Various things had been weighing on Robbie's mind for the past couple of weeks, or really everything was just sort of compounding since that summer, but he knew he wasn't alone in all of that. Most of his friends were taking Cody's death in a harder manner than him, not that he wasn't sad that Cody had died, he just saw it from a different perspective. He had always seen Cody from a different persective, never as willing to gloss over Cody's flaws like the rest of the group seemed to be. Robbie never stopped to think that his assesment of Cody might not have been fair though, he just went on with life, slightly pissed off that people were glorifying Cody now that he was gone, like they all knew him so damn well. Distracted as he may have been, he was still managing to do really well in school even in the classes that were proving to be a challenge to his friends.
Taking Calculus had been the next logical step for Robbie, he wasn't going to wait for college to learn something like that when he'd need to do much harder math for whatever career path he went down, but it wasn't exactly the best class to be in. The teacher, Mr. Truax, was really awful at explaining the concepts, so every night before he could do his homework, he'd have to teach it to himself first. Amy was struggling with it for that exact reason and Robbie couldn't say he really blamed her, it took a long time for him to figure it out himself and more than that, they weren't supposed to be teaching themselves. That was why they had a teacher. But he doubted that there was going to be any real change in teachers with the school year already underway and Mr. Truax having been there long enough to have been Robbie's sister's teacher as well, so he offered to help teach Amy what he had managed to figure out on his own. There was no real garuntee that he'd be any good at teaching this stuff to her, but she seemed willing to try, so he was willing to try too.
Amy was a regular fixture at the Desmond household, she was easily Robbie's closest friend and it certainly didn't hurt that his parents adored her. Despite the fact that she was a girl and his mother was increasingly nervous over the fact that he was a teenage boy, she even stayed the night at his place regularly, though never in his room. His mom often referred to Amy as his kindred spirit and never really minded whenever she was around, which was why he had decided to tutor her there. Karin Desmond was a woman of rules, though she often grew more lax about them whenever Amy was around. Specifically, Amy was allowed to be in Robbie's room, when she was around they could have food upstairs, and his mom often let the car inspections slide. There was something about Amy that seemed to put his whole family at ease, like seeing her gave them some small hope that Robbie wasn't as hopeless as they'd otherwise believe.
After sending a text to let his mom know Amy would be around that evening, Robbie and Amy headed to his house after school. Heading inside through the back door, Robbie stopped in the kitchen to grab them snacks before leading them upstairs. They'd be home alone at least until six if not later depending on whether or not his parents would get caught up at work which meant uninterrupted tutoring time...if his mind would let him stay on track fro that long. After getting comfortable on his bedroom floor, Robbie cracked open his textbook, glancing over that day's lesson as he grabbed for one of the packages of string cheese he had brought up for them. "So I was thinking we'd start with today's assignment if that works for you? Or we could go back further. It all depends on what was the last thing that made sense to you..."