behind her. 

“Hi.” She said softly, almost inaudibly. “I’m going to be tutoring you.” Wendy just nodded, unable to speak. Irene sat down at the desk beside her. “I don’t think we’ve ever formally met, but…” She trailed off. “We do know each other.” 

“Yeah.” Wendy half laughed. “Hi.” She swallowed back another nervous laugh. This definitely wasn’t a time to laugh. “Listen, I’m sorry about what I said. I was just being mean.” 

“It’s alright.” Irene gave her a smile she could tell was false. “You were just upset.” Wendy sighed and Irene flipped open a folder. “They told me you need help with schoolwork?” 

“Yeah.” Wendy tapped her foot at an odd meter, the rhythm of it jerky and offbeat. She watched Irene, whose eyes were downcast as she scanned over the papers in the folder labelled with Wendy’s name. She had long, sleek black hair that hung down below her shoulders and practically gleamed under the lights of the room. Her round rimmed glasses were settled on the bridge of her nose, as they always were, and every so often she would reach up to push them back into a more comfortable position. 

“What exactly is it that you need help with?” Irene peeked her head back up, a doe eyed expression gracing her features as she looked at Wendy. She was very, very pretty, Wendy had to admit; she was almost too pretty, like she couldn’t really be real. The sweet, innocent look in her eyes made it hard for Wendy to hold back a smile. 

“I just…” She ran a hand through her hair, ruffling it and messing it up a little, hoping to put some volume in it. It never worked. “I don’t turn stuff in.” 

“Oh.” Irene looked surprised. She nodded and then said, “Well I’ll just help you with time management.” A small smile. “That makes everything easier.” Wendy didn’t want to break it to her it was way more than time management issues she was dealing with. Irene seemed so confident she could help Wendy, that simply teaching her how to plan out her time better would fix all her issues. She wished it was that simple. “Are you okay?” Irene’s sweet voice seemed to melt in the air halfway to Wendy, so quiet and hushed she could hardly hear the girl. 

“Huh?” Wendy asked, furrowing her brow and leaning closer to Irene. 

“Are you okay?” Irene repeated in just as soft a tone as before. 

“Yeah, fine.” Wendy said stiffly. She hated when anyone asked her about her feelings, even Joy, and Joy was the only person she was close with at all. It was weird to be next to Irene, sitting close enough to feel the warmth emanating off her body. The scent of something flowery was overpowering and she knew it was coming from Irene. Wendy subtly scooted away. Irene tilted her head downwards, breaking eye contact, mouth pursed like she was holding back something, whether it be words or tears Wendy could not tell. Maybe she hadn’t scooted away as subtly as she thought she had. 

“Why don’t you work on something and let me know if you need any help.” Irene suggested to the floor she was staring at. Wendy nodded, even though Irene could not see it, and reached for her backpack and pulled out some Algebra to work on. It was hardly challenging and she flew through the problems, like she always had back when she’d been herself. She was always striving to be better, better than anything she could ever imagine. Now it felt like there was no point in striving anymore, when everything can get ripped away in an instant. She hated the idea of working so hard when none of it seemed to matter because life could pull the rug right out from under you at any moment.

As she was finishing up the last problem, she glanced up and caught Irene watching her intently, her dark brown eyes fixated on Wendy, looking perplexed. Suddenly, Wendy felt weak and small under Irene’s gaze, which she could not understand because Irene was hardly intimidating. But somehow Irene made every part of her hold its breath, not getting permission to breathe again until her gaze was fixated on something else.

~

Irene spent her entire walk home feeling incredibly odd. Spending time with Wendy went entirely different than she had expected, though she wasn’t sure that was a good thing. It would have been easier to find out Wendy was horrible and to just politely dislike her in silence - then she could have gone to the principal and said she wasn’t fit to do this. But Wendy was surprisingly likeable, too likeable; in fact, she was positively pleasant to be around. She had a habit of playing with her hair when she was thinking really hard, and when she smiled big her whole face would smile, her nose scrunching up and her eyes crinkling at the corner. Irene liked to see her smile like that, it was kind of cute. It made her less frightening and more human, made her look softer. Irene hated the hard edge she tried to put on, because within fifteen minutes of alone time with the girl she knew that was a facade. 

The blistery cold wind smarted against Irene’s cheeks, making her shiver, pulling her knitted scarf farther up to cover her face. Seulgi had told her she could hang around, tag along to the game and get a ride home afterwards if she wanted to, but Irene had politely declined. She hated sports games, and she didn’t have anyone to sit with. Seulgi would be on the field playing and beyond that, Irene really had nobody. She hardly even considered herself friends with Seulgi, since she was pretty sure Seulgi was only nice to her because she was nice to everyone. That’s just how Seulgi was, bubbly and confident and friendly to everyone. That’s why she was senior class president and the most beloved student at their high school, why everyone was hoping she would be valedictorian over Irene. Then there would only be one speech at graduation, from Seulgi, who would easily have a great speech. 

Irene mulled over what the principal had told her, that she was most likely going to be valedictorian. She and Seulgi had been competing for it for years. Sure, freshman year there were a few more competitors in the ring, like Im Nayeon, who was now third in the class. But ever since junior year it had been Seulgi and Irene back and forth every quarter, passing it around, never knowing who it would end up with. They’d always been on a pretty much even playing field, taking all the same AP classes, their GPAs always 0.01 points apart. Lately, Irene had been pulling ahead of Seulgi quite a bit, but she figured Seulgi would bounce back and take the crown just in time. Which to be quite honest, Irene would be fine with. She would still get into a good college, still be able to go to medical school, without being valedictorian, and she would get to avoid making a speech at graduation. What would she even speak about? She could practically hear everyone laughing at her now. 

She arrived home and unlocked her front door, the wind blowing it shut behind her. She removed her coat, scarf, gloves, and shoes, putting them neatly in their respective places, and ran up the steps two at a time to get to her bedroom. She always preferred being in her bedroom over being anywhere else. It was her sanctuary, the place where she didn’t have to be a certain way for anyone, didn’t have to worry about fitting in or impressing anyone. She shut her bedroom door behind her and let out a deep breath, relaxing her shoulders and she settled into her space. Her latest drawing was on her desk, an angel with the ocean for wings and seashells in her hair. She never drew any men angels, but it didn’t really seem that odd to her. Why would she want to draw men when really women were the true angels? Weren’t angels always depicted as women? They were simply too delicate and powerful to be encapsulated as anything other than something feminine in Irene’s mind. 

She put her freshly finished drawing in the drawer with all of the other drawings she had completed and pulled out her prayer notebook. It had been a long time since she had written in it, and it made her sad she had been neglecting it. It used to bring her so much comfort, and she wanted to find her way back to that. So, she opened it to a fresh page, took out her favorite ballpoint pen, and began to write, willing the words to come to her as her breaths did, filling the silence of her mind with words the way her ink was filling the page.