You Are the Shell to My Tortoise | ✓

57

If I was being completely honest, I had to admit that a small part of me was afraid of Nolan now that I knew he was a vampire.

It was normal to be a bit frightened, even if he was my friend, wasn't it? After all, he was probably kind of dangerous, considering that he could go into the forest all by himself after midnight without fearing for his life. He didn't need a flashlight to see where he was going!

No wonder he could just toss Bradley to the ground like it was no big deal. He probably wrestled with forest animals every night for a meal.

Imagining him drinking blood made my stomach go through continuous somersaults. Don't go there. I forced myself to stop visualizing it.

Now that I thought about it, that meant that he could see well enough in the dark, didn't it? I couldn't believe that it'd never occurred to me how weird this was until now—no normal person could just leisurely stroll through that dense part of the forest with barely any light reaching the forest ground.

Why hadn't I realized how abnormal his behavior was?

If I'd noticed these things sooner, at least I wouldn't have been so shocked by the revelation.

"...to Chelsea." Melissa's voice was accompanied by several loud clapping sounds. "Earth to Chelsea! Is any part of you in there?"

I blinked, and my eyes registered my surroundings once again. I was in the dining hall, having lunch with the others. Melissa, who was sitting beside me, squinted at me.

"Are you back?" she said.

Derek and Ashley, who were both sitting opposite us, looked concerned.

"Sorry," I said sheepishly. "I didn't hear what you were saying."

"Yeah, I kind of got that." Melissa shook her head. "You weren't replying to any of my questions! I thought you were ignoring me, but it turns out you were just spacing out."

"Sorry," I repeated. "What were you saying?"

"I was asking, is something up between you and Nolan? He hasn't joined us for lunch in like, three days," she said. "Normally I wouldn't pry, but you've been spacing out a lot like there's something bothering you."

"And look at your lunch," Derek said, gesturing to my tray. "You haven't been finishing your food recently."

My quarter-eaten burger looked lonely as it sat on my plate, but my stomach was too knotted up for me to consider taking another bite.

"I don't have much appetite today," I admitted.

"That's the thing—you always have appetite," he said, and his frown grew deeper. "I don't think I've ever seen you not want to eat."

"Actually, I remember there was this one time Nolan was avoiding you. You didn't feel like eating then, too," Ashley said.

"Hey, I remember that too," Melissa said. "I volunteered to form a human wall with you so that he couldn't get away, remember?"

The smile that appeared on Derek's face as he looked at her barely lasted a second before he turned back to me.

Ashley said, "You shouldn't keep it all bottled up if it's really bothering you. You know that you can talk to us."

"I know, and I really appreciate it," I said, having a hard time making eye contact with her.

But I can't talk to you guys about this. I had a hard enough time believing what I saw with my own two eyes, even after the cold hard facts were all laid out before me. I couldn't imagine them accepting without question that I'd found out Nolan was a vampire, that he was acting really distant to me as a result, that I was a little bit frightened of what he could do, and that I was still wondering what to do.