Mutual Suffering
Jinx didn’t show up to tutoring.
Again.
Lux had been prepared for this. She had given Jinx the benefit of the doubt once, but twice? Absolutely not.
So she did what any responsible, proactive student would do.
She texted her.
Lux: Hey. You’re late.
No response.
Lux: Jinx.
Nothing.
Lux: You are literally failing. Just show up.
Still nothing.
Lux exhaled sharply and stared at the screen. Then, hesitantly, she sent one more message.
Lux: Please?
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then, a few seconds later, her messages turned green.
Lux gasped.
She didn’t even know she was capable of making that noise. It was the sound of a person being emotionally defeated in real time.
Jinx had blocked her.
Lux clenched her jaw, breathing in through her nose. “Okay,” she muttered to herself. “Okay. That’s fine.”
She switched to her second phone—yes, she had a second phone, because she was responsible—and sent another text.
Lux (2nd Number): Did you just BLOCK me?
This one delivered.
Was marked as read.
And then this number was blocked too.
Lux nearly threw her phone across the library.
The next day, Lux refused to be outmaneuvered.
If texts didn’t work, she’d try email. If email didn’t work, Lux was fully prepared to file a formal complaint with the principal.
But before it came to that, she tried one last thing.
Subject: Tutoring
Jinx,
You are going to tutoring. I don’t care if you like it. If you don’t, neither of us graduate. Show up.
•Lux
She hit send.
And almost immediately got a reply.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Tutoring
unsubscribe.
Lux inhaled sharply.
She exhaled.
Then, with perfect composure, slammed her laptop shut hard enough to shake the table.
By the third missed session, Lux was fuming.
If Jinx was this dedicated to avoiding tutoring, then fine. Lux was done trying to reason with her. There was only one logical course of action left.
She was taking this directly to the principal.
With her bag slung over one shoulder and her fists clenched in frustration, she stormed out of the library, determined to have Principal Laurent deal with this mess.
She barely made it down the hall before slamming into someone rounding the corner.
“Oof—hey, watch it, Crownguard!”
Lux stumbled back and looked up—only to realize she had just walked directly into Jinx.
Jinx, who looked annoyingly pleased to see her.
Lux narrowed her eyes. “You—”
Jinx grinned. “Me!”
Lux scoffed. “Trust me, this is the last thing I need right now.”
Jinx leaned against the wall, folding her arms lazily. “Aww, and here I was thinking you’d be thrilled to see me.”
Lux ignored that. “Where are you going?”
Jinx hesitated just half a second too long.
Lux’s eyes widened. “Are you going to the principal’s office?”
Jinx clicked her tongue. “Damn. You got me, detective.”
Lux frowned. “Why?”
Jinx smirked. “Oh, you’re gonna love this.” She leaned in slightly, voice dripping with amusement. “I’m filing a complaint. About you.”
Lux blinked. “You were going to complain about me?”
Jinx raised an eyebrow. “You were gonna complain about me?”
Lux opened her mouth, closed it, then exhaled sharply. “Unbelievable.”
Jinx stretched her arms over her head, looking almost bored. “So? You wanna go first, or should I? You can cry about me being a terrible student, and I can whine about you being a painfully persistent little teacher’s pet. Real heartwarming stuff.”
Lux clenched her fists. “I am not a teacher’s pet!”
Jinx gave her a slow, knowing smirk. “Sure. And I totally love doing math homework.”
Lux groaned, spinning on her heel and marching toward the principal’s office.
Jinx, to her complete horror, strolled along beside her, whistling.
It was going to be a long meeting.
Lux’s fingers were clenched so tightly into fists that her knuckles were white. Her gaze never left Jinx as the girl lazily spun her pen in her fingers, the same steady rhythm that was quickly getting under Lux’s skin.
She’s doing it again, Lux thought, her teeth grinding together. She’s doing it on purpose.
It wasn’t even about the tutoring anymore. No, now it was personal. Every twist of that pen, every flick of Jinx’s fingers sent a pulse of anger through her, and it was almost like she couldn’t look away, no matter how much she wanted to.
“Can you just stop?” Lux snapped, her voice dripping with annoyance. “Do you have to do that right now?”
Jinx looked up, genuinely confused. She stopped spinning the pen, her brows furrowing. “What? The pen?”
Lux’s eyes flared with irritation. “Yes! The pen! You keep doing that, and it’s driving me insane!”
Jinx blinked slowly, as though she couldn’t quite process what Lux was so worked up about. “I’m… spinning it? What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal?” Lux shot back, leaning forward, her voice rising. “You keep doing it every time I try to talk to you, and it’s so distracting! It’s like—like you’re doing it on purpose to mess with me!”
Jinx blinked again, her confusion turning into a grin. “Mess with you? Dude, I’m just… playing with my pen. Like, I don’t even know what you’re getting all worked up about. It’s just a thing I do.”
Lux’s face was burning with frustration. “I hate it. You always do it! You don’t even care about anything! Why can’t you just focus on the damn work for once?”
Jinx’s grin widened, clearly not taking Lux’s outburst seriously. “Wow, Crownguard. I didn’t know you cared that much. Relax, yeah? It’s just a pen. I’m not doing it to get under your skin. It’s just… fun.”
“I don’t want to relax!” Lux’s voice had grown louder, more desperate now. “You’re making everything harder than it has to be! You have to pass these classes, and you just keep screwing around instead of doing what needs to be done.”
Jinx shrugged nonchalantly, tossing the pen into the air and catching it with the same careless ease she always had. “Hey, no one said I had to make this easy. If it’s a choice between stressing myself out and goofing off… I choose goofing off.”
Lux’s chest was rising and falling in rapid breaths, her patience stretched thin to its breaking point.
“Well, you’re about to be expelled if you keep acting like this,” Lux snapped, her words biting. “And I’m going to be stuck with the consequences. So maybe you should actually start caring for once.”
“Chill,” Jinx said with a shrug, spinning the pen again between her fingers. “It’s not like I’m gonna get expelled. I’ll figure it out.”
Just as Lux was about to unleash another tirade, Principal Laurent’s voice sliced through the air, sharp and commanding.
“Enough!” Principal Laurent said firmly, standing up from behind her desk. “Both of you, stop it. Now.”
They both fell silent, the room heavy with the tension of their argument. Lux felt the heat of her anger still burning through her, but there was no way to keep going.
“Lux,” Principal Laurent said, her voice taking on a hard edge. “You’re dismissed. Go outside, cool down. I don’t want to hear any more of this.”
Lux’s jaw clenched. “What? You’re letting her—”
“Go,” the principal snapped again, her voice cutting through Lux’s objections. “You’ll get another chance to speak. But you need to calm down first.”
Lux’s face was flushed with a mixture of anger and humiliation as she stood up, nearly knocking her chair over. She gave Jinx one last, seething look, and stormed out of the office.
As she walked down the hallway, Lux felt her anger simmering in her chest, not yet ready to dissipate. She had had enough of Jinx’s attitude, of her endless deflection, and of that goddamn pen spinning that was driving her crazy.
Lux’s phone buzzed in her pocket, a welcome distraction from the swirling thoughts in her head. She pulled it out, her frustration still clinging to her, and saw that Jinx had texted her.
Her heart skipped a beat, half annoyed and half curious. The message said:
“Unblocked.”
Lux raised an eyebrow, tapping to open the message thread. She saw a single line from Jinx:
“Tmr 5.”
Lux stared at the text, blinking in confusion. She reread it, wondering what exactly caused Jinx to unblock her, let alone text her first. Was this some sort of game?
It wasn’t like Jinx to be so direct.
Tomorrow at 5? Lux furrowed her brow, chewing on her lip. Would Jinx actually show up?
The idea made Lux’s stomach churn in ways she didn’t like. But still, she couldn’t just ignore it. Tomorrow at 5—Jinx was probably just trying to get under her skin again, but she couldn’t tell if it was working or not.
Lux stood still in the middle of the hallway, the message from Jinx still burning in her hands.