You Are the Shell to My Tortoise | ✓

49

Being back in school felt more exciting than it should have been. My days of relaxing and enjoying my hobbies were now gone, but the thought of seeing my best friends again more than made up for it.

I really missed chatting with Ashley in person and listening to Melissa and Derek squabble over petty matters.

I'd spent a lot of quality time with my parents and Ryan during their pockets of free time, so my energy was fully recharged after coming back from break.

The first thing I did after unpacking my stuff in my dorm room was to check the group chat. We'd agreed last night to meet up once we were in school and finished organizing most of our things.

I grinned slightly at the latest messages in the chat log.

Melissa and Derek had both announced that they were already done and were currently in the school courtyard. Ashley's reaction to their messages was a string of shocked emojis as she asked them how they did it.

To be honest, I wasn't surprised. I could easily envision them just tossing their belongings everywhere they fit into and calling it a day. Ashley was the one who would painstakingly slave over sorting her items into different categories to be stored in different sections. Her room was the neatest one among all of ours, including Derek's—even though I didn't know what his looked like, I could deduce it from seeing how disorganized his school bag was.

Before locking my phone screen, my thumb couldn't resist clicking on the chat log I had with Nolan.

The whole car ride here, the thought of seeing him again just wouldn't leave my head. In fact, it was one of the reasons I was so enthusiastic about returning to school.

I was excited to see Ashley and the others again, but I couldn't wait to see Nolan.

He hadn't yet responded to the message I'd sent him this morning when I was leaving my house. It wasn't unexpected, considering it was morning, but he had to have gotten up by now, right?

As I walked out of the dormitory building, I kept glancing down at my blank phone screen. Was he going to reply any moment soon?

School hadn't even started yet, and I was already missing our daily conversations. On the other hand, I could deal with the loss of a few text conversations if it meant I could actually see him in person now.

The thought brought a smile to my face and a spring to my step.

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"Mel! Derek!" I squealed as I ran up to her and Derek, who were sitting at one of the stone tables in the courtyard.

There were a lot of other students in the place, too, happily chattering away with their friends.

Looking up from the soccer ball she was examining with Derek, Melissa beamed at me. "Chelsea!"

Derek raised his head as well and grinned at me. "Hey, Chelsea."

Bubbly warmth spread through my chest at their familiar smiling faces. Melissa's light brown hair, which had been growing down to her waist before the break, was now just a couple of inches past her shoulders. Derek had gotten a haircut, too.

I missed them so much.

"What are you guys doing?" I asked, plopping myself down on one of the seats.

"We're just trying to figure out what happened to my ball," Melissa said, tapping it. "I barely touched it over the break, but when I came back and unpacked, it was already like this!"

The parts of the soccer ball that didn't have black pentagons on them were entirely bright blue. I recalled Melissa hauling it around on regular school days, and it was a regular black-and-white soccer ball then.