#didnt think the simple cappuccino would keep me up so late

[princess-marida]

note to self: dont mix coffee after 9pm just before 750mg of metformin during the first day of your period ever again

[savoies]

Cliches - Carter Hart.

Carter Hart x Reader.

Summary: Carter is the popular guy while Y/N is just the girl who keeps to herself. She starts tutoring him and they rekindle a friendship that they used to have which leads to even more after learning to trust each other again.

Word Count: 2.5k

Warning: maybe a bad word or two and hints of a bad home life.

A/N: Before anyone comes at me, yes this is like a walk to remember but with my ideas and a different take on that. But it does have the aspect of two opposites attracting. I really hope you guys like it.

Carter Hart was the residential popular boy at Lakeview High. Everyone knew him and he tried to know everyone. Carter was big on meeting new people and starting conversations wherever he was. He wasn't popular for being rude, being the football captain, or dating the head cheerleader. Carter was actually popular for being nice. Yes he did have a spot on the football team but he didn't think he was better than anyone else and treated everyone the same.

Y/N was the residential shy girl. She kept to herself and her life motto was the less social interactions the better. Y/N didn't perceive to be rude she just didn't like to put her walls down for people that would just walk away. She felt as though keeping to herself was the best option. She did put her walls down for her best friend but he just walked away after they both went into highschool.

Carter and Y/N had their fair share of interactions throughout highschool. But during their entire childhood they were glued to the hip. Carter was the only person that had seen Y/N be herself yet when they went into highschool that all changed. Carter joined the football team saying that he would still have enough time for his best friend. But after the first week Y/N was by herself and Carter was mostly with his new friends that included football players and cheerleaders.

Carter tried talking to Y/N, ok maybe not having a full blown conversation but sending a simple hello her way. But every time he tried she would walk the other way. She didn't want to deal with him. If he had ignored her all of freshman year, she could ignore a simple hello. As she walked to her english class she took a seat towards the middle where she could blend in. There was about ten minutes before class started so she buried her head in a book to avoid conversation. What brought back her attention though was Carter walking in with his friends laughing loudly. Y/N looked up and they made eye contact for a second. She smiled at him shyly and put her book away as the teacher walked in. 

Carter was failing english badly. If he didn't show up to class everyday he probably would've had a better grade than now. He needed to raise it up to play football or his spot would be given to someone else who had better grades. If he let it go down one bit more, then his whole football journey was over. Now he didn't want that and his teacher had talked to him about getting a tutor. Now Carter knew that getting a tutor probably meant that he would get stuck with some dude that only cared about homework. That is why he groaned at the idea but if it was supposed to help him so he was supposed to say yes right.

As class ended Carter headed up to the teachers desk as you packed up your stuff. You noticed that they were talking so you decided to pack up a bit quicker to leave and give them privacy. But as soon as you were gonna walk out the door your teacher called you.

“Y/N could you come here for a second please.” you put a smile on your face and headed back inside. “Mr. Hart here is in desperate need of an english tutor and I would like you to help him.” Those were the last words both of you guys wanted your teacher to say. Both of you interrupted them with banter.

“Why me, there're so many people in the class.” you said.

“Yeah i don't think that is gonna work out.” Carter said. It was like he was reading your mind.

“Well that's the only solution and there will be no further discussion exchange numbers and start as soon as possible.” your teacher said and pushed you out of their classroom. Little did Carter know that you never had the guts to erase his number.

“Here plug in your phone and i'll text you when i'm free.” Carter said, handing you his phone. Glad to know that he didnt save your phone number. You were kind of hurt but it didn't really matter right. It's not like you were going to call him. 

“Look Y/N, i'm sorr--.” before he could end his sentence and go on giving an apology you stopped him because right now you didnt want Carter’s pity. “I'm just helping you pass, I'm not trying to reconcile.” you said as you headed to the last place you wanted to go, home.

Today was the day that you were going to have your first tutoring session with Carter. You weren't too thrilled to say the least. But anything to get you out of your house for a bit. It was after school and you headed to the library to wait for Carter. You sat down at the table and waited for Carter. You thought maybe he would arrive in twenty minutes but after forty minutes of waiting you were getting irritated. He didn't even have the audacity of sending you a text that he was gonna be late. After one hour of waiting you decided that he had wasted enough of your time and you decided to pack up. That's when Carter came rushing in.

“Oh gosh Y/N, i know i'm sorry for making you wait but Coach decided to have an emergency meeting, i'm so sorry. Im here now.” Carter said exasperated.

“You could've at least sent a text.” you suggested.

“Coach doesnt let us use our phones.” Carter said hopeful that maybe you would stay cause he really didn't want to mess this up on the first day. You decided that he seemed like he was being honest so you shrugged your backpack off and took out the textbooks. After the next two hours of him studying his butt off, you decided it was time to wrap it up.

“Same time tomorrow and don't be late.” you said walking out into the now dark sky.

The next day Carter asked you to meet him in a cafe. You weren't sure why but you decided that a nice warm drink didn't sound too bad. So you headed over there after school and set up everything. After everything was laid out you thought it was the perfect time to order a drink before Carter got there. You ordered your usual hot beverage and were about to pay when Carter came up from behind you and told the barista “Oh and one cappuccino, thanks” he said, handing her his card. “Thanks you didn't have to do that.” Y/N smiled shyly at Carter. Maybe tutoring him wasn't going to be too bad.

“No problem, now where did we leave off on yesterday?”Carter said, actually sounding like he was excited to learn. After both of you guys got your drinks, there was less studying involved and more talking. Carter started talking to you about football and you liked how his eyes lit up when he talked about the subject. About one hour of just talking you decided that it was time to get back to studying  before it got too late. Before leaving the cafe, Y/N pulled out her favorite book out of her backpack. “Here I thought you might enjoy this, it's one of my favorites.”

“Thanks, I'll let you know when I finish it. Carter said, grabbing the book from the girl and their hands slightly brushing. 

A few days later you were in bed ready to go to sleep when your phone started ringing. You thought it was probably a unknown number so you let it ring, but after four rings and no signs of hanging up you decided to pick up.

“Hello” you said, sleepiness evident in your voice.

“Did I wake you up, sorry, I just wanted to let you know that I finished the book.” Carter's giddy voice was heard on the other side of the phone. His voice though had no sleep evident in it whatsoever.

“Look Carter, I don't want to sound rude but why couldn't you just wait till tomorrow to tell me, it's 12am?’ you asked him questionaly. The truth one he couldn't sleep all night, thinking about how finally things with you guys could be fixed. And he just wanted to hear your voice. 

“It was a really good book and i had to tell you, i'll see you tomorrow then.” he said hanging up the phone knowing that it was a bad time to call you but glad that you picked up. He took it as a sign that maybe your friendship could be restored.

The next day you headed to school and stopped at your locker to drop some stuff off. When you were pulling stuff out of your backpack. Carter approached from behind you. “Heres your book back” Carter spoke up.

“Shit Carter, you scared me.” you said as your notebook fell to the ground. 

“Sorry, just wondering if we were gonna meet up later.” Carter cluelessly asked.

“Well yeah, that's basically the agreement.” Y/N stated, kind of annoyed because he knew that they were supposed to meet mostly everyday due to the teachers orders. 

She got to the cafe where she sat at the same table as last time. As she waited for Carter she took everything out . The bell above the door rang signaling the arrival of someone, and it was Carter. They exchanged their hellos and got to tutoring. After what seemed like forever of studying, Carter decided to bring up a question that seemed to be bothering him all day. “So do you have a problem tutoring me or what, cause let me just say i'm not the biggest fan of this either.”

“What do you think Carter, that I think this is a fun way to spend my time, tutoring you.” giving the word you a deeper meaning. Carter was confused on what she meant.

“You really don't remember, you pretended I didn't exist.” the girl said, feeling more vulnerable than ever. 

“ You are the one who's always mad at me, you stopped talking to me, freshman year.” Carter told her, saying it in a way saying it was her fault.

"Really, on the first day of school you didn't see me down the hallway and then turn the other way.”  Y/N said pleadingly. At this point it seemed that they were competing seeing who could say it in the most hurtful way possible. 

“I didn't know what to say.” Carter said looking down.

“ How about hey Y/N, how's it going?” she said spitting it out a bit more harshly than she meant to. She couldn't take this right now, so she packed up her bag and headed out the door. Carter didn't really process what was going on until the ding  above the door signaled that she really had left. 

When you got home you heard the sound of yelling, crying, and the shattering of glass. You decided that the best option right now was just to lock yourself in your room and with your thoughts. You went to sleep listening to music and the next day you got ready for school.

As you were at your locker Carter appeared again. He saw the way that you looked tired and drained and even though you weren't on the best terms decided to ask you how you felt. “Hey, you ok?” he asked concerned. 

“No offense but I really don't want to talk about my personal life with my ex best friend.” you looked at him and shrugged your shoulders. Carter understood so he wasn't mad about it. 

“No tutoring today right? I'll see you in a couple days then.” he said waving goodbye. Even though you didn't really appreciate tutoring Carter you didn't really want to go home so you were kind of bummed out that there wasn't tutoring today.

 Two days later there you were at the same table with the same stuff laid out in front of you. Again waiting for Carter. He walked in and took a seat. “Before we start I just wanted to make sure that you're ok.” he said, looking concerned.

A slight blush appeared on your cheeks because even though he asked you the same question two days ago he was still concerned. “Like I said before, I don't really want to talk to my ex best friend about this.”

“Well then don't think about me as your ex best friend, think about me as your therapist.” you laughed but when he didn't laugh back you knew that he was serious. “Oh you're being serious.

“Yeah I am, now tell me what's wrong.” he said, getting all serious but it didn't last long because both of you burst out laughing. You liked this, just being able to laugh with him again. Like everything was back to normal. But everything wasn’t back to normal and it probably wouldn't but in the end you were having a good time.

After that day you tutoring Carter had become less of a task and more of something that you enjoyed. It had become less stressful and you actually felt like you guys had a good chance of repairing your friendship. Maybe even having the possibility of bringing it back to how it was before. Now that's the way you felt, but you weren't sure how Carter felt. Maybe for him this was just tutoring.

Now Carter saw that maybe he was slowly breaking down your walls again. He was slowly seeing the person you were in middle school again. He liked that. But he thought that maybe you just thought that this was something you felt obligated to do and nothing else.

The next day at school Carter was talking to his friends against their lockers. You were walking towards your locker when you heard the topic of conversation. Now you weren't trying to be all up in their business and invade their privacy but it seemed like they were talking about you.

“Oh look it's your little girlfriend, you're not gonna say hi.” one of the cheerleaders said in a snarky voice. All his “friends”  around him laughed at the girl's comment. 

 Carter thought that maybe if he went along with it, they would stop. “She isn't my type anyways, you know that all she is to me is my tutor so I can pass English and still be on the football team.” 

After Carter said that you knew that you should've said no to tutoring him and just told the teacher that you were too busy. “Im so stupid, i should’ve let him fail so he could see what its like to lose something just how I lost my best friend” you told youself as you wiped a tear with your sweater sleeve.

Well now you could tell that it seemed Carter didn't feel the same about your friendship finally getting a bit better or becoming reconciled. But deep down Carter knew that everytime he saw you his face would light up and that he was slowly falling hard for you. Yet he couldn't let his friends know because he knew that if they did find out they would just tease you and he didn't want that because you didn't deserve it.

taglist: @hartsyhart (thanks for all the help kan), @patty-cake-nolan (thanks for helping me with the title), @mitch-slap (thanks for all the support always), @summerko8, @barrettshayton, @leafsxhockeywrxtes​, @segsation​, & @idkwhyimhere19​.