You Are the Shell to My Tortoise | ✓

15

When I got to my first period class this morning, I was surprised to see that Nolan's desk was still unoccupied. After that one incident in history class, he had continued to be one of the earliest to come to class. It was weird not seeing him with his head buried in his arms at his desk.

"You're early today!" Ashley said from her seat as I dropped my book bag onto my chair.

"Way too early," I said, groaning as I walked over to her. "I woke up from a nightmare and couldn't go back to sleep after that."

She made a sympathetic noise and passed me a box of extra-strong mints. "Are you feeling better now?"

"Yeah, a lot better. I'll feel even better after I finish this whole box, thanks." I popped two mints into my mouth.

Mints helped me far more than coffee ever could in the mornings, and Ashley knew me well enough to know that. I would forever be grateful to have her as a best friend.

"You know that you'll have to pay me if you finish the whole thing, right?" she said, swiping the box back.

"You love me too much to charge me for petty things like this!" I said, grinning back at her.

Suddenly, Ashley's gaze dropped from mine, and her mouth parted a little.

"Now, that's a rare sight," she murmured.

"Huh? What is?" I followed her gaze to the front of the classroom.

Nolan had just entered with a deep scowl etched on his face. A pretty girl with long black hair was following after him eagerly, chattering on as he strode towards his desk.

She was right. This was astonishing.

It was one thing for girls to approach Nolan and cower when he inevitably ignored them, but it was totally another for one of them to trail after him like a baby duck that had just imprinted on its mother.

The most bizarre part of this was that Nolan didn't seem to be at all interested in engaging in a conversation with her. How was she able to persist in talking to him as if she hadn't been slapped in the face by his obvious rejection?

When Nolan got to his seat, his gaze landed on me. I raised my hand in an awkward half-wave, and immediately received a nasty look from the girl who was with him.

Wow. For someone who looked that gorgeous, I didn't expect a single glare to contort her features into such unpleasantness. She looked like she had just been offered a glass of ground-up cockroaches for a breakfast drink.

Contrary to her disdainful reaction, Nolan merely nodded at me and turned to sit down.

"You know what, I don't think I want to go back to my seat," I whispered to Ashley, who had her eyebrows knitted together in clear confusion. "Can I just stand here for all of eternity?"

"Seriously, what was that? Do you even know her?" she whispered back.

"Obviously not," I said. "I rarely hang out with other people; you know that."

"Did you offend her or something?"

Insulted by the implication that maybe I was the one at fault, I frowned down at her.

"I've never even interacted with her before."

Together, we looked back at her. She was still trying to engage Nolan in conversation, ignoring the fact that he had put his head down on his arms.

"She's hanging all over him. I'm surprised he hasn't snapped at her yet," she murmured.

I snickered. "He will, if she doesn't stop."