You Are the Shell to My Tortoise | ✓

Of Confessions and Obliviousness (5K Reads!)

"Wait, what's your name again?" she said, flabbergasted by the curveball that had been unceremoniously flung in her face.

His face fell. "You don't even know my name?!"

"Um..." She tilted her head back, feeling guilt prod at the bottom of her stomach. "Well ... I remember that you're in my literature class. Right?"

"We have a lot of classes together, and we even did a literature project together!"

Cocking her head to the other side, Melissa pondered that. "Did we?"

"Yes! Sort of. Don't you remember, you didn't want to do the project because it was assigned by Mrs Henderson?" he said, the shock on his face fading into disappointment as he spoke. "You offered to buy me chocolates if I would do your part for you."

The vague recollection of bribing someone with food so that she could get out of doing some silly group assignment Mrs. Henderson had given them surfaced in her mind. She had done that.

"Right! I do recall who you are!"

"But you can't remember my name?" he said, schooling his features into neutrality although it was too late; she had already seen the despair on his face.

"You're Austin, right?" she said, wondering if her hopefulness had made it into her voice.

She would prefer it didn't—it would make it too obvious that she was merely taking a wild guess.

"I'm Shawn," he said, clearly downcast to the point of being unable to hide it.

"Right, you're Shawn! See, I almost got it," she said in as enthusiastic a voice as she could muster, hoping that he wouldn't dwell on the fact that her guess wasn't anywhere near the actual answer.

"I st-still have the chocolates kept safely in my dorm," he said, finally looking into her eyes. "I like to keep them as a reminder that you gave them to me."

Speechless, Melissa tucked a few loose hair strands that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear. She had no idea how to respond to that.

When she realized he was watching her, clearly anticipating some sort of answer, she racked her brain for an appropriate reply.

"I see!" she said brightly, restlessly reaching up to tug at her own ponytail. "That's cool. But they're probably going to expire soon, so you really should eat them, you know."

Giving her a tentative smile, Shawn offered her a single daisy he had produced from behind his back. "Sorry, I was supposed to give this to you when I asked you out. I just got too nervous and messed up. Let me start over—Melissa, I really like you. I like how enthusiastic you are when you're passionate about the subject, and I like how frank you are about everything. Will you go out with me?"

Wondering if it was ruder to accept the gift but reject his confession or to reject both, Melissa hesitantly took it. She stared at it. It looked like it was freshly picked, and the petals were well-kept and undamaged. Not for the first time, she wished she had been a flowers kind of girl.

She knew that both Chelsea and Ashley would have cooed over it.

Melissa gave him a C for his confession. No, maybe a C plus. A plus for the cute little daisy he had given her, although she was certain it was probably cut from the school garden—which was obviously not allowed, hence the plus instead of bumping his overall 'score' up a full grade.

She wondered why anyone would give a heartfelt confession next to a watercooler.

It was the last place that would come to mind when the word romantic was involved.

Couldn't he have called me out to a more private place?

"Umm... Melissa? Are you okay?"

She jerked her head up when a hand was waved in front of her face.

Shawn was looking at her in concern.

"Oh, sorry," she said, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. "Um ... I'm sorry. I can't go out with you. I don't really date."

He merely smiled at her. "It's okay. I was kind of expecting an answer like that. It's one of the things I like about you."

She actually admired how graciously he was taking this rejection.

There was no trace of surprise on his face. If he was disappointed, he was doing a fantastic job at hiding it. The air surrounding them grew increasingly thick with awkwardness. Melissa took a deep breath, trying to overcome the suffocating feeling intent on smothering her.

At the back of her mind, she wondered just what was holding Derek up. Buying snacks from a vending machine wasn't exactly rocket science. It was unlikely he forgot how to insert coins and press a few buttons during the short period of time they parted ways.

"Do you want it back?" She offered the daisy to him.

Both his hands immediately shot up to wave vigorously at her as he shook his head. "No, please keep it! I gave it to you."

"Alright, then," she said, unsure of the proper rejection etiquette. "Thanks for understanding."

"Treat it like I never said anything, okay? I don't want things to become awkward between us," he said, already taking a step backwards. "Thanks for hearing me out. I'll see you around."

"Sure. See you," she echoed, still feeling overwhelmed by the suddenness of everything.

After giving her one last smile, Shawn turned around and walked away. Melissa tried in vain to bat away the guilt hovering over her. It wasn't her fault she wasn't interested in him. Still, she hated the way he was trudging on like he had just failed a huge job interview he was pinning all his hopes on.

"Yo," Derek said, popping up from behind her. "The machine was trying to eat my coins. I had to hit it five times before the snack would come out."

"Trust you to pick the worst timings to jam up the vending machine," Melissa said to him, sighing.

She had to stifle a snigger when he scowled at her in indignation. "I did nothing. The vending machine did that to itself!"

"I was kidding! Well, mostly," she said, falling into stride with him as they began making their way back to the dorms.

"Who was that?" Derek asked, handing her a tiny pack of freeze-dried strawberry chips.

"He's in our literature class," she replied, wasting no time in tearing it open. "Don't you remember him? His name is Shawn."

"Now that you mention it, he looks a little familiar," he said, frowning as he stared after Shawn's leaving back.

She tutted at him and wagged a finger in his face. "That's cold, Derek. You can't even remember your own classmate's face!"

Melissa tried not to think about the fact that up until maybe fifteen minutes ago, his name hadn't even been registered in her memory.

He scowled at her before chugging from the bottle of sports drink in his other hand.

"What's with the daisy?" Derek said, eyeing the flower that she was delicately grasping with a couple of fingers.

"I got confessed to," she said matter-of-factly, twirling the daisy around by its stem. "It's a confession gift ...? Or just ... a gift. Whatever. It's a present."

Beside her, Derek erupted into a massive coughing fit.

"W-what?" he gasped out, clutching his chest. "Why?"

She looked at him in concern, unsure if it was more for his intelligence or for his coughing. "Are you okay? Why would anyone confess to anyone, genius?"

"You could do better," Derek muttered, taking a few more sips from his bottle.

"I don't really care about doing better. I don't really want a boyfriend right now," she said, tossing another strawberry chip into her mouth. "I'm happy hanging out with you guys."

Too busy devouring the snack occupying her hands, Melissa failed to notice Derek's smile sliding off his face at her remark.