The Penalty Box Tutor

Taylor

The shrill buzz of my alarm shattered the silence of my dorm room.

I groaned and blindly reached across my nightstand, knocking over a pen before finally finding my phone. The noise stopped, leaving behind the kind of quiet that somehow felt even louder at six-thirty in the morning.

For a few seconds, I just lay there.

Same ceiling.

Same tiny crack running across the corner that looked suspiciously like Florida if you squinted hard enough.

Same faint shadow from the air vent.

Same room.

Same life.

Nothing had changed while I slept.

With a sigh, I pushed the blankets aside and sat up. The floor was cold against my bare feet, and I immediately regretted every life choice that had led me to an eight o’clock philosophy class.

My gaze drifted toward the wall across from my bed.

The sign was still there.

New Day, New Beginnings.

I stared at it.

It stared back.

Every morning we had this little silent argument.

A bitter laugh escaped me as I rubbed my eyes.

“Yeah, okay.”

I wasn’t even sure why I’d bought it in the first place. Probably because it had looked cute hanging in the store. Or maybe because some hopeful version of me had actually believed it.

That girl was apparently an idiot.

Because life didn’t work that way.

There was no magical reset button waiting for you when you fell asleep.

No fairy godmother sneaking into your room overnight.

No dramatic movie montage where you woke up transformed into a completely different person.

You closed your eyes as you.

And you woke up as you.

Same face.

Same body.

Same insecurities.

Same problems waiting patiently for you exactly where you’d left them the night before.

I stood and shuffled toward the bathroom.

The overhead light flickered on, blinding me for a second before reality hit me square in the face.

Literally.

The mirror didn’t sugarcoat anything.

My long brown hair hung around my shoulders in limp waves that never seemed to cooperate. I ran my fingers through it, attempting some kind of miracle rescue.

Nothing.

It settled right back into place.

I leaned closer.

Still tired.

Still average.

Still looking like I lost a fight with my pillow.

And the rest of me?

Well.

No overnight miracle there either.

My gaze dropped before I quickly looked away again.

Not because I didn’t know what I looked like.

I knew exactly what I looked like.

Curvy.

Soft.

Definitely not the kind of body social media liked to reward.

Not the kind that made heads turn when I walked into a room.

I wasn’t one of those girls.

The ones who somehow looked effortlessly beautiful while claiming they “just threw something on.”

The ones who woke up looking camera-ready.

The ones who didn’t spend half their lives wondering if people noticed the extra weight they carried.

I knew what people saw when they looked at me.

Which was exactly why I preferred when they didn’t look at all.

“New day, my ass,” I muttered, grabbing my toothbrush.

An hour later, I was sitting in Philosophy 101 questioning every decision that had led me to this moment.

The classroom buzzed with conversation as students filed inside. Laughter bounced off the walls. Someone near the front was talking way too loudly about a party from the weekend.

I slipped into my usual seat near the back.

Nobody had assigned it to me.

Nobody would have cared if they had.

But after the first few weeks of the semester, it had unofficially become mine.

Maybe because I always sat there.

Or maybe because nobody noticed me enough to sit there first.

Honestly, either option felt equally believable.

I set my notebook on the desk and glanced around the room.

Big mistake.

A group of girls sat near the front chatting and laughing together.

They looked perfect.

Not Instagram perfect.

Real-life perfect.

The kind of beautiful that made other girls immediately start comparing themselves without even meaning to.

Their hair was glossy.

Their makeup was flawless.

Their clothes fit exactly the way clothes were apparently supposed to fit.

Meanwhile, I’d spent fifteen minutes deciding whether my sweater made me look slightly less round than my other sweater.

Spoiler alert.

It didn’t.

I looked away before I could continue spiraling.

That was another bad habit of mine.

Comparing.

I always lost.

My attention shifted back toward my notebook just as movement near the doorway caught my eye.

And then he walked in.

Marco Jennings.

Of course.

A sigh slipped out before I could stop it.

The annoying thing about Marco wasn’t that he was attractive.

The annoying thing was that he knew he was attractive.

There was a difference.

He carried himself like someone who had never doubted his place in a room.

Tall. Confident. Relaxed.

Like the world naturally made space for him wherever he went.

The reaction was immediate.

Girls glanced up.

A few whispered to each other.

One girl actually sat up straighter.

Which was honestly ridiculous because this was philosophy, not a meet-and-greet.

Marco didn’t seem to notice.

Or maybe he noticed and just pretended not to.

Either way, he kept walking like he owned the place.

Which, to be fair, wasn’t that far from the truth.

Star hockey player.

Campus celebrity.

Future professional athlete if the rumors were true.

And, in my personal opinion?

A complete asshole.

He’d been that guy in high school too.

The golden boy.

The one everybody loved.

The one teachers adored and students followed around like lost puppies.

We’d attended the same school for years.

Walked the same hallways.

Probably sat in some of the same classrooms.

Yet I could practically guarantee he had no idea who I was.

Why would he?

People like Marco didn’t notice people like me.

Our worlds had never overlapped.

Not really.

Still…

There was a tiny part of me that hated how good-looking he was.

A tiny, embarrassing part that noticed every time he walked into a room.

A tiny, stupid part that had carried around a crush for longer than I’d ever admit out loud.

Not that it mattered.

Because reality wasn’t a romance novel.

The popular hockey star wasn’t going to suddenly discover the quiet girl in the back row and realize she’d been the love of his life all along.

That wasn’t how real life worked.

Marco liked girls who looked like they belonged on fitness magazine covers.

Girls with toned legs and flat stomachs.

Girls who wore confidence as naturally as breathing.

Girls who looked nothing like me.

I leaned back in my chair and stared toward the front of the room.

The professor hadn’t even arrived yet, and somehow I was already exhausted.

Maybe that was why the sign in my dorm bothered me so much.

Because it promised something life never delivered.

New Day. New Beginnings.

I almost laughed.

Maybe one day I’d finally take it down.

Because as far as I could tell, this day was shaping up exactly like every other one.

And nothing about my life was about to change.