"Congratulations, Chels," Melissa said when she got to my desk.

"You landed your first detention of the year!" Ashley's disbelieving voice reached my ears as she bounded up to me.

I did not want to listen to this right now.

"Stop talking, please," I moaned, my face still in my hands since English class ended.

"No, I'm congratulating you on managing to hold off on getting a detention up until today," Melissa insisted, resting a hand on my desk and leaning against it. "You did well."

Ashley snorted. "That's not an achievement—she's not you."

"Stop," I said, letting out another groan. "You make it sound like I've fallen in battle or something. Can't you see I'm trying not to cry?"

"I thought Mr. Jameson was going to have a heart attack when he saw them both sleeping," Ashley said.

When I woke up, Mr. Jameson was towering over us. While his expression was thunderous, it looked like he didn't know who he wanted to reprimand more—Nolan or me. How could I have slept in my beloved teacher's class? All this after I had nagged Nolan to stay awake in class, too. He had to think I was a complete hypocrite.

"Seriously, you never sleep in his class," Melissa said to me. "Did you not sleep well last night or something?"

"I slept late last night; I was so tired when I got up this morning! Did you see the disappointment in Mr. Jameson's eyes?! He's never looked at me like that before!" I wailed, burying my face into my arms.

"He was just upset his favorite problem student has rubbed off on you," Melissa said, patting me on the shoulder. "He'll get over it."

"Cheer up, you'll live." Derek's hand on my other shoulder had zero comforting effect. "This is nothing compared to the time he probably heard you call him hot."

"Derek," both Melissa and I snapped.

Using up all the strength I had left—since most of it deserted me when Mr. Jameson stared at me like I had let him down—I forced myself to stand up.

Dessert was the only thing that could bring me comfort now. "Let's just go to lunch."

"Good idea," Melissa said. "You'll need the energy when you go to detention later. You got detention with Nolan."

I glared at her. "Are you never going to stop reminding me of that?"

"Hey, I was just trying to be encouraging," she said, snickering.

"I don't need it!"

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Group projects were the worst when the teachers assigned your team members to you. Why couldn't they just let us choose who we wanted to partner with?

Miss Wheeler continued reading off the list she had prepared, acting as if she hadn't just shattered everyone's hopes and dreams when she told us that the grouping would be arranged by her. "... Sheila, Jordan and Claire—you're all in group three. Group four will consist of Nolan, Chelsea and Cheryl."

Although she was still announcing the other groups, I stopped paying attention to glance at the boy sitting next to me. Weeks ago, if she had placed us both in the same group, I would have been complaining about it nonstop to Ashley. Now, after learning that he could be nice if he tried, all I felt was resignation that I would have to wake him up today after all—after I had promised myself last night that I wouldn't do it anymore.

When poking him produced no results, I moved on to shaking his arm.

"Nolan," I whispered, afraid that I would attract Miss Wheeler's attention if I were any louder. "Wake up."

He stirred very slightly.

I tugged at his arm again, this time using all my strength. Finally, as our teacher was reciting the names belonging to the last group, his head rose from his arms.

The murderous scowl that always appeared on his face whenever he first awoke greeted me when he turned around. "What?"

I pointed to the front of the classroom, where Miss Wheeler was saying, "Now that you all know your groupings, please gather together to discuss the topic you'd like to work on. You can use the rest of this period to decide on your project details. You may move your chairs around. I'll be walking around to facilitate your discussions."

"Group project?" he asked me,

I nodded. "Group project."

"Thanks for waking me," he said, though it sounded insincere since he still looked a little irritated.

"No problem," I said, scanning the room for Cheryl. "Actually, I woke you because we're in the same group."

"Oh."

Cheryl waved back at me when I raised my arm in the air to get her attention. She motioned with her hand that she would come over to us, so I smiled at her and waited for her to move her things.

"I hate group projects," he muttered as his gaze focused on the whiteboard where Miss Wheeler had written the project requirements.

"I hate to break it to you, but that's not an unpopular opinion," I said with a short laugh.

"I guess it's not as bad if it's you I have to work with," he said, and I snapped my head to stare at him in surprise.

Cheryl's chair produced a terrible screeching sound as she dragged it across the classroom floor. I tried not to cringe too visibly. Was carrying it that difficult a task?

"Hey, Chelsea. Hey, Nolan," she said, seating herself in front of us.

"Hi. What's your name again?" he asked, his face blank.

Her mouth opened and closed without any words coming out from it.

"... Cheryl," she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

Well, someone looked offended. Come to think of it, I did remember seeing her giving a couple of class presentations with Nolan in the past. They must have had worked together before—if I were her, I'd feel insulted, too. I couldn't imagine doing several group projects with someone and never remembering their names.

I wanted to tell her that she wasn't alone, because he couldn't even remember my face until I supposedly 'blinded' him and incurred his ire.

"Don't take it personally," I said with a nod in his direction. "He doesn't remember anyone's face."

Nolan ignored me, of course. He didn't even bother defending himself. Then again, that was something that was pretty hard to defend, on account of it being a fact.

Cheryl gave me a begrudging smile; I could see how forced it was when she did it slowly, like it was taking her some herculean effort. "Let's get started."

After this, Cheryl refused to directly address Nolan, choosing to only talk to me when we were deciding on details like our next meeting and our individual tasks. It was only mildly awkward because Nolan didn't seem to care at all, and he answered her questions even when she made it clear she was speaking to me. We agreed to meet again on Thursday and compile our work.

The tenseness of the atmosphere that hung over our little group was so heavy I was glad when the period ended.

I didn't look forward to having to work on it together for the next few weeks.

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Mr. Jameson led us to the library when we met him for detention. He informed us that the head librarian had recently fallen ill, and they only had the assistant librarian, along with a couple of student helpers, to run things in the library. For our two-hour detention today, we were to reshelve the books that were on the return trolley, as well as organize and tidy the shelves to ensure that any misplaced books were returned to their right spots.

He briefly introduced us to Ms. Underwood, who had to stay behind the counter in case students wanted to check out books or ask questions.

Before leaving, he warned us that she would be keeping an eye on us to make sure that we weren't slacking off.

After showing us the trolley, Ms. Underwood went over the classification stickers on the book spines with us. She handed us each a reference sheet and waved us off in the direction of the bookshelves.

Nolan wheeled the trolley past the tables to where the library shelves began, and I walked along with him.

"I'm surprised that you fell asleep too," Nolan said, running his fingers along the spines of the books stacked on the trolley. "So much for asking me to pay attention in class."

My face burned. "We're not supposed to talk in the library."

"And we're not supposed to sleep in class, yet you did." He grinned at my threatening glare. "Did the melatonin help?"

Startled by the change in subject, I paused before answering. "Yeah, it did! Thanks. The thing is, since I slept so late, I was just too tired anyway."

"Yeah, I wondered why you dozed off even after I gave you that." He picked up a book and headed to a nearby bookshelf.

I grabbed a book myself and looked at the categorization list Ms. Johnson had given us. This one was under the fiction section. When I found the right bookshelf with the same kind of numbering as the book I was holding, I realized that the spot I needed to place the book in was on the highest shelf. It was at least two feet above my head.

Why were the library bookshelves so tall? This was blatant discrimination against short people!

I tiptoed and tried to shove the book in between the right numbers, but even with my slightly elevated height I didn't have enough leverage to slot it in because it was still too high.

Falling back onto the soles of my feet in exhaustion, I let out an indignant sigh.

"You do know you can use that, don't you?"

Nolan's voice was so distinct; I knew it was him even before I spun around.

He was standing next to me, returning a book to the section right beside mine. When he caught my eye, he lifted his left hand and pointed to the side.

A lone black stepstool sat on the floor, only a few feet away from me.