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"You got that wrong."

A finger appeared on my math homework that I was reviewing while waiting for Mr. MacMillan to come in and start the lesson, pointing to a problem.

"Huh?" I snapped my head up.

"This one," Nolan said. "You did it wrong on the first step."

"Oh," I said, blinking in surprise. "Then what should I have done?"

He flipped open his own binder and took out his own worksheet. Leaning closer to me, he placed it next to mine.

"Here. You have to divide this first," he said, using his own pen to point out his own working.

I frowned and stared at his solution. Seeing the complete lack of comprehension on my face, he sighed.

"Are you that bad at math?" He stared at me before lowering his head to his worksheet. "Here, the first thing you need to remember is that you can't take the variable out like this..."

As he explained each step that he took, I realized why his grades were so good. He knew exactly what he was doing. The question was, how was he so smart and efficient at this when he paid virtually no attention in class?

I was also wrong about what I had assumed about him before—he could be a good tutor if he wanted to be. While pointing to each of his steps with his pen, he explained his working slowly to me.

His handwriting was neater than I expected. I noticed that boys tended to have scratchy handwriting, but Nolan's was fairly tidy and legible.

"... did you get that?" he said, suddenly peering at my face and frowning at me.

"Yeah, I did!" I smiled quickly back at him, before he could wonder about my lack of reaction.

Well, mostly. Before I started spacing out about his handwriting, I did understand what he was explaining to me.

I got out my correction tape to rectify the mistakes. "Thanks, Nolan."

"It's nothing." He took back his worksheet and backed off.

"I thought you were asleep, actually," I said. "Why did you get up?"

"I wasn't," he muttered, pressing his hand against his forehead. "I'm not in the mood to sleep."

Who was this imposter wearing Nolan's appearance sitting next to me?!

"Does this have anything to do with .... earlier?" I asked hesitantly.

He gave me a quizzical glance.

"You know, when Ariel tagged along with you to lunch?"

Sneering, Nolan sprawled his arms straight across his desk and lay his head on one of them. "She's delusional."

I grinned as I finished the rest of my solution. He wasn't wrong.

"Did you go to the library?"

"It was the only thing that saved me. The librarian was furious that she wouldn't shut up. She ended up getting thrown out of the library," he said grouchily.

"Oh," I said, wincing. "Did she follow you all the way there? What about lunch?"

"Apparently, she didn't mind skipping lunch to hang out with me."

Yikes.

"I bet you finally managed to nap there."

"The best nap I've had today." His eyes slid shut. "She was waiting for me outside the library when I left."

"I'm so sorry for your misfortune."

"I just don't have the energy to yell at her," he muttered. "I don't get why she won't leave me alone."

"Maybe she likes you," I offered.

In fact, there was no other explanation for her obsessive and stalkerish behavior.

Nolan scoffed, but said nothing.

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It was really weird that lately I hadn't been sleeping well.

I didn't have that much on my mind, or much stress about schoolwork—except maybe that chemistry quiz I almost failed.

Why was I having so much trouble sleeping?

This was the third time tonight I had been jolted out of my light sleep. Suppressing a groan, I rolled off my bed while still clutching Georgie.

Sighing, I rested my forearms on my windowsill and looked out into the lush forest in front of our dorm building.

I loved the view from my bedroom window, since anytime my eyes became tired, I could rest them by admiring the gorgeous trees from afar. I loved it when their leaves and branches swayed in the night breeze I couldn't feel from behind the glass.

Standing here reminded me of the other day when I discovered that Nolan's room was right below mine. He was probably still awake even now.

As I beheld the beauty of the trees bathing in the moonlight, the movement of something across the school grounds caught my eye. I squinted, barely able to believe what I was seeing—a human figure was running towards our school's brick wall.

I rubbed my eyes and stared. The figure was still there, steadily making its way to the wall. I rushed to my dresser and pulled open the top drawer as quietly as I could.

With a bit of scrabbling in the dark, I managed to grab my binoculars sitting in the drawer corner. Ryan had given them to me when I first came to Fairwood Academy, insisting that I would need it to do some stargazing from my room.

Until tonight, I had never thought that I would actually need to use it.

I dashed back to my window and peered through my slightly dusty binoculars. A sinking feeling of apprehension entered my heart when I saw that from behind, this guy looked kind of familiar.

Sure, anyone could wear a black hoodie and jeans, but even with his back to me, his slim figure resembled Nolan's.

What was he doing outside this late? It was one thing to be awake in his own room. Getting caught outside at two in the morning was an entirely different matter.

He paused for a couple of seconds mid-run to turn his head to the side, as if making sure no one had noticed him.

Viewing his profile made my stomach lurch even harder.

It really was Nolan.

I immediately tossed my binoculars onto my bed and grabbed my phone to snap a few pictures. I needed proof—proof that I wasn't imagining or hallucinating this whole thing. The quality wasn't all that good when I tried to zoom in on him, but it was the best I had.

Upon reaching the wall, he began climbing it. He rapidly scaled the wall with a sort of finesse that could only come with experience. I snapped another one when he reached the top.

After he jumped down the other side of the wall, Nolan ran towards the forest with complete disregard for the looming darkness over it. Soon, he vanished from my sight into the abundance of trees and plant life.

I lowered my phone and forced myself to take slow, deep breaths to calm my racing heartbeat.

My mind was drawing an absolute blank on what to do right now.

Who went into the forest in the dead of the night all alone?! I already knew he was kind of weird, but I never thought that he was actually insane.

If it were anyone else, I would have thought they were doing it on a dare or that some stupid bet was involved, but Nolan didn't even socialize.

I wanted to get a teacher, but then Nolan would be in massive trouble—and not the petty kind he was used to getting into for being an inattentive student.

Maybe he would even hate me for the rest of his life. Honestly, it was a good trade for his life. I would rather see him alive than regret it if I never saw him again.

Then again ...

Had he been doing this all along? It didn't seem like it was his first time attempting it—his actions were way too smooth for someone who didn't know what they were doing. Something about this didn't seem right.

My gaze landed on my phone, which was still in my hands. Of course. I could just call him. My hands trembled so much that I almost dropped it while finding his contact.

It rang once, twice, and then went to the automated voice message that played whenever the call couldn't be connected.

I made myself stop pacing and sit down on my bed. I had to think calmly about this.

Reception would be obviously be terrible in a forest. What was I even expecting?

I decided to send him a text—he would at least get it eventually, even if he couldn't get it now.

It took me what felt like forever, sitting there on the edge of my bed, to compose something I could send out.

In the end, I settled on what was probably my millionth attempt at typing a coherent message. 'I saw you. What do you think you're doing? Do you know how dangerous this is?! You had better come back in one piece or I'll tell ALL THE TEACHERS.'

The moment the text was sent, I regretted it. It wasn't like this would achieve anything. He was still in the forest right now, blissfully ignorant of what I had seen.

Still, there was something off about how he just casually flung himself off the wall and disappeared into the forest without an ounce of hesitation.

As I sat there flicking through the slightly blurry photos I had just taken, the urge to still tell someone clawed into me with overwhelming strength.

What if he never came back? Wouldn't it be too late to tell someone then?

I went to my door and opened it just a crack, trying not to focus on how loud my heartbeat seemed to be. With another deep inhale, I forced myself to open the rest of it.

Taking the first step out of my room seemed to use up all my strength.

"Chelsea, is something wrong?"

The doubt that was gnawing at my brain merely intensified at the sight of a concerned Miss Cooper, the teacher who was patrolling tonight, standing before me. Was the panic on my face that obvious?

In that moment, my mind flailed for any reasonable-sounding excuse I could find.

"I ... No. I woke up and needed to use the toilet." My mouth was so dry the words barely came out properly.

I smiled feebly at her as she nodded understandingly.

Coward.

I crossed my arms as I walked towards the dorm toilet, hoping that it would stop my hands from shaking.

The water that I splashed on my face didn't help to clear my mind in the slightest. The whole time I was walking back to my room, I was arguing with myself whether to talk to Miss Cooper or not. In the end, I reached my room without even managing to look at her.

I'm such a coward.

I curled up in my bed and pulled Georgie close to my chest, trying futilely to ignore the worry that was eating away at my insides.

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AN: Obviously, I made up the boarding school name! It's purely fictitious and any similarities to any real schools are purely coincidental. This part was supposed to conclude this chapter (allmy chapters are split up into different uploaded parts) but as I wrote on, it ended up being 4240 words all on its own! I had to split it up again. The whole chapter is 7977 words, the longest chapter I've written so far... I'll upload the next part tomorrow morning (which will be in around 8 hours lol) 'cause I still need to proofread that one. Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed it, I would appreciate it very much if you voted!

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