You Are the Shell to My Tortoise | ✓

58

Getting Nolan to hear me out proved to be a near impossible task.

During classes, he stayed in deep slumber. He didn't wake up for anything or anyone, leading me to wonder if he was merely putting on an act when Mr. Jameson hurled another textbook at him in English.

When classes ended, he was out of the room before I could get more than two words out.

Finally, we were in the last period of the day.

As usual, he was sitting beside me, his head resting face-down on his forearms.

"Nolan," I tried whispering again, because class was going to end in ten minutes, and I still hadn't gotten to talk to him yet. "Nolan, wake up."

No response.

As I sat in my chair and stared at Mr. Peterson, who was gesticulating excitedly about a chemistry concept, I tried to think of how I could make him stay for long enough to hear what I had to say.

All I'd tried so far was talking to him. Maybe it was time to put my words into action.

Glancing back down at him, I mentally braced myself for what I was going to do once the lesson was over.

------------------------------------------

The moment Nolan pushed his chair back, I stood up. I'd packed before the bell rang, so my bag was already slung over my shoulder.

I was hot on his heels as he strode out of the classroom with big, sweeping steps.

"Hey, Nolan, I need to talk to you!" I called out, afraid to take my eyes off him for even a second.

He was an expert at slinking off and then vanishing from sight.

"Sorry, I'm busy," he said without slowing down.

I narrowed my eyes. "What are you busy doing? Going back to your room to sleep?"

"Yes," he said, still not looking my way.

The pain in my chest went on a rampage, wrenching and yanking at everything it could get its hands on. I wasn't sure if he had ever once looked at me since the day after I'd discovered his secret.

"Then I'm sure you can spare five minutes," I said hotly, sticking as closely to him as I could.

"I can't, actually. See you."

At his response, I gaped like a goldfish. He abruptly began walking faster than he already was—I had to break into a slight jog in order to keep up with him.

"Hey! It's important! Are you ever going to stop avoiding me?" Apparently, I had gotten loud enough for other nearby students to shoot glances at us.

Nolan sped up some more. I didn't know people could even walk that quickly ... right, he wasn't exactly normal.

His silence was as good as an answer.

I was not going to let him shake me off. I'd already prepared myself for what I was going to do if it came to this—I would just have to chase him down.

I dashed after him, and he began jogging. He was just so fast, and it didn't seem like it was taking much out of him.

"Leave me alone," he snapped, turning back for once to look at me.

Although he did that to glare at me, I was thankful all the same that he finally stopped behaving like I was invisible.

"Why are you running from me?" I snapped back. "You'd think I'm some kind of serial axe murderer!"