Page 7 of Sweet Nightmare

When she lets out a heartbroken sigh, one of the witches in the second to last row ventures, “Lord Byron?” in a tentative voice.

“Byron?” Somehow Ms. Aguilar looks even more disappointed. “Certainly not. He’s much more wicked, Veronica.

“Still no guesses?” She shakes her head sadly. “I suppose I could give another quote.”

She taps one cotton candy–colored fingernail against her chin. “Now, which one should I use? Maybe…”

“For fuck’s sake,” Izzy bursts out from behind me. “It’s John fucking Keats.”

Ms. Aguilar jerks back in surprise, but it quickly turns to joy. “You know him!” she crows, clapping her hands.

“Of course I bloody well know him. I’m from bloody Britain, aren’t I?” Izzy snaps.

“That. Is. Wonderful!” Ms. Aguilar practically dances over to her desk to retrieve a pile of packets. “I’m so glad you’ve read him before! Isn’t he just divine? ‘Heard melodies are—’”

“He’s an egotistical blowhard,” Izzy interrupts before the teacher can once again flit from one end of the room to the other. “Just like the rest of the Romantic poets.”

Ms. Aguilar pauses mid-flounder in horror. “Isadora! John Keats is one of the most brilliant poets—nay, one of the most brilliant people—to ever walk the face of the Earth, which I am sure you will all come to understand as we study him for our next unit.”

Oh, sure. Him she stands up for. Maybe if the Jean-Jerks threw Skittles at the pictures of the poets she has up all over the walls, she could actually talk back to them, too.

She walks over to me and dumps the stack of packets on my desk. “Clementine, be a darling and pass these out for me, will you?”

I say, “Sure,” even though my abused body would much rather go with, “Hell, no.”

The Jean-Jerks barely look up when I toss a packet on each of their desks. I expect Jude to do the same when I get to him—but instead he looks straight at me.

The moment our gazes collide, it’s as if everything inside me freezes and burns all at the same time. My heart speeds up, my brain slows down, and my lungs tighten until it hurts to breathe.

It’s the first time he’s looked directly at me—the first time we’ve looked at each other—since freshman year, and I don’t know what to do…or how to feel.

But then his disgustingly gorgeous face goes dark right in front of me.

His razor-sharp jaw tightens.

His light-brown skin pulls taut over slashing cheekbones.

And his eyes—one so brown it’s nearly black and the other a swirling, silvery green—go completely blank.

I’ve spent three years building a wall inside me just for this very moment, and one glance from him takes a stick of dynamite to it. I’ve never felt more pathetic in my life.

Determined to get away as fast as possible, I all but throw his packet at him.

The rest of the class passes in a blur as I beat myself up, furious that I wasn’t the one to shut it down first. That, even after everything that happened between us, he was the one who got to ice me out instead of the other way around.

But as the bell is about to ring and we all start packing up, Ms. Aguilar claps her hands to get our attention. “There’s never enough time, is there?” she laments. “But to combat that problem for next class, I’m going to assign your partners now.”

“Partners?” one of the dragon shifters calls out. “For what?”

“For your Keats project, silly. I’ll assign each of you a partner today, and when you come into class tomorrow, you can start on your projects right away.”

Instead of going down a pre-planned list based on proximity or even alphabetical order like a normal teacher would, she starts looking around the room and pairing people up according to “the vibe she’s currently feeling from them.”

I don’t know what kind of vibe I’m giving off, and honestly, I couldn’t care less. Now that the adrenaline from the chrickler cage has worn off, the pain is kicking in. Add that to the weird shit that just went down with Jude, and I just want to get through my next class so I can head to the dorm to take some painkillers.

Not to mention a hot shower.

I tune Ms. Aguilar out and spend the next couple of minutes daydreaming about copious amounts of hot water, but I jerk back to attention the moment she calls out my name…followed by Jude’s.

---