DISTRESS

CHAPTER 14

Principal Evans's POV

The next day, I woke up and it was already noon and Nathan is nowhere in sight. Guess he left already. I took the sticky note on the refrigerator and read it. "Need to go to work early so I didn't wake you up. I'm guessing you'll wake up late obviously since you were working all night,". I smiled with his note but then it was immediately replaced with a frown when I read the postscript he added. "Good luck getting rid of those eyebags ugly," it says and he even put a smiling and winking emoji. This pain in the neck really loves messing with me.

I went back to my room and took a bath before eating lunch. Seeing how great the day is outside the window I suddenly felt the urge to go for a jog. It's true that it's a bit hot out but I don't have to worry too much about the heat since there are trees shading the sidewalk. I'll take this chance to explore the town.

And so I went for a jog after changing my clothes. I passed by houses, stores and even people who are either heading to work or just doing their usual outdoor activities. While jogging and looking around I didn't notice that I had jogged farther than I expected. I stopped and glanced around, there are only a few houses in this part of town and there's not much people. It almost looked secluded. I didn't know there was this kind of area here. I turned around and went inside a small convenience store. I was planning to buy something to drink when I spotted Dawn in the counter in her usual baggy clothes. She really loves wearing those kind of clothes. I run up to her without thinking, just glad to have seen her.

As expected she wasn't thrilled to see me. She didn't even believed our encounter was purely coincidence. This girl is surely one tough nut to crack. I saw her glancing at the shelf filled with sandwiches that's when I noticed that all she's buying is a couple of bread and some ready to cook food. Aren't those a bit too little for her? I'm just saying. I asked her if that's all she's buying and she just confirmed it saying unfortunately then left the convenience store. But of course knowing how persistent I am, I followed her outside and asked if I could treat her with something which she strongly refused. But I kept insisting especially when I realized that she's not buying enough for herself. Even back when I saw her at the mall she just looked at every boutique without buying a single thing. However the next thing she responded left me confused and baffled.

"I don't have the luxury to indulge myself when I'm busy surviving every single day," was what she said and eventhough she quickly claimed it simply as a metaphor and even explained why she's currently working and somehow thanked me for not turning her in. Still, why do I feel like she meant something else when she said that? It's like there's a deeper reason behind as to why she's acting this way. But I don't want to pry even more so instead I smiled at her which kind of caught her off guard. Then I told her that she should accept my offer once in a while if she's indeed thankful with what I did. The disbelief written in her face followed with the confrontation, telling me that I have a really weird and misleading way of getting close to my students and even assumed that I did the same method with my past students.

Actually, I didn't give it that much thought about my methods of earning my students trust so I'm not exactly that aware that some of my approaches are a bit inappropriate. Not until she stated that which obviously surprised me. But refusing the part where I'm doing these kinds of things to my past students only made her deduce that she's some kind of an exemption which didn't pleased her at all. Shaking my head and smiling at her I told her to not think that everything I'm doing has an ulterior motive. She's so distrustful towards everyone. I know there's a reason why she's like that but she shouldn't hate everyone in general. Some people genuinely wants to know her and I'm one of those people. I just hope she'll learn to trust me even just one bit. To ease the tension, I decided to ask her again if she's up to my offer and she just shook her head in disbelief. If I'm not mistaken she was even close to smiling but she didn't let it show as she rolled her eyes at me. Unexpectedly that day, she did agree and we grabbed some food at a nearby stall though that was all for she left right after we finished eating and talking.