When the knocking on my door started, I groaned.

I knew we should have started heading back to school before five last night. As I lay there in my bed, I slowly contemplated all the viable-sounding excuses I could use to get out of going out with my friends today.

“Chelsea, are you still sleeping?” Ashley’s slightly muffled voice traveled through the door.

“Is she even in here?” Melissa’s voice came next.

“She has to be,” I heard Ashley say as I pulled my pillow over my face. “She hasn’t replied a single one of our texts yet.”

The dull, throbbing pain at the back of my head intensified.

Realizing that they weren’t going to leave any time soon, I forced myself up into a sitting position. My bleary gaze landed on my digital alarm clock.

It was already eleven.

I was supposed to meet the three of them at the courtyard at ten.

Another sigh left my mouth as another sharp rap on the door came.

“I’m coming,” I called out, grabbing my phone off the table and heading for the door.

When I yanked the door open, Melissa almost fell into me.

Reflexively, I stepped back. “Whoa!”

“Melissa!” Ashley grabbed onto her arm before she could stumble forward any further. “I told you not to do that!”

“Chelsea, give me some warning, would you?” Melissa said, putting a hand to her chest. “What if we were both leaning on your door? We could both have fallen on you.”

“I wouldn’t be leaning on the door in the first place,” Ashley said, already launching into lecture mode. “I was the one telling you to stop doing that!”

“I did warn you!” I protested, unlocking my phone to check my notifications. “I said that I was coming!”

There were seven missed calls from Ashley and one missed call from Derek. Despite my sleepiness, my heart skipped a beat when I saw I had a text from Nolan.

“Well, I didn’t hear it,” she said, crossing her arms.

I stifled a yawn that I felt was coming on. “Sorry I’m late, guys. I just woke up.”

“Yeah, we can kind of tell,” Melissa said, giving me a pointed once-over. “Good morning, Chelsea.”

“It’s rare for you to oversleep on the weekends we go out,” Ashley said. “We’ll wait for you to get ready, so hurry up.”

Nudging the door open, Melissa stepped into my room. “We’ll wait for you here.”

I stared at the both of them in horror. My headache hammered insistently on my brain as I considered asking them to go without me. We were supposed to go to the movies today. I was the one who had suggested it since a new action film that I had been looking forward to watching had finally been released.

They would definitely think that there was something wrong with me if I told them I decided I wanted to stay in bed instead.

Ashley cocked her head and looked at me quizzically. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” I said finally, sighing inwardly as I placed my phone back on the desk. “I’ll go take a shower now. I’ll be right back.”

As they made themselves comfortable on my bed, I trudged over to my dresser to get my towel and toiletries.

“Did you sleep well last night?” Melissa said suddenly. “Why are you walking like a snail?”

“Snails glide, but whatever,” I said, shutting the drawer when I had gotten my stuff. “I’m just tired.”

Frowning, Ashley said, “You look totally drained.”

“I’m fine, I promise,” I said, managing a smile at her. I’d be even better if you could just let me sleep in.

Even the thought of watching the new movie I had been salivating over since the trailer came out just wasn’t appealing as the idea of going back to sleep. After I did my best to shower and get dressed as quickly as possible, we went down.

Derek was waiting for us at one of the large stone tables in the courtyard when we got there.

“Wow, I’ve never seen such huge eyebags on you before,” was the first thing he said to me once we were within earshot.

I didn’t even have the energy to roll my eyes. Instead, I rubbed at them. “Good morning to you too, Derek.”

“Right, good morning,” he said, grinning. “It’s almost afternoon, though. Had a good sleep?”

“Apparently not, since her eyebags were so huge you just felt like you had to point that out,” Melissa said dryly.

“It’s weird that you don’t seem like you’ve had enough sleep, considering how much you’ve slept in this morning,” Ashley commented, adjusting her wristwatch. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m a hundred percent sure,” I reassured her. “Let’s go.”

I couldn’t wait to get this over with so that I could return to my dorm to sleep.

As we walked out of the school gates, Ashley placed a hand on my arm. “Hey.”

We slowed down until we were a few feet behind Derek and Melissa.

“What’s up?” I turned to her, furiously trying to blink the sleep out of my eyes.

“I’m a little worried about you,” she admitted. “You’ve been acting a little strange lately. If there’s something that’s stressing you out or bothering you, you know you can talk to me about it, right?”

Ignoring the guilt tugging at my heart, I mustered the most natural-looking grin I could at her. “I know. Thanks, Ash, but I’m honestly okay.”

---

I hadn’t wanted to check Nolan’s text earlier in case it contained something incriminating, like our trip to the forest.

Now that we were in the movie theater and everyone else was distracted by either the food kiosk or the promotional movie posters, I felt safe opening it.

‘I’ll bring something for you to feed Blue with next time. It might warm up to you then.’

I had been admiring how cute Blue was last night as it walked all over Nolan’s forearms and shoulders. However, every time I stepped nearer to it, it instantly flew away. Only when I moved a certain distance away from Nolan would it return. He seemed amused by my disappointment and told me that food was usually the way to an animal’s heart.

He remembered.

‘Really? Thanks!’ I sent back.

All of a sudden, Ashley was beside me.

“What’s so funny?” she said, trying to peer over my shoulder at my phone screen. “If it’s a cute puppy video, I want to see it too!”

I immediately stepped away and pressed the home button. “It’s not!”

As Melissa walked towards us with a large bucket of popcorn in her arms, she laughed. “What’s with that overreaction?”

Narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously, Ashley said, “Then why were you smiling? You only ever smile like that when it’s a cute Pomeranian vid or something!”

“Maybe it’s a cute guy,” Melissa said in a singsong voice as she shot me a wicked smirk.

“Mel,” I wailed. “It is not a cute guy, and I would appreciate it if you stopped your baseless accusations.”

“Then why were you hiding your phone so quickly?” Ashley said, raising an eyebrow.

I wasn’t lying. Nolan wasn’t cute. Therefore, I wasn’t texting a cute guy. Not even if lately I had been finding his face a lot more attractive than I used to, despite the fact that I’d never really cared for narrow jawlines until now …

Wait! What is wrong with me?!

With dawning horror at my shocking thoughts, I slapped both of my cheeks with my hands. My migraine must have been a lot worse than I realized if I was getting these thoughts about Nolan of all people.

“I just … It is a friend, but it’s not what you think,” I said, groaning. “Seriously!”

Melissa leaned against the wall beside a promotional poster.

“No way, you’ve never mentioned that you were interested in any guys except for Mr. Jameson,” Ashley said, her light-brown eyes wide as she stared at me. “How could you not tell me?”

“That’s because I’m not,” I insisted.

And I wasn’t. I never had any crushes on anyone until Mr. Jameson came along, and he set a really high bar for my potential future crushes.

“And because I highly doubt that it’s Mr. Jameson texting you, I’m still going to assume that it’s a cute guy,” Melissa said, popping a kernel into her mouth.

She offered the bucket to Ashley, who was still gaping at me. When Ashley shook her head, Melissa shrugged before eating a few more pieces.

“And still I’m telling you that it isn’t!” I said.

“Do you mind not finishing the whole bucket before the advertisements even start?” Derek said to Melissa as he came over, handing us each a ticket.

“Says the one who can drink half the cup before the movie actually starts,” she replied, scowling at him.

Whenever we went to the movies, I always shared a popcorn bucket and drink with Ashley while Derek and Melissa shared theirs.

“I never really see you hanging out with anyone else,” Ashley said as we started walking towards our hall. “Is it Jordan?”

“What? Why Jordan?” I said, perplexed by the random guess.

She shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m just guessing. Didn’t he drop by our table at lunch yesterday to return your pen?”

I leveled an unimpressed stare at her. “Really? Just because I lent a pen to a neighbor, that means that I have a crush on him?”

“Good point.” After a short pause, a flicker of uncertainty crossed her face. “Is it … is it Cody?”

I spluttered, “What are you—Cody? Please, I’m looking forward to your wedding—”

The look on Ashley’s face was nothing short of stunned, so I hastily put a stop to my word vomit. It was getting really hard to think clearly with my brain constantly sending me signals that it just wanted to power down.

“I mean, I am not crushing on anyone. It’s just a text from a friend and I was surprised that you appeared so suddenly behind me. That’s all.”

She didn’t look convinced, but we were already walking into the darkened movie hall. Derek shushed us as he ushered us down to our seats.

I took a sip from the cup of soda I was sharing with Ashley, hoping that the caffeine would be enough to keep me awake throughout the movie.

---

It wasn’t enough.

Once the advertisements ended, I found myself repeatedly drifting off despite my attempts to stay awake by munching on popcorn.

I woke up feeling refreshed … and then the credits of the movie started rolling. Disappointment washed over me in waves as I sat there, watching the bloopers on the other half of the screen.

“Well, that was better than I expected,” Ashley said, pulling her jacket off her lap and starting to put it on. “You picked a pretty good movie, Chels.”

“I can’t believe it ended like that,” Melissa said, getting up from her seat. “There has to be a sequel, right? When is the sequel coming out?”

“This one literally just came out three days ago,” Derek said. “Do you expect any of us to predict the future?”

“I was just saying!” She glared at him as we headed out of the exit.

As we threw away the empty popcorn buckets and cups, I said nothing. I had seen pretty much none of the plot and was even spoiled by the ending—even though I hadn’t watched enough of the story to know what was being spoiled.

“You’re so quiet, Chelsea,” Derek said, glancing back over his shoulder at me. “Was it that terrible?”

Melissa nodded. “You were looking forward to it all week!”

“Well…” I said.

Briefly, I considered the idea of asking them the main plot points of the movie before shoving it down. I couldn’t ask them.

The last thing I needed was for them to find out that I had been asleep throughout most of the movie that I had picked.

“You were dozing off at some points during the movie, weren’t you?” Ashley said. “You must be really tired.”

Great, I totally got caught.

“Yeah, kind of,” I said, grinning sheepishly.

“Hmm…”

Pretending that I couldn’t notice Ashley’s scrutinizing gaze, I turned away. “I’m really hungry. Where are we going for lunch?”

For the rest of the day, I struggled to respond in a timely manner to the others whenever they talked to me. In the end, they decided to leave me out of most conversations after realizing that I was mostly just spacing out. Once we got back to school, I headed straight to my room and went to bed.

When I finally woke up again, it was just in time for dinner and to Nolan’s reply.

‘You might want to wear gloves, though. Blue mostly eats your worst enemies.’

…He meant insects, didn’t he?