You Are the Shell to My Tortoise | ✓

5

When classes ended for the day, I parted ways with Ashley at her dorm room after we agreed to meet directly at the bleachers.

After a quick shower, I left my dorm with my book in hand. If I made Ashley wait alone at the bleachers for too long, she'd kill me. I skipped down the stairs two steps at a time, but after four flights of stairs I skidded to a stop at what was before me.

Someone—actually, I was pretty sure that was Nolan—was sitting on one of the steps in the middle of the stairs, with the side of his head leaned against the wall. His bag was still slung over his shoulder.

Was he sleeping out here? That made no sense; he had a perfectly good bed in his dorm room.

Tentatively, I took a few more steps down to reach where he was. When I bent my head down to see if he was sleeping, surprise jolted through me because his tired green eyes were looking right at me.

"Oh, it's you," he said, his gaze shifting away.

"Are you ... alright?" I asked.

His half-closed eyes were unfocused, and his eyebrows were pulled together into a slight frown. Shifting a little, he leaned even more heavily against the wall.

He shut his eyes. "Yeah."

He wasn't convincing me with the way he looked like he was trying to press himself into the wall. "You don't look okay to me. Are you feeling sick?"

Nolan's eyebrow twitched.

"I just ... I'm having a headache." His voice was so low I barely caught the words.

I went down another few steps so I could look at him without straining my neck. "A headache? Maybe you should go to the infirmary."

He shook his head listlessly, looking like it was taking a lot out of him to even do that. "I'm not going to the infirmary."

I frowned. "Why not? You could use the medical attention, don't you think?"

Nolan shook his head again. "I just need some rest, and then I'll be fine."

"Here?" Okay, he looked like he was in a really bad condition. Hoping Ashley was still slowly making her way to the track, I sat down on the step next to him. "You should at least rest in your room. Why are you sitting here?"

His eyes opened slowly, but he was still avoiding eye contact with me. After a long moment, he finally answered, "My headache's really painful. I'm ... I'm having trouble walking."

"Why don't I help you to your room?" The offer flew out of my mouth before I could even really consider what I was saying.

His eyes widened as they darted to me.

Somehow, I wasn't surprised that, after what felt like half a minute of staring into his unreadable eyes, he said, "I'm fine."

Scoffing, I shook my head. "You can't even walk yourself to your room; how can you call yourself fine?"

"I'll manage."

"By sitting here all night until you get yelled at by your dorm parent for breaking curfew?"

He hesitated. "I ..."

"Tell you what, you can either accept my help to get to your room, or you can rest here while I get Nurse Margaret to fuss over you and personally take you to the infirmary. Which sounds better to you?" I stood up, placed my hands on my hips and gave him a stern stare.

Margaret, one of our school nurses, was very good at her job. Her fondness of fussing too much over us often came with the territory, however. Most of us students loved her because she was kind and motherly, but still thought that she was way too passionate about her work. Given Nolan's practically hermit status, he wasn't going to enjoy it at all.