"Out of all of my students, you sigh the most."
After saying this the man pauses, but brushes that thought aside. They're just a stressed college student, it's probably nothing serious. So, they continue with their online lesson, screen sharing and talking over skype. The atmosphere is light with jokes regularly spoken by the student. 'Everything's ok. They wouldn't joke around this much if something was wrong.' The tutor thinks, as they say they're goodbyes.
"See you next week!" They say, quickly leaving the call before more homework can be assigned to them. The man laughs and not for the first time wonders how old their student really is. He knows they're in college, but they also failed a few times, so they're older than the average third year college student, but by how much? Because sometimes his student acted like a high school-er and other times surprised the tutor with their bouts of seriousness and knowledge. Its strange having only a name and a voice. They could pass each other on the streets and never know.
'I've got 15 minutes before my next lesson,' he thinks deciding to go to the kitchen to grab a quick dinner before he needs to continue lessons. The tutors day continues and he doesn't wrap up till 8 p.m. By then the phrase has left his mind and another week passes.
*
**
*
"Hey, hows it going?" he starts with his usual question.
They let out a long sigh in response, "I'm alive. How bout you?"
He chuckles, "Not doing to bad myself. You don't sound good. You okay?"
"I'm okay, just a lot of things on my plate." There's a pause and some shuffling from their end. The tutor waits knowing that their student has a question that they need to think over. "Can I have some advice? That might not have anything to do with our lesson."
"I'll do my best, what's up?"
It's answered by another sigh and what sounds like finger taping, they eventually build up the courage to ask their question. The tutor smiles slightly to himself, not many of his students ask for his advice, usually it's just help with their homework, but this one does every once in a while. It always makes him wonder what's going on in their life, but he doesn't ask not wanting to take up precious lesson time. Time is something that this student of his doesn't have a lot of.
