"Why is this so hard?" I clutched at my head.

"Why are you talking to yourself?"

At Nolan's low voice, my head snapped up. He looked over at me as he slid into his chair beside mine.

I glanced at the classroom wall clock. "Wow, you're kind of late. You're normally here way earlier than I am."

"I got held back for a bit after class just now," he said, rubbing an eye.

"Why?"

He shrugged. "The teacher wasn't happy that I was sleeping in class."

"What? I thought the teachers just generally let it slide now when you do it," I said, raising an eyebrow. "I mean—you kind of do that all the time."

The corners of his lips twitched upwards. "Yeah, he's a substitute teacher. The other one has some family emergency and needed to go back home for a bit."

"That makes more sense," I said.

"He's almost as annoying as Mr. Jameson," he said, a deep scowl appearing on his face. "He wouldn't let me sleep the whole lesson."

"Give him a month," I said, snickering. "He'll figure it out eventually even if the other teachers don't say anything to him."

"The original teacher would already have returned by then," he said flatly.

"Oh well." I shrugged, feeling not particularly sympathetic towards his 'plight'. "When life gives you lemons... Hey, maybe this is a sign that you should start sleeping earlier."

Shaking his head, Nolan rolled his eyes at me.

"Not going to happen." He pointed at the math worksheet before me. "Do you need some help?"

I promptly perked up and moved it towards him. "Can you? My friends are all having trouble with this question."

Even Cody couldn't help me with it when we were studying together yesterday.

"Let's see it," Nolan said.

After he took a few seconds to read the problem, he said, "Alright, so you have to start with this..."

As he went over the steps I should have written, I made the necessary corrections. By the time Mr. McMillan entered the classroom, the solution was sitting nice and pretty on my worksheet.

I grinned at Nolan, who raised an eyebrow.

"What?" he said. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

"You're actually pretty good at teaching, did you know that?" I asked.

"No."

"But you are," I insisted. "You can be patient when you want to, and you can explain it a way that's easy for me to understand. Have you ever considered going into teaching?"

"Why are you always asking me weird questions?"

"How is this weird-"

"Is there something you'd like to share with the class, Chelsea?" Mr. McMillan interrupted, glaring at me from the front of the classroom where he was standing. "In case you haven't noticed, class has started."

"No," I said meekly. "Sorry, Mr. McMillan."

Beside me, Nolan took the opportunity to lower his head to the desk and start napping.

I glared down at his sleeping face, partly because I wasn't finished talking with him yet and partly because our teacher had chosen me to single out.

After the lesson ended, Nolan stood up and waited for me. Recently, we had been walking to our shared classes together if my friends weren't also in the same class. It was nice just chitchatting with him as we walked down the halls.

"Don't forget that we're meeting later for our final project meeting," I said.

"Yeah, I remember," he said. "I can't wait to get it over with."

"Me too." I pulled out the new box of mints I had gotten on Saturday. "Want one?"

He bent his head down to examine the box.

"They're just mints," I said, shaking the box in his face. "They were selling this new flavor at the mall the other day, and I thought I'd try."

His face was neutral. "Apple flavored?"

"You don't like apples?" I asked.

"No, I do," he said, taking the box from me. "Thanks."

Popping open the lid, he slid a mint out before returning the box to me.

"Not bad, right?" I said.

He hummed as he shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. "Yeah. It's good."

There was a sort of softness to the strangely peaceful expression on his face, and I found myself fascinated by how much he seemed to be enjoying it. I didn't know he liked apples this much. Adding that as an item to the mental list I had of the things I knew about Nolan, I forced myself to look away.

I didn't need him noticing how much I was staring at him.

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I took a long sip from my water bottle.

"That was good, Chelsea," Cheryl said, nodding at me. "I think we're almost done here."

I smiled at her. "Yeah, I think we should rehearse one last time and then wrap it up."

Nolan lightly tapped his fingers on the table we were sitting at and said nothing. We were rehearsing our group presentation that would be taking place in class next week. After these few weeks of awkward meetings where Cheryl just outright ignored Nolan, I was beyond ready for us to be done with it.

As I sat back down, Cheryl stood up to begin her part of the presentation again.

"Hey, Chelsea!"

All of us turned to look at the person who'd unknowingly interrupted our meeting. Grinning, Cody stood a few feet behind me.

"And hi, Cheryl," he added as he looked at her.

"Hi, Cody," she said, her facial expression tense.

I didn't know that they were acquainted.

"Hey," I said, cracking a smile back at him. "What's up?"

Despite looking momentarily taken off-guard by what I'd said, Cody quickly recovered.

"Oh, uh, I was on my way to meet you when I happened to see you here," he said. "I thought we were going to study together?"

What? Really?

I stared at him for a long moment. With a gradual slowness, a memory of me asking Cody if he was free to study on Monday surfaced in my mind.

"Oh, right," I said, embarrassed by my forgetfulness.

I didn't even realize that I had double-booked myself when I agreed to have this project meeting today!

Ashley was totally going to kill me.

"I'm so sorry!" I said, lowering my head. "I kind of ... forgot. We're having a project meeting right now, but we'll probably be done in another thirty minutes. Would you guys mind waiting for me? I'll be over once I'm finished!"

Surprise flashed across his face. "Oh, sure. Sorry for interrupting you guys. By the way, I was also going to tell you that Ashley can't make it today. She has to go to a student council meeting."

"Oh ... She didn't tell me that," I said.

"Yeah, it's a last minute thing," he said. "I was talking to her just now when she got a call. It sounded urgent."

At the mention of them talking one-on-one, I couldn't resist smirking at him. Cody returned it with a baffled but polite smile. It was better if he didn't know what I was so happy about. Pushing two people together was a lot easier if they didn't catch on to what you were doing.

"Alright. Sorry you have to wait alone," I said, wincing.

"It's no problem," he said, raising a hand. "Okay, I won't bother you any longer. See you later! Bye, Cheryl!"

"Thanks, Cody. I'll go find you as soon as I can!" I said.

Cheryl waved at him. "See you."

When he left, she turned to me with mild curiosity on her face. "You know Cody?"

"Yeah, we study together quite a bit," I said, glancing back at him. "I didn't know you knew him too."

"He's my childhood friend," she said. "We don't really talk that much nowadays, though."

Oh, what? That was the last answer I was expecting from her.

"What a small world," I said, kind of impressed. "I mean, you guys happened to go to the same school and everything."

Cheryl shrugged and offered me a tiny smile. "Not really. We kind of begged our parents to be enrolled in the same school at that time. How did you get to know him?"

Her eyes weren't smiling. I wondered what had happened between them.

"We're both in the school book club," I said. "It turns out we have more in common than I thought, so we get along really well."

Namely, fanfiction. Not that I was going to mention that in present company.

"Is he ... doing well?" she said. "Like, I mean..."

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, he is. His grades are so good, he ends up tutoring me half the time we study together. We hang out pretty often."

That wasn't exactly what she asked, but I didn't know all that much about Cody's personal life to begin with. We usually talked about fandom and books when we were together, and he normally had his meals with his other friends.

"I'm glad," she said after a short pause. "I'm glad to hear that."

The atmosphere, which had been fairly neutral before Cody appeared, was now heavy and squeezed any words I had in my mouth into oblivion.

I responded with a tentative smile instead.

"Anyway, let's get started," she said, shaking her head. "It's probably best if we finish this as soon as possible, especially since he's waiting for you."

Relieved, I nodded and settled down as she started again.

To my relief, we smoothly finished our presentation practice within the fifteen minutes we were supposed to be allocated in class. Entirely ready to leave, we quickly packed our things.

"Great job, guys," Cheryl said, stuffing her laptop into her backpack. "I guess we're officially done. See you in class tomorrow, Chelsea."

"See you!" I said, zipping up my own messenger bag. "And bye, Nolan! I'll see you tomorrow too."

Nolan got up from his chair. "Bye."

Curious, I watched him leave. Something felt brusque about the way he turned away from me before he even said 'bye'. It had been a while since he'd done that—back when I had first started talking to him.

Was he okay?

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AN: dedicated to the_chaotic_pen because thank youuuu so much for voting and commenting whenever you read, you're so sweet and i love you so muchhh! (๑ˊ͈ ॢꇴ ˋ͈)〜♡॰ॱ

yep, i decided to post again before monday. but there'll be another update come monday ahahah. everybody, have a great weekend!