Chapter 122 It Was Basically Useless
After hanging up, Katniss floored it to the restaurant where they were supposed to meet and chilled in the car when she got there.
It was noon, and the sun was blazing, turning her car into an oven. She bailed and headed inside after a bit.
There was a couch by the entrance for guests to kick back, so she plopped down and started scrolling through her course materials on her phone.
Half an hour later, a waiter came over and asked, "Miss, you waiting for someone or eating in?"
"I'm waiting for someone." She checked her watch and realized it had been almost an hour, so she quickly called Ryan again.
He picked up, and she could hear car horns blaring in the background.
"Hey, is your boss done with his meeting?" Katniss's eyes locked onto a black G-Wagon merging into traffic outside the restaurant.
A few days ago, Aaron had taken that exact car to the education center!
She jumped up, pushed the door open, and walked out. Ryan's voice came through the phone, "Sorry, we had an urgent thing come up and just left the restaurant."
Katniss pursed her lips, watching the car slowly drive away. After a moment, she took a deep breath. "It's cool. What's your name?"
"Just call me Mr. Gray," Ryan said, glancing at Tristan in the back seat through the rearview mirror.
Tristan was staring out the window, a faint smile on his lips, clearly amused by the whole thing.
After hanging up, Katniss saved Ryan's number as 'Mr. Gray' and then drove back to the education center.
After mulling it over, she still went to Celestial Villas on time that evening, lugging all the 8th-grade books with her.
When she got to the door with the box of books, she found it slightly open but still politely raised her hand to ring the doorbell.
Aaron's impatient voice came from inside, "The door's open! Just come in!"
She pushed the door open with her side, and a weird noise came from above. Looking up, she saw a bucket full of water falling down.
Cold water drenched her, soaking her dress.
The bucket landed on her head, making her head buzz.
"Hahaha!" Aaron's laughter echoed, "Serves you right!"
He then bolted upstairs, not giving a damn about Katniss's soaked state.
Katniss stood there for a few seconds, then dropped the box of books, which hit the ground with a thud. She yanked the bucket off her head, her face full of anger.
Her wet eyelashes clumped together, and her eyes trembled slightly as she glared at Aaron, who had stopped at the third-floor corner. "I'm telling you, there's no way I'm doing tutoring. If you want to come, I won't stop you, as long as you have the patience!"
"I ain't got much patience," Katniss shot back, looking up at him. "You're wasting your youth and your time. You only live once. You wanna spend your life looking up at others from the bottom?"
Her words bounced right off him. Aaron leaned on the railing, raising an eyebrow like he couldn't care less. "What's it to you?"
With that, he turned and walked off.
Katniss took a deep breath, pushed her wet hair back, and squatted down to fish the soggy books out of the box.
Most of the books were wet around the edges, but aside from looking like crap, they were fine. She dumped the water out of the box.
Then she hauled the books back to her car.
But she didn't bounce. She went up to the third floor and barged into Aaron's room. Aaron was sprawled on the couch, glued to his video game.
He looked a bit surprised to see her.
She didn't flinch, kicked aside some junk in her way, plopped down on a chair, and started messing around on her phone.
Aaron snorted and kept playing his game.
She sat there for two hours until nine o'clock, then got up and left.
At the door, she was surprised to see the water stains on the floor were gone.
'Did Aaron's temporary guardian come back?' Katniss wondered, but there was no car at the gate.
After a bit, she left the villa, carrying the box of books and walking out of the community.
From a room on the second floor, a pair of eyes watched her. Her long hair was half-dry, the ends sticking to her neck.
She hadn't walked far before she sneezed, but with both hands holding the box, she couldn't grab a tissue, looking pretty rough.
She disappeared at the community gate, and Tristan went upstairs.
He kicked open Aaron's door. Aaron frowned and was about to say something, but seeing it was him, he instinctively sat up straight.
"If you're here to nag me about studying, save it," Aaron said.
Tristan's eyes scanned the room, landing on the only clean chair. He walked over and sat down.
The familiar scent lingered in the air, and there was a small water stain by his shoe, reflecting the room's light.
He took out a cigarette, lit it, and started smoking. Soon, the room was filled with smoke.
Aaron felt uneasy, and after finishing his game, he put down his tablet, nervously rubbing his hands on his clothes.
Unexpectedly, Tristan finished his cigarette and left.
As expected, Katniss caught a cold. She later realized that the bucket of water must have had ice in it; otherwise, it wouldn't have been so cold.
The next morning, Katniss woke up with a runny nose and a cough. Matilda made her chug a big glass of warm water, but it didn't do squat, so she ended up hitting the hospital for some meds.
"The doc said you need an IV. Just popping pills ain't gonna cut it," Matilda said, holding the prescribed meds and trailing behind her.
Katniss hopped into the car without looking back. Once Matilda was in, she said, "I've got a ton of course materials to prep during the day, a trial class in the afternoon, and tutoring at Daniel's place tonight. I don't have time to get an IV drip."
She grabbed a tissue to wipe her nose, fired up the engine, and headed toward the education center.
"What about tomorrow?" Matilda asked, turning to her. "You still gonna tutor that Aaron kid? Today it was water; who knows, tomorrow it might be fire. You need to have a serious talk with his guardian!"
Just thinking about Aaron made Katniss's head pound, but what really bugged her wasn't Aaron himself.
It was the fact that she couldn't get a hold of his guardian for a proper chat.
"I remember there was an emergency contact listed on his registration form. Find it and send it to me when we get back," said Katniss.
Matilda nodded, and as soon as they got to the office, she immediately looked up Aaron's info on the computer and sent both phone numbers listed to Katniss.
One of them was Ryan's.
Without missing a beat, she dialed the second number. After five or six rings, a familiar voice answered. "Hello, this is Mr. Gray."
"Mr. Gray?" Katniss recognized the voice right away.
"Ms. Grey?" Ryan sounded a bit surprised on the other end.
After a few awkward seconds, Katniss spoke again, "I found this number on Aaron's registration form. I thought it might belong to his sister or your boss."
Ryan paused and said, "This is indeed my boss's number, but it's his work phone, and I usually handle it."
So it was basically useless.
"Then I'd like to schedule a meeting with your boss to discuss Aaron. The last two tutoring sessions ended really badly, and I don't think this can be brushed off anymore." Katniss didn't want to drag this out. "Until we have a proper discussion, Aaron's tutoring sessions are on hold."
In the office, her voice was clear through the speakerphone.
Ryan glanced at Tristan, who was looking at a document, seemingly busy.
But he hadn't turned a page in a while, and Ryan only dared to complain in his head.
It wasn't until Tristan looked up and raised an eyebrow at him that he dared to respond to Katniss, "Alright, I'll set it up and let you know."
"Thanks, Mr. Gray."
After hanging up, Katniss felt a weight lift off her shoulders and dove into her other tasks.
A formal appointment felt way more legit than just winging it. On Friday morning, Katniss got a call from Ryan.
She was supposed to visit their office at 2 PM.
So, Katniss cleared her afternoon schedule and showed up at the spot at 1:40 PM.
The skyscraper was massive, with people hustling in and out. She had given Ryan's name in advance but still got stopped by security.
She had to call Ryan to get the green light.
But no one came to escort her to the meeting room, so she had to ask around and finally found the place after a bit of a wild goose chase.
It was exactly 2 PM when she sat down, and she waited patiently for a few minutes, but no one showed up.
She kept waiting, and half an hour went by. When she called Ryan again, he told her his boss had an urgent meeting and totally forgot about her.
"Then please arrange for him to come to the education center to discuss this with me," Katniss said, her patience shot. She grabbed her bag and left.
She had been an assistant before, and unless there was a major emergency, pre-scheduled appointments were rarely canceled.
And she didn't sense any urgency or tension in the company, which proved there was no pressing matter.
So they clearly didn't take her seriously.
After hanging up, Ryan looked at Tristan, who was video chatting with his parents.
It wasn't an urgent matter indeed, because Tristan's parents were discussing personal issues.
"Don't think that just because you're in Nightfall City, we can't do anything about it," Tristan's father, Travis Forbes, said angrily.
"Stop talking so much. Once the Nightfall City project stabilizes, you need to come back immediately. Synergy Global Corporation is so busy, how can Eudora handle it all by herself?" Ivy Price's tone was commanding.
Tristan remained indifferent, looking at the two sitting properly in front of the camera.
Seeing his reaction, Travis got even angrier. "Did you hear what I said? I'm telling you, if you don't come back once the project stabilizes, I..."
"When I come back is up to me. Instead of wasting your breath here, you should focus on stabilizing Synergy Global Corporation," Tristan interrupted.
This made Travis even angrier. He said, "Since you left, Synergy Global Corporation has been in chaos, and the stock market has been affected. Who's going to clean up your mess? If it weren't for Eudora..."
Not wanting to listen to their nagging anymore, Tristan ended the video call, closed his laptop, and looked at Ryan, asking, "Where is she?"
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