My extra—and free—cookie looked so much more delicious and tempting than the cookie I’d been given by the lunch lady. Was it because it was gifted to me by Nolan?

All I knew was that I wanted to eat that one first. It made no sense because they were both double chocolate chip cookies. It wasn’t like the one that kept drawing my eyes to it had some kind of secret ingredient in it that I wasn’t privy to.

Looking at it just brought warmth to my heart.

That was it. I couldn’t take it anymore.

Dropping my spoon back into my bowl of minestrone, I picked up the cookie Nolan had given me when he’d first settled down at our lunch table with his food.

It was scrumptious.

As I nipped the final crumb off my thumb, I raised my head to see Ashley giving me a few glances.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing.” She was scraping up the last bits of her potato gratin. “I was just wondering why you stopped eating your soup halfway to get started on dessert.”

Oh no. I totally got caught. “I … I just felt like it, that’s all.”

“This is Chelsea you’re talking about,” Derek said, evidently picking up on our conversation. “Nothing surprises me anymore.”

Beside me, Nolan snickered.

I couldn’t decide who to glare at first.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I said to Derek before turning back to Nolan. “And what are you laughing at?”

Derek merely shrugged. “I’m just telling the truth.”

“He’s right,” Nolan said. “You can be weird when it comes to food.”

“Hey!”

“See?” Derek said, shooting an amused grin at Nolan. “I know what I’m saying.”

Deep down, I was kind of happy that Nolan was slowly opening up and becoming more vocal around my friends. Even if it was at my expense.

“Don’t worry, it’s part of your charm.” Why did Nolan’s smile have to look so endearing?

My heart protested weakly as a series of palpitations passed through it.

“Do-don’t think that you’re going to get away with it just because you said that! Flattery will get you nowhere!”

He just laughed a little more. My heart was doomed.

He was already getting away with it, and there was nothing I even wanted to do about it.

“I can’t believe it,” I continued, aware that I’d been regurgitating the same rant for the past thirty minutes, but I couldn’t stop. “I still can’t believe that this happened. I can’t even look at him in the eyes without feeling shy! What am I supposed to do?”

Ashley, who was sitting on my bed, held a hand out to stop me. “Okay! Stop pacing for one minute, will you? I’m almost getting dizzy watching you.”

She started when I grabbed her by the shoulders. “What am I going to do? What should I do, Ash? Help!”

“First,” she said, wriggling out of my grasp, “stop shaking me! How do you expect me to think like this?!”

I paused and released her. “Sorry! But I’m seriously freaking out here!”

A small smile crept onto her face. “I can tell. You really like him, huh? I can’t believe you pulled me aside purely to tell me that you realized you like him. When you said you had something really serious to tell me, this wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“This is serious!” I sat down on my bed next to her.

The bundle of nerves that I was made me want to flail my arms and run around until I somehow figured out what to do next.

“I know, I just thought something horrible had happened,” she said, shaking her head. “You looked so stunned.”

“This is horrible!”

She blinked slowly at me. “Uh, what?”

The first couple of weeks of school had flown by as we settled down into our usual routine, but a major difference was that Nolan had begun joining us for lunch more and more frequently. Once our studying sessions started back up, he also came to most of those.

Initially, I’d thought that maybe I was just overthinking things. Nolan’s increased presence in my life over this period, however, rapidly proved that untrue. It seemed like he was everywhere now—he even had dinner with us sometimes, when I thought to ask him.

Not only did my heart fluttering not calm down with the help of time, but it in fact also got worse. I couldn’t stop staring at his face, but then each time I realized that I’d been staring for too long, I had to force myself to avoid looking at him entirely. There was no happy medium.

Last night, we went back to the forest for the first time since the semester started. I thought my heart was about to attempt a jailbreak and leave my body when we held hands. We were both wearing gloves, but it wasn’t like any of that mattered to my traitorous heart. The cold hadn’t even gotten to me because I was too busy thinking about how attractive he was.

For the sake of my cardiovascular health, I had ended up snatching my hand away once we reached the clearing. He had stared at me like I’d just sprouted some new eyes on my face.

We were going again next week, and I had no idea how I was going to deal with any of it. Being in his presence, talking to him, holding his hand, listening to him laugh—just thinking about it now overwhelmed my brain with a flood of anxiety.

What was I going to do now?

“He’s my friend!” I said, groaning as I squeezed Georgie’s little blue paws. “How can I like him? It’s going to ruin our friendship. What should I do, Ash? How do I un-like someone?”

I didn’t think I could face the pain if he didn’t feel the same way, or if he ended up liking someone else.

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that,” she said in a sympathetic tone.

“I’ve never liked anyone before!” I wailed, pressing Georgie even harder. “This isn’t just me thinking he’s hot—I really, really like him.”

I knew that Ashley wouldn’t have much in the way of love advice, considering that nobody in our group had ever dated anyone before. Still, I just needed to talk to someone who would listen. My feelings were about to burst out of me like a volcano that had been lying dormant for a long time. I already felt slightly better after getting it all off my chest.

Ashley sighed. “Me neither. I want to say you could try asking Melissa or Derek for advice, but they’re so deep in denial that they probably won’t be too helpful.”

I snorted. “I’d be better off asking you! Which I am, by the way.”

“Do you think he likes you back? He treats you really differently from everyone else,” she said. “I mean, he’s eating lunch with us almost every day now. I still remember when he would just act like everyone was on mute or something, but now he actually talks to us.”

“But isn’t that just because we’re friends?” I said miserably. “That’s not a clear sign to me, to be honest.”

Her expression turned curious. “What would be a clear sign?”

Perking up at her question, I beamed. “I guess I’d like it if he came up to me and told me he liked me!”

Ashley rolled her eyes. “That’s not a ‘sign’—that would basically be a confession!”

“It’s the same thing!”

“It’s not!”

“Anyway,” I said, flopping down on my back, “don’t tell anyone else about this, okay? I don’t want Nolan to somehow end up finding out. If he doesn’t like me back, I’d die of embarrassment. I need to figure this out.”

I’d also likely die from the agony of rejection, but that was something I’d rather keep to myself.

I caught a glimpse of her frown before I looked back up at my room ceiling. “Of course not! Who do you think I am?”

“I know,” I said. “I just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page.”

“But what do you want?”

I continued staring at my bare, white ceiling. The answer to that was already clear to me. I’d been fantasizing about it the whole week. My daydreams were filled with it. I just didn’t want to give voice to those thoughts, because I didn’t want to make them real.

If I just ignored my feelings, they would go away eventually, right?

I didn’t know what my next step should be.

Confessing was completely out of the picture since I had no idea if he liked me back or not. If he turned me down, I wouldn’t be able to handle seeing him every day in class afterwards.

I didn’t know how to sound him out, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that anyway—I didn’t want to end up finding out that he wasn’t interested in me at all.

I couldn’t make a move because there were no moves to speak of. I just wanted to go back to seeing him as a friend.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“If he asked you out, would you say yes?” Ashley’s voice was soft.

“Yeah,” I admitted, trying—and failing—to ignore the insistent tugging at my heart.

I’d never felt this way before. I couldn’t control any of my feelings, and that was what scared me the most.

LotteStarburst

sorry it's late! i had way too many things on my plate! have a great week ahead, and thank you for reading!