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.”

“What’s she saying?” Ashley leaned back and whispered.

I tilted my ear in their direction and pretended I was looking down at Ashley’s English homework.

“It was so kind of you, you know. I heard that you were a cold guy, but I’m so moved that you did that for me! I really want to thank you …”

I tapped my finger to my chin, wondering if I had heard her correctly.

“She’s thanking him for something. I might just be hearing things, though,” I mumbled, hoping my voice was soft enough.

The last thing I needed was for her to overhear me.

“Yeah, you’re probably hearing things,” she said.

Sheila, who was Ashley’s desk partner, arrived then to take her seat. “Morning, Ashley. Hi, Chelsea.”

“Hey,” I said back to her, giving her a tight smile.

Even Sheila was here already—she never came early; she always got to her seat just a couple of minutes before class started.

I glanced at the classroom wall clock. First period was about to start soon, and Mr. Jameson would probably scowl to no end if he came in and saw that we weren’t in our seats.

I had just been punished for sleeping in class just two days ago! I did not want to be on the receiving end of his livid glare again. The occasional disdainful looks this girl was throwing me from Nolan’s table, however, stopped my legs from moving to my rightful seat.

Call me a coward, but I didn’t even know what was wrong with this person. If she turned out to be unstable, I was not going to walk to my certain death.

Was she even in this class?

Why wasn’t she leaving? Couldn’t she tell that Nolan had absolutely no interest in entertaining her?

Just as I was contemplating whether to return to my seat regardless of her presence, Nolan’s head jerked up.

“I’m trying to sleep,” he practically spat. “Can you just shut up?”

Instead of getting upset or yelling at him, like any normal person would, she merely seemed taken aback for the shortest of moments before beaming at him.

“Sorry, sorry, I’ve been chatting all this time without considering how tired you must be. Don’t worry, I’ll catch you later! Have a good time in class, Nolan!” With that a quick wave, she pranced out of the classroom.

What?

“She doesn’t even belong to this class!” I turned to Ashley in confusion.

“Maybe she’s a fangirl,” she said, looking unconvinced herself.

“No, Mr. Jameson has fangirls,” I snapped. “Nolan has … has …”

“Stalkers?” she suggested.

“He’s the last person I expect anyone to stalk, ever.”

Sheila looked equally bewildered by the exchange that had just happened. Nobody pestered Nolan for more than a few seconds at the most, usually because he behaved like they were invisible.

I was just relieved that she was gone so I could return to my desk.

Nolan barely glanced up at me when I sat down. The incensed expression on his face spoke volumes about what exactly he thought of the interaction he was just embroiled in.

“Morning,” I ventured.

Without looking at me, he responded with an acknowledging grunt.

“Are you okay?”

Finally, he shot me a stony stare. “Do I look okay?”

“Nope, you look furious,” I said. “Who was that?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

Sighing dramatically, I shook my head at him. “Why did I bother asking? You don’t know anybody!”

“I know you,” he shot back at me.

“Yeah, and it only took you over a year to remember my name,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“She dropped her earring in the hallway.” For a moment he was silent. “She said it was really important, so I looked for it with her.”

“Oh,” I said, oddly touched. “That was nice of you.”

It was also very unexpected, but I wasn’t about to say that when Nolan had gone out of his way to be kind to someone.

He looked a little uncomfortable and rested his cheek on his hand, facing away from me. “I was just paying it forward. I didn’t know that she would follow me to class.”

It took me several seconds to realize that he was referring to the help I had given him a few weeks ago. I found myself smiling involuntarily. He really did take it to heart.

“But you still did something good! I’m sure she’s just grateful.”

“I’m not sure it was good for me,” he grumbled, putting his head back down. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“Wait, you can’t! This is Mr. Jameson’s class! Stop!”

---

Lunch couldn’t have come sooner today.

My chemistry teacher, Mr. Johnson, had handed us back our marked pop quizzes while making thinly veiled disparaging remarks about the low class average. I couldn’t even blame him—just looking my barely passing grade on my returned quiz made me want to cry. I just wanted to seek comfort from Ashley and Melissa during lunch.

In the period before lunch I had Miss Wheeler, who was in a pretty foul mood for some reason. She ended up nitpicking a lot of the answers we gave her whenever she called on one of us to answer her in-class questions. Due to the time wasted thanks to that, she let us off a couple of minutes after the bell rang instead of a little earlier like she usually did.

“Finally,” I groaned, stretching in my seat.

Beside me, Nolan yawned and covered his mouth with his hand.

The other students around us, who had managed to sneakily pack their things without being called out by Miss Wheeler, were already standing up to leave.

Before I even had the chance to get up, someone basically flew to the front of Nolan’s desk.

I raised my head to gawk at the girl from this morning, who was already flashing a pretty smile at him.

“Hey, Nolan! Let’s have lunch together!”

“No,” he said simply, getting up from his chair.

“There’s no need to be shy!” she said, leaning towards him. “I’m really looking forward to becoming good friends with you, you know. I can’t do enough to thank you!”

Nolan didn’t bat an eye. “You can thank me by leaving me alone.”

I jumped up from my own seat, checking my phone for texts from Ashley.

“I know you don’t mean that!” Her voice was so cheery. “Well, it doesn’t matter because I’ll just come with you wherever you choose to sit!”

Oh, that would work out so well since Nolan only ever went to the library during lunch break. She would either have to pipe down or risk getting thrown out by the librarian. Obviously, she didn’t know that.

Unable to stop myself from laughing, I forced myself not to look up from my phone just in case I caught her attention. I was already having a bad enough day. This little event here, however, was spicing it up a bit.

“Go away, Amanda.”

Wow, he actually remembered her name. Color me impressed. Maybe he really was trying to work on himself.

“Amanda?! My name is Ariel!”

Okay, maybe not.

Nolan left the classroom in record time, with her hot on his heels the whole time.

“Hey, Nolan, wait up!”

I didn’t know whether I felt more amusement or sympathy towards Nolan’s current predicament.

Clearly, someone was misunderstanding something.