Office Hours

Week Three

I walk into the class right at the starting time. Everyone is already in their seats with papers that I assume is homework from last week.

My assumption is proven correct when I look up from my seat and see Mason walking over to me and placing my assignment on my desk upside down while maintaining eye contact with me the entire time.

Man, this dude is really good at staring into my soul.

He turns around and walks to the front of the classroom.

"Alright everyone, I've handed back your first homework assignment, hopefully, it's a score you expected to get."

I turn over my assignment and look at my score.

16/25?

"If not, remember I have office hours right after class and I would be happy to go over it with you." He offers, looking in my direction.

I groan inwardly as I pull out my laptop to figure out what 16/25 is as an exact percentage and I know it won't be good.

A 64%?

What the hell?? I was so confident that I had done well.

I look up the school website to check out how this would affect my grade in the course.

I'm barely hanging on to a C. This is a joke. It has to be.

I'm so engrossed in my shock that I don't even notice that Mason now stands in front of my desk, staring me down yet again.

"Feyre, can I speak to you after class?" He asks.

Why is he asking? Am I even allowed to say no?

"Uhhh yeah," I answer hesitantly.

"Great." He smiles.

He has really nice teeth, not that I've been looking or anything.

Why is he asking me to stay after? At this point, I'm high key scared. Has he finally noticed the number of times I roll my eyes at his extraness? or maybe I'm just that terrible of a student that he feels the need to coach me so I don't fail the class.

I put my wandering thoughts away so I figure out why I did so bad on the homework assignment.

As I flip through the pages, the number of red marks on it makes me cringe. He's even added in occasional snarky comments on it.

"Actually read the problem next time??"

"Seriously?"

"This is a joke right?"

"Am I being punked? where is Ashton?"

I hate him.

All throughout the lecture as he talks about the Law of Total Probability, I can't help but be angry at the fact that he's got a smile on his face the whole time.

"Alright, quiz time." He announces.

As I take the quiz which I'm sure I failed because I had to play the guessing game through a majority of it. I make it a point to take my sweet time on it since I'm going to have to speak to him after.

Once I get to the last question a majority of the class has left, leaving me, him and a girl with short black hair. She is standing at the front of the class with him.

"I had a question on this part of number 4, it says the numbers are randomly selected but then it also says not to use the independent formula to solve it." She asks

"Where does it say that?"

She inches closer to him, her right arm pressing on his left arm.

"right here?"

"no, that says the numbers are NOT randomly selected, that's why the not is bolded and underlined" He explains while pointing to the problem.

"Ohhhhh I didn't see that,"

She returns to her seat.

At this point, I am finished with the quiz but I stay seated because he can wait.

She stands up again, this time to turn in her test.

"You're having office hours today right?" Amanda questions him again.

"Yeah, always."

"Great, I'll see you there." She says, unable to keep a smile off her face.

"Sure but why? You got a perfect score on the homework."

Ugh. Of course, she did.

"Yeah I know but I just want to make sure I have the concepts down."

"Oh alright, I get that. See you in an hour then...Amanda right?"

She smiles brightly as if him saying her name just created world peace.

"Yeah Mason, see ya."

She leaves the room.

The panic of questioning whatever he wants to talk about begins to set in. Maybe he wants to talk about how he's a bum that shouldn't be so mean when grading papers.

I stand up, walk to the front of the classroom and hand him my paper. He takes it and places it on a desk behind him then he turns around and crosses his arms, an angry look on his face.

"So, what should I do with you." He asks, staring at me.

"What?" I'm confused. Did I do something wrong?

He takes a step towards me, not once breaking eye contact.

His eyes have specks of green in them, I never noticed. Probably because he's always too busy staring me down meaning I have to look away so that it doesn't get super awkward.

I take a small step backward to compensate for his advancement towards me. Except of course that doesn't do anything because I am just met with a desk behind me.

He takes yet another step forward and angles his head slightly downwards as to eliminate the height difference between us.

He's too close.

"I gave very easy and specific instructions and you couldn't even follow that?"

I don't even know what he's talking about.

"I don't know what you mean" I reiterate.

"Your laptop?"

Is he offended by laptops now? This dude needs to chill.

He takes another step towards me now leaving physically what feels like no space between us. He places a hand on either side of the desk I'm leaning on.

"Thought we agreed on no electronics?"

"We did?" I question, adjusting my light pink hoodie "Ohhhhh we did"

"Sorry, I forgot," I say trying to sound apologetic but realistically, it's just a laptop, it isn't a big deal.

"Its fine, just understand it's a huge distraction for me when I teach."

He removes his hands from the desk behind me and stands upright again.

"andyourealreadyenoughofadistraction" he mumbles, turning around to pick up my quiz from last week off his desk and hand it to me.

Did I hear that correctly?

"5/5. nice. Can't say the same for that homework though."

I give him a look.

"You can leave now, will I be seeing you in my office hours?" He asks with a bit of hopefulness in his voice.

I shove the papers in a folder and place the folder in my backpack.

"Nope," I say coldly.

He can kiss it.