On Monday, Nolan was late.

I stared at the unoccupied desk next to mine.

Miss Wheeler had started her lesson five minutes ago, but he still wasn't here.

Nolan was never late to first period. He was always among the earliest, and he was always already asleep at his desk whenever I saw him.

Had something happened? Was he still sick? But when Miss Wheeler had carried out roll call earlier, she hadn't seemed to have anticipated Nolan's absence and had looked annoyed that he wasn't here.

"Now, by the 19th century—"

"Sorry I'm late."

Everyone's head turned in the direction of the interrupting voice. Nolan stepped through the doorway, looking more bored than apologetic.

Without skipping a beat, Miss Wheeler said, "Please stay behind after class, Nolan. I'd like a word with you. In the meantime, take your seat."

Out of all the teachers in school, Miss Wheeler was the one who disliked Nolan the most. She took her classes seriously, and if you didn't, she'd have it out for you. It probably didn't help that aside from Mr. Jameson, she was one of the youngest teachers in school. At the start, students tried to challenge her authority because she looked young and inexperienced. All of those who talked back or attempted to even joke around in her classes immediately got slapped with a detention, and if she was in a foul enough mood, a visit to the headmaster's office.

When Nolan got to his desk, his dark eyebags became much more visible. He had the whole weekend to rest, and he still hadn't slept well? As he was sitting down, he caught me looking at him and gave me a small nod.

I glanced to the front of the classroom to make sure Miss Wheeler wasn't looking. She'd already returned her attention to the whiteboard and was resuming her droning.

"Hi," I whispered.

He paused for a second.

"Hi," he whispered back.

I had to fight the urge to gawk at him—I really wasn't expecting him to reply to me. It felt like something miraculous had just happened. "Are you okay?"

There was another pause. "Yeah."

Before I could say anything else, he had put his head down on the desk, using his arms as a pillow—as usual.

Some things never change.

I resumed my blank stare at Miss Wheeler as she continued with her lesson.

The bell for the end of first period rang just as I was certain that I was about to die of boredom. After informing us of our assignment, Miss Wheeler swiftly dismissed the class. That was one thing I liked about her—she was a no-nonsense teacher with a no-frills teaching style that ended her lessons either a little early or on time.

Beside me, Nolan's head slowly rose.

As students started leaving the classroom, some girls from the other end of the classroom made their way towards our desks. Having finished tossing all my stationery into my bag, I got up and started for the door.

As I walked on, one of the girls said, "Hey, Nolan. I was surprised to see you late for class today."

"Yeah," another girl said. "Are you okay?"

What gives? I couldn't help wondering what gave them the courage to walk up to him. Normally, they wouldn't even dare to step within a three-foot radius of him.

"Hey, Nolan?" the first voice I heard said.

"Where are you going?"

I couldn't help it; I was too curious for my own good. I had to know what was going on! I casually tilted my head back halfway to see Nolan walking past them, eyes focused on the front of the room as if the other girls weren't even standing right before him.

He reached Miss Wheeler, who was waiting for him with her arms crossed. As she began to lecture him, I felt eyes on me.

I glanced back—the girls who were surrounding him were giving me a once-over and whispering among themselves.

What?

Why were they looking at me? What did I have to do with anything?

I left the classroom, wondering why there were so many weird people around me.

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"... and it was so romantic!" Maddie sighed, clasping her hands together and closing her eyes.

"It was!" Natalie, another one of my book club members, nodded vigorously.

"Um, weren't we talking about Jeffrey's character development?" Olivia said, clearly looking as if she was suppressing the sentence how did we even get to this point.

We were having our weekly student-led book club meeting with our small reading group that comprised of four girls and two guys, although one of the guys wasn't presently here. I was spending more time admiring the beautiful promotional posters for our club's selected novels we had stuck on the walls than actually listening to the non-content Maddie was sharing.

Maddie and Natalie tended to get carried away with the romance elements in the books we read (even if the actual romance inside the book was minimal to non-existent). The rest of us weren't quite as inclined towards them, so thankfully we were usually able to pull them back into the main topic whenever they veered off into irrelevance.

I had to admit that it was still an exercise in patience when I had to sit there staring blankly at Natalie whenever she started talking about how the antagonist's actions were derived from his romantic motives or goals.

"Like, no," I had once muttered to Olivia, who had given me a weary, commiserating look in return.

Ethan, our student leader, rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and said, "Well, thank you for sharing. Let's move onto the next question. In your eyes as a reader, did Risa successfully redeem herself by the end of the book?"

"Can I go first?" Olivia said, raising her hand.

"Of course." Ethan gestured for her to go ahead.

"I felt that when she helped—"

The clubroom door swung open. "I'm so sorry I'm late!"

Cody, the last member of our reading group, barged in with a flourish. His hand was busily patting down his brown hair, which was tousled beyond repair. His breaths came in audible pants as he closed the door behind him.

"Hey, Cody," Ethan said, looking relieved to see him.

"Hi, Cody."

"Hey guys, I'm sorry I overslept. I didn't hear my alarm during my nap earlier," he said, cutting through the circle that we were sitting in to reach the only vacant chair beside me.

"It's fine." Ethan checked his watch. "You've only been late for about ... ten minutes."

Cody laughed sheepishly. "I ran here the moment I woke up and realized I missed the alarm."

He looked like it, too. His hair still looked like it'd just finished making out with his pillow. I forced my lips into a straight line so that I wouldn't smile at the sight.

"Okay, so," Ethan said, looking at his phone, "we were just about to start discussing if Risa successfully redeemed herself by the end of the book. Olivia, please continue."

As Olivia began expressing her own opinion on the book character, Cody fumbled with his bag. His book fell out from it, bouncing across the floor and hitting the tongue of my sneaker.

"Oops, sorry," he whispered, reaching down to get it.

I picked it up and handed it over. "Here you go."

"Thanks," he mouthed and grinned.

The scene reminded me of when I first met Cody in the book club; he'd already been a member before I had joined. I'd just entered the clubroom, thinking that this was the perfect club for me. Cody was in the middle of juggling three books—trying to prove to Ethan that he had multiple talents—when I stepped in.

His back was to me so when I spoke, I saw him startle and jump. It was enough to throw him off, and one of the books that he was juggling went flying across the room.

The book landed right on top of my left shoe.

He dashed over and apologized profusely, even presenting that very book to me as peace offering. I was so glad that it hadn't hit me in the face that instead of getting mad, I laughed at him.

Just as Ethan was telling him off for scaring away potential newcomers, I walked up to him and handed him my club application form.

Ethan looked at me like I'd just given him a bouquet of ninety-nine roses and confessed my eternal undying love.

Cody and I got talking after that, and to my surprise, he wasn't as goofy as my first impression of him was. Cody was very easygoing, and he put up with Maddie's and Natalie's topic derailment with far more patience than Olivia or I could ever muster.

When our meeting ended, we bid each other a quick goodbye before everyone started leaving the room. Cody and I were the last two to leave.

As I was stepping out of the doorway, him following behind, he said, "Man, I'm so glad we're finally moving on to another genre next month."

"Right?" I said, sighing exaggeratedly to convey how relieved I felt. "I'm just so done with sitting there listening to Maddie tell us how romantic she found Jeffrey's act of abduction."

Cody laughed, fiddling with his bag's zipper. "Yeah, at least when we do mystery novels she doesn't get as many crazy ideas."

"Seriously, it's amazing how insightful she can be when she's not gabbing on about romance." I watched as he zipped and unzipped his bag repeatedly. "Hey, what's up? Do you need help with that?"

He promptly dropped his hand. "Oh, no, thanks. I'm good. It's just ... can I talk to you for a second?"

Huh? I looked at him quizzically. He and I weren't really the kind of acquaintances who made small talk with each other; I was a lot closer to Olivia in the book club than to anyone else. What was there to talk about?

"Sure ..." I said, moving over to a nearby pillar. "We can talk here?"

The tenseness in his facial expression evaporated. "Yeah, that's good."

"What is it? Are you okay?" I asked, eyeing his bag that he was opening again.

"Yeah, I'm good, thanks," he said, placing one hand inside it. "At last week's club meeting, you were in a rush to leave and you left this behind on the table. I didn't get a chance to give it back to you, since I didn't see you around school."

He pulled out a coil-bound notebook with a plain black cover and offered it to me. I took one look at it and my stomach plummeted right down to my toes.

That was my fan fiction notebook.