Only in My Dreams

Chapter 9

"So... Are you going to do it today? Finally? I'm not going to make you do but I strongly encourage you to," Laura urged. Even though our classes were in completely different hallways, we walked to our first hours together.

I sighed and regretting said yeah. I didn't want to do this. I hate confrontation, especially when it has to do with me and what I say will completely determine our relationship for the future. If he says he's not interested, our friendship will be more awkward than it already is. The best-case scenario is that he says yes to a date. But with dating comes breakups which then creates another awkward scenario. Either way, it ends up not going well which is exactly why I don't want to do this. Laura will hate me forever if I don't though.

Laura and I split off and went to our classes and the school day began. I wasn't really sure when I was going to say something to Nolan but since I didn't have any classes with him, I didn't have to worry about it until lunchtime or after school.

That thinking of not having to worry about eventually came to an end though when the bell rang to dismiss us to lunch. I started shaking and sweating. I started determining how exactly I was going to talk to him. Was I going to make him come with me to a private area to talk to him? I felt like that idea would be a little creepy and unreasonable so when I got to the cafeteria, I decided not to go through with that.

By the time Nolan actually came to the table with his Hot Lunch, everyone else had sat down and I really didn't feel like telling him in front of our whole entire group. It would be awkward for everyone. No one wants that.

He did seem very off today. Maybe it was just me feeling paranoid but it felt like he was looking at me more today and he had more of a worried expression. Did Laura talk to him or something? Did she really spill my secret and tell him that I liked him?

If he already knew I might as well just go ahead and say it to him to confirm what Laura said to him. I decided that was what I was going to do so after the bell rang to end lunch, I ran up to him while everyone was leaving. I turned around just before I caught up to him and saw Laura wink at me before turning around again.

"Hey Nolan, wait up! I want to talk to you!" I called to him.

He whipped around to face me in curiosity. "Hey what's up?"

"Let's walk to class while talking," I decided to say. This was going to take more than a minute to spit the words out of my mouth. "Did Laura tell you? Or did someone else in our clan?"

"Uhh tell me what? What's going on?" He said clearly in confusion. I don't know if this was part of his plan to act dumb but it was convincing to me that he really didn't know what was going on.

"No one said anything to you about me? Anything at all?" I asked.

"Not that I remember. Why?"

"Well... I don't know how else to say this but..." I took a long pause to take a deep breath before revealing my secret. "I like you."

He was silent for a while before saying, "Wow. Um... okay. Why didn't you tell me?"

I was confused by that question. It caught me off guard. I was hoping he would confess something... even if it was that he didn't like me. "I just did tell you."

"True. Well, I've got to go. My class is right here. Talk to you later," He said shortly before turning into his classroom. What was that? I was hopeful but now I'm just confused and losing hope the more I think about what he said. Maybe he was just caught off guard and didn't really know what to say my hopeful side thought. Or he was disgusted and offended that someone like me liked him. I'm so low on his list that the fact that I liked him made him squicked my pessimistic side thought.