It doesn't seem to be working.

Rachel looks around at the library. No one wants to learn. No one is able to teach. She turns her attention back to her own table.

Hector and Vince are across her. Tate is at her side. None of them look like they want to be here.

Rachel silently takes out three dossiers and slide them to the table.

"What's this?" Vince says, noticing the dossiers.

"Some mock exercises for next week's test," Rachel says.

"Are you kidding me?" Tate says, "Aren't we here because we don't know anything? What's the point of asking us to solve problems right away? Aren't you supposed to be teaching us how to do those?"

Rachel bites her lips and nods. "This is only to check how much you know already," she says.

Vince grabs one of the files, leafs through its pages, puts them back down on the table. "Nothing in there I know," he confidently says.

Rachel silently slides the dossiers back into her backpack. Then she takes out their Physics book. Turns it to the chapter on Electrostatics.

Rachel starts talking about static electric charges, electrical flow resistance, static shock... When she looks up from the text book she sees that everyone is on their phones.

She thinks maybe she should just write down some notes and bring them tomorrow so the boys could take them home and study. For now though she continues to explain static electricity to no one in particular.

Even when Rachel had never been officially a tutor, she is good at explaining concepts. She does that with her friends when they don't understand something in the syllabus.

About half an hour later, the sound of a thunder takes everyone's attention away to the sky. It has darkened. Through the windows they see grey clouds roll in.

Rachel quickly closes the books.

"What are you doing?" Hector says to her.

Rachel points at the window, at the sky. "It's going to rain," she says.

"So?" He asks.

Among a few strict principles Rachel follows in her life is that if it looks like it's going to rain, she needs to head home so she could avoid the rain.

Rachel doesn't like the rain. Cold, wet, obscuring. The lightning and thunder shows don't help either.

"We... should go home," Rachel says, hoping she didn't just say the wrong thing.

"We still have half an hour left," Hector sternly says.

Rachel silently takes out her books again while stealing glances at the students who are already leaving.

"Let her go first. We can leave later," Tate says.

"No. Isn't she getting her training waived off for tutoring us? She stays for the whole hour," Hector says.

Sinking into her seat, Rachel turns the pages to where she left before. Hector goes back to using his phone.

Hector doesn't like people like Rachel. Naive. Gullible. Who have no clue of what real world is like. Who is scared of getting a little wet. Who wants to run to home where a loving mother is waiting for her with warm food. No. He doesn't like people like Rachel at all.

And he doesn't want to go home yet because he hates that place. He has never missed a class or training. If it's training day he stays back in school. When there's no training he's outside riding his motorbike along with his friends.

He doesn't go home unless it's dark enough, and he's tired enough, so he could fall asleep as soon as he returns home.

WHEN THE HOUR is over, Rachel leaves first. It had started to precipitate. She finds her friends riding out the rain in their homeroom class.

Then they all run to Moira's car since Rachel forgot her umbrella. Inside the car, Rachel looks out the window and sees Hector and his friends exit the school.

He has a black leather jacket on him today. It's not similar to the one in her room since there's no detail on this one.

Rachel checked the label of the jacket she has. She couldn't pronounce the name. "Hector" was embroidered below the brand logo. It is bespoke. And hella expensive, she later found out after googling.

Rachel presses her lips tight remembering how he implicitly reprimanded her for trying to leave early, even though he didn't even want to be tutored.

He hates me, Rachel thinks. But she doesn't know why. She only took his jacket, and he doesn't even know that.

THE NEXT DAY it's the same in the library. However, Rachel does goes through with her plan and gives the boys some notes she prepared so they can refer to them later if they wish since no one is paying any attention to anything she was saying now.

After the end of the tuition hours Annie puts forth a request to Rachel and Moira.

"Come back after dark?" Rachel says, surprised.

"Our club wants to capture the night sky," Annie says.

The girls look up at the sky. It's somehow more crystalline than usual after yesterday's thunderclouds had disappeared.

AT NIGHT THE school somehow feels unfamiliar and even a little outlandish. The clean walls look blotched and broken. The bright lights look dim. The gilded air during their afternoon classes now looks like smoke.

On the roof, Rachel and Moira meet the rest of the photography club members. A couple more girls and three boys.

Rachel notices how Annie seems to act all cute when she's interacting with one of the senior boys, Lyle.

"I guess this is why she joined the club," Moira whispers into Rachel's ear. Rachel nods.

Rachel and Moira settle on the roll mat they brought with them while the club members set up the cameras.

Rachel looks up. There's nothing interesting to see up there except for a few stars. But she's sure those cameras with their heavy and long lenses can even capture their galaxy.

A large cat suddenly jumps to the roof, causing some of the girls to shriek.

Once everyone gets over the shock and starts to ignore its presence, the cat comes over to Rachel and rubs the side of its torso against her back.

Rachel wants to pet it but she's scared of its claws. When she was much younger a kitten scratched her arm while she was trying to hold it. It was painful.

Since then she doesn't pick up kittens or even puppies. As the cat appears from her other side Rachel takes her index finger to its head and pokes it lightly.

I bet he won't be scared of you at all, Rachel thinks.

Soon a new group of students climb up over the roof. Rachel sees Ricky Marvin. He notices her as well and comes over and sits next to her.

"You're with the photography club?" Ricky says.

"No. Annie is. We just came with her. What about you?" Rachel says.

"Same. Stefan is in the club. I'm his ride tonight."

As the students huddle up in the windy roof, Ricky moves to make space for one of his friends. His shoulder touches Rachel's.

Rachel waits for him to retreat but when he doesn't move she slightly slides to the other side so their shoulders aren't touching anymore.

Two years ago, Ricky asked Rachel out. They were in another school for a competition. Rachel was surprised since she thought he didn't like her because he was criticizing her submission model in the competition.

When she realized he was really asking her out, she felt flattered and even happy, since it was the first time a boy had showed an interest in her like this.

But she politely turned him down. They were very different, she thought. An opinion she still holds. Rachel can never get used to some people's straightforward but rude-sounding way of talk. Because of them she begins to doubt herself and then is upset she did.

"You registered your team yet?" Ricky says.

"Not yet. Haven't had the time to talk to Jessie," Rachel lies.

"It's still not too late," Ricky says, "we can work together."

Rachel laughs a little. "Don't tell me everyone you asked refused to join you. No volunteers who isn't scared of being outperformed by you?" she says.

She won't be surprised if nobody wanted to work with the uptight Ricky. But then, he has a group of minions of his own who would participate with him.

"I don't know. I didn't ask anyone else. Just you," Ricky says.

Maybe because it's dark. Or maybe because they are sitting too close. Rachel feels her cheeks warm up. She clears her throat and says, "Well, I'm not changing my mind. I'm signing up with Jessie."

"What about coffee, then?" Ricky says, "Changed your mind about that?"

Rachel turns to him to tell him to drop the topic when she sees the monitor screen connected to the telescopic camera. It's displaying a breathtaking sight of the galaxy. Rachel smiles.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Ricky says.

Still in awe of what she's looking at, Rachel nods, not noticing Ricky isn't looking at the monitor.

End of chapter