Chapter 13 Bad intentions or not?
NANCY’S POV
My gaze snapped towards her, and I questioned her with my gaze- ‘Why would you bring that up?’
Diana met my eyes and ignored me, looking to her father for an answer.
Mr. Landon’s gaze slowly shifted to me.
“Harsh?”
“Yes,” Diana insisted. “You called Mason out in front of everyone.”
“He was interrupting my lecture.”
“But Nancy was talking too,” she pointed out. “You could have overlooked it.”
My face burned the more Diana spoke.
“I really don’t mind,” I said quickly. “It was my fault too.”
Mr. Landon didn’t pull his gaze away from me, and the intensity of it made my pulse stutter.
He set his fork down slowly, then said calmly, “I treat all my students the same.”
Diana rolled her eyes.
“Of course you do.”
“Diana.” He called.
“Okay, okay,” she laughed, lifting her hands with a sigh of resignation.
The conversation shifted to another topic after that, moving progressively from school to campus gossip that Diana was all too eager to tell me about.
However, the tension between us remained.
Later that night, a long while after Diana and I retired to our rooms, I got out of bed, making sure to be as quiet as possible.
I had been ignoring it before, but I soon realised that I could no longer ignore my thirstiness. My throat felt too dry for me to do so.
I got out of bed and made my way downstairs, trying to move through the dimly lit hallway without making too much noise.
But as I got down the stairs, the sound of a voice reached me.
It was Mr. Landon’s.
“I’ll handle it tomorrow.”
He was standing in the living room, near the window, with his phone in his hand, held close to his ears.
The low light cast shadows across his face, revealing his expression. His lips were drawn tight, and his brows were furrowed.
“…No. Don’t do anything yet.” He said, voice quietly filling the space.
whoever was on the other line.
I hesitated, wondering if I should come back later or tiptoe and try to make my presence less known. I even wondered if I should come back later.
“…Yes, I understand,” he continued quietly. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
He ended the call as soon as I took a step forward, deciding to take a risk.
I froze and stepped back awkwardly.
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
His head lifted immediately. “It’s alright. Why are you up?”
I gestured weakly toward the kitchen, “I just came down for water.”
He studied me for a moment, then nudged his head towards the kitchen, “Go ahead.”
I nodded quickly, then hurried past him and grabbed a glass, filling it with water while the silence behind me grew heavier.
It made me curious, too, and I turned around to see him still standing there, watching.
I took a small sip before speaking again.
“Um…goodnight.”
But as I started toward the stairs, his voice stopped me in my tracks.
“Nancy.”
I turned around slowly while he stood with one hand resting on the back of the couch with a look of thoughtfulness.
“Do you agree with what Diana said?” he asked.
I blinked, confused. “About what?”
“That I was too harsh earlier.”
My grip tightened slightly on the glass. So he had been thinking about that too.
“I…” I hesitated, trying to think of an answer.
He watched me carefully, waiting.
“I think Mason was talking,” I said carefully.
“That wasn’t the question.”
My heart skipped a beat, and I shifted slightly under his gaze. “Well… maybe you could have let it slide.”
Silence settled between us, and for a moment, he didn’t respond. A minute later, he exhaled slowly.
“Perhaps.”
His eyes remained on mine.
“But sometimes,” he added quietly, “it’s necessary to remind people of boundaries.”
Something about the way he said it made my chest tighten.
The word boundaries hung heavily in the air between us.
And suddenly…
I had the strange feeling he wasn’t talking about the classroom anymore.
Silence settled between us, stretching for a long while. It wasn’t as if it was uncomfortable, but it was charged, and it made me feel as though the air around us had thickened.
I held the glass of water in both hands, unsure what to do next.
Mr. Landon hadn’t moved from where he stood beside the couch, and although his posture looked relaxed, his eyes didn't.
“Boundaries,” I repeated softly, trying to keep my voice steady.
“Yes.”
I shifted my weight slightly from one foot to the other, then cleared my throat to relieve as much of the tension as I could. “Well…Mason didn’t seem too offended.”
His lips tugged back into a faint humourlessly smile.
“I’m sure he wasn’t.”
Something about his tone made me pause and glance at him. It was similar to earlier in class when he had addressed Mason.
“You don’t like him,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
The moment the words came out, I felt regret, even though I hadn’t been able to get it out of my mind since earlier.
Mr. Landon’s brows arched on his face. “That’s quite an assumption.”
My face grew hot in an instant. “I didn’t mean…”
“You’re observant,” he cut into my words calmly, letting his eyes run over my face. “That’s not a bad thing.”
I blinked, unsure if I should take that as a compliment or a warning.
“He seems nice,” I said, looking at Mr. Landon’s face.
He didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he walked slowly toward the armchair across from the couch and sat down.
“And how long have you known him for?” he asked a few minutes later.
“Just today,” I mumbled, wondering what that had to do with anything.
“And already you’ve concluded he’s nice.” Mr. Landon said with a tilt to his voice that made me frown slightly
“Well…he helped me in class.”
His gaze sharpened, and then he nodded as though coming to a realization, “With the question?”
I nodded, “Yes.”
Another moment of silence passed between us, and then, he said, “Nancy.”
The way he said my name made my pulse jump again.
“Yes?”
“Be careful about how quickly you trust people.”
I blinked.
“That seems a little harsh.”
Mason looked and acted anything but nice, so I couldn’t tell why he was so guarded.
“Does it?”
“Yes,” I said quietly. “Not everyone has bad intentions.”
I couldn’t say much about my father and Mr Hudson, but Diana was a classic case of one of those people.
Mr. Landon…Well, I had no idea.
His eyes held mine.
“No,” he agreed. “Not everyone.”
I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be inclusive of him or not, but something about the way he said it made it sound like he didn’t quite believe that.