You Are the Shell to My Tortoise | ✓

60

I couldn't believe what had just happened.

I wanted to announce to the whole world that Nolan liked me back.

I wanted to shout it at the top of my lungs.

As I walked, the floor beneath my feet felt like clouds—I couldn't even sense it when my shoes touched the ground.

The whole way back to the dorms, I savored this dreamy sensation.

Ashley looked up from her biology textbook at me when I entered her room.

"Where were you?" she said, uncrossing her legs on the bed. "Did a teacher make you stay back or something?"

"No. Sorry I'm late."

Dumping my bag on the floor, I flung myself into a sitting position on the edge of her bed.

Her eyebrows drew together. "Why are you smiling like that?"

"I have big news to tell you," I said, ignoring how my words were practically stuck together as they rushed out of my mouth. "Ash, I can't believe this is happening!"

"Okay, what big news? Tell me!" While she lowered her textbook onto her lap, Ashley stared at me with wide eyes.

I grabbed her by the shoulders, took a deep breath, and said, "Nolan told me he likes me, and I told him I like him back!"

Mouth agape, she said, "Wow. When was this?"

"Just now! I can't believe this. It feels like I'm dreaming!"

With her eyebrows still furrowed, Ashley's smile looked weird. "Wait, I thought you guys weren't talking? How did you get from there to confessing your feelings?"

After clearing my throat, I sat up straight. "Okay, so I was trying to talk to him to see what his problem was, and then I ended up chasing him around the school because he wouldn't stop trying to walk away, and then he gave up when I held on to his arm and told him he'd just have to drag me with him if he kept running"—Ashley's jaw dropped at this point, but I continued—"and then he gave up and we went to talk it out, and then we argued for a really long time, and then suddenly he told me that he likes me, and then I told him I like him too!"

While I was talking, her head had been slowly tilting to the right, and now that I'd finished speaking, she was practically resting it on her shoulder.

"I am so confused right now," she said.

I cracked a sheepish grin. "Okay, maybe I was talking a little too fast."

She raised an eyebrow. "If he likes you, then why did he ignore you for so many days?"

"I think I know why," I said, drawing my legs up onto the bed and hugging my knees to my chest. "He looked really shocked when I told him I liked him back. He didn't even really believe me until I insisted, like, five times that I did! I think ... I think it didn't cross his mind that I could like him back."

"Wow," she said, looking back down at her textbook. "Nolan doesn't look like the kind of guy who would stress over something like that."

I could see why she thought that, because the only times she ever saw or interacted with Nolan was during lunch or our study sessions. Although Nolan occasionally made small talk with my friends and teased me in front of them, there was still a big difference in the way he behaved when we were with my friends and when he was alone with me in the forest.

When it was just me and him, he smiled, talked, and laughed a lot more. Despite knowing that he still had his guard up around others, I was so used to him teasing me and being playful that I forgot Ashley and the others barely got to see him like that.