Page 85 of The Hallows Queen

He’s high.

I sigh, turning back to the whiteboard to finish up, and once the classroom is full and the bell is ringing overhead again, I move back to my desk and sit down.

I keep my eyes away from his, instead focusing on the front row of students while Barbara walks to the center of the room and starts her lesson.

I’m drained, exhausted, and worst of all… I’m sad.

I miss him – I miss being with him. It’s been two days and I’m hungry for his attention, desperate to get back to where we were, wanting nothing more than his hands on my body and his beautiful words filling my ears under the darkness of my blankets.

I zone out for most of the lecture. When Barbara wraps up the first half, she asks me to hand out our pop quiz for the day, and I want to cry. My legs have turned to jelly, and it’s a challenge to walk up and down the aisles to give each student a sheet of paper.

When I hand Hayden his test, he looks up at me through his bloodshot eyes and smiles. My stomach flips, and I feel my lips twitch like they want to return his smile. I keep moving, though, and once everyone has a pop quiz, I return to my desk.

The room is silent for the next twenty minutes. The only noise I can hear is the tick-tocking of the clock that hangs above the whiteboard, and it feels like someone is scraping their nails against my brain. I want to scream. I have so much locked inside my mind and body right now, it’s starting to suffocate me from the inside out. Anxiousness takes over, and a thin layer of sweat forms on my lower back.

The students deposit their quizzes on my desk as they finish one by one, and I busy myself by keeping my face turned to my computer screen, where I’m refreshing my email over and over for no reason.

When Hayden drops his quiz on my desk, my eyes move to catch his for a moment.

He looks so fucking sad, even as he smiles at me again, and I want to stand up and grab him. Wrap him in my arms so tight that he can’t breathe and tell him it’s okay, that I forgive him, that I love him.

He turns and walks back to his desk before I do, and I’m left feeling empty.

When everyone has turned in their quiz, Barbara makes her way back to the whiteboard and starts the second part of today’s lesson while I flip through and grade them.

I get lost in checking everyone’s answers, marking the wrong ones with a red pen, and then giving them their grade at the top. When I get to Hayden’s quiz, it’s blank except for three words.

I love you.

My eyes fill with tears, and I quickly blink them away so no one notices.

I grab a blank pop quiz and fill out the answers, writing Hayden’s name on the top and then adding it to the bottom of the stack. I take his blank one and fold it up into a small square, then slip it into my purse so no one can find it, then I keep grading quizzes.

By the time I finish up, Barbara is ending the lecture and heading back to her desk to ride out the last few minutes of class. Students talk, pull out their phones, or lie their heads on their desks, and five minutes later, the bell is releasing them to lunch.

Surprisingly, Barbara is the first one out the door, calling out a disgruntled goodbye over her shoulder and ending it with a sigh before the door slams behind her. That makes me laugh, even as students say goodbye to me and leave the room.

Once the class has emptied, I find Hayden still sitting at his desk, his eyes on me.

I look around one last time, even though I know everyone is gone, then I stand up and walk over to him. “What are you doing?”

“I love you,” he says, looking up at me.

“I read that somewhere.” I grin, and his lips twitch.

He grabs my hand, running his thumb along my palm. “Forgive me, P.”

I sigh, putting a hand on my forehead as I study him. “I can’t keep doing this back-and-forth shit, H. You’re giving me whiplash. You love me one minute and the next you’re telling me to fuck off. This is hard enough as it is, can’t we just be happy in the moments wedohave together?”

He squeezes my hand. “Yeah.”

I lean down and kiss him, feeling a zap of adrenaline go through me, then pull away and stand up straight again. “Go to lunch, someone will come looking for you. We can talk more later.”

“Come over after school?” He stands, putting a hand on my jaw.

I nod, and he drops his hand, turning to grab his backpack. When he leaves this time, he looks like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. And I feel the same.

Chapter25

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