You Are the Shell to My Tortoise | ✓

44

As he tapped at the second step of my working and explained to me what I'd done wrong, I beat away the urge to continue smiling. Today was already shaping up to be a great day.

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"Hey."

My head rose, almost involuntarily, at the sound of Nolan's voice.

He was carrying books and binders in his arms as he looked down at us. His eyes were half-lidded, and he was as expressionless as always—albeit with a hint of sleepiness on his face.

"Nolan! Sit down!" I patted on the seat of the chair that was adjacent to mine.

Settling down on the chair, he placed his stuff on the table.

Ashley, who was sitting on my right, waved at him with her highlighter still in hand. "Hi, Nolan."

"Hey." Cody nodded at him.

"Hi, Ashley. Cody," he said, respectively nodding at each of them.

Ashley looked pleasantly surprised, despite the confusion that crossed her face. I couldn't blame her, since we all knew that he barely remembered his classmates' faces.

Even I was still slowly getting used to hearing my friends' names leave his lips whenever he referred to them in our conversations. Every time that I mentioned them to him, I kept half-expecting him to ask me who they were.

When I told her last night that Nolan would be studying with us today, she had been really shocked at first. The idea of Nolan joining us not just to study, but also because he'd offered to give help, was something that took her some time to wrap her brain around.

As he opened his chemistry textbook, I found my eyes fixed on it. It seemed like every page that he turned, there were post-it notes and page tabs stuck to it. Many lines were highlighted in different colors, too.

No wonder his grades were so good.

I couldn't help but feel impressed at the effort he was clearly putting in.

"Why are you staring at my book?" he said suddenly, causing me to jolt.

"I ... Nothing," I said sheepishly, looking back at my own worksheet. "It looks well-used. You really weren't lying about studying outside of class time."

He snorted. "Of course I wasn't."

"Wow." Ashley's brown eyes were wide as she stared at his textbook. "You must spend a lot of time studying."

That's unexpected went unspoken, but from the way she glanced at me after, I knew that was what she was thinking.

Resting his forearm on the table, Nolan gave a half-shrug. "Kind of. It's not like I have anything else to do in my spare time."

Her eyebrows rose just a little, but she said nothing.

Nolan got out a box of apple mints from a side pocket of his bag. He popped a mint into his mouth and then offered the box to me.

"Want some?" he said.

"Sure," I said, placing my upturned palm under it so he could shake one onto it. "Thanks."

We focused on our own work separately for the next twenty minutes in relative silence, and then Ashley came across a question she couldn't work out.

"Cody, can you help me with this?" she said, shifting her notebook towards him.

He sent her a ready smile and moved his own aside. "Of course."

I registered their little adorable interaction in my head, but I was too engrossed in my own work to bother smiling. Chemistry was the literal worst subject to revise for.