However, just because Smith stays away from me doesn’t mean I don’t see him at all. In fact, it’s sort of like he’s made it his mission to be out of my reach but in my perpetual line of sight. When I leave school, and even sometimes when I get there, he’s usually with Kent and Lyle and his other cronies¸ which annoys me to no end. These guys barely attend school and are known for nothing positive. The girls who run around with them, girls like the infamous Cherry, are more likely to get pregnant than become prom queen.

Look, I’m not saying they are bad people—they’re rough around the edges and they’ve been dealt shitty cards over and over again. I get that.

But Smith? He’s only a month or so out from getting his credits and getting out of this school. It would be an unbelievable display of asshattery if he fucked all that up. Now that I know that Officer Rains is his older brother, however, I’m starting to wonder if maybe that’s why Smith is surrounding himself with the less-that-successful student population. Maybe it’s just to piss him off. Family dynamics are always complex, right?

And, so, this is how I spend my time—speculating about Smith. I speculate and I theorize and I hate myself for it.

But that doesn’t stop me from doing it.

Constantly.

Even after the weekend, I feel like I’m too distracted by him to focus—so much so that I end up sleeping through my alarm on Monday morning. I manage to get dressed in about 2.5 seconds and I make it to school with a good five minutes to spare, but I still feel totally discombobulated. It’s like I missed the bus in high school or something. I’m still smoothing down my bedhead hair when the bell rings for first period.

“Good morning,” I sort of grumble to the class.

I dig my copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets out of a desk drawer, then look up. A few students are grinning at me and couple are whispering. I zero in on Smith’s perpetual smirk and sort of scowl. I’m so not in the mood for this today.

“Am I missing something?” I ask to no one in particular.

Selena, a perpetual gum chewer and chatty Cathy, points at my skirt.

“Static cling, Miss Hendricks. Unless you’re trying to show us your—what did Shakespeare call it? Your ‘chaste treasure’?”

I glance down at my skirt, where it’s sort of folded in over on itself, then hiked up about five inches.

Shit.

Hastily, I run my hands down it repeatedly, then clear my throat.

“Can someone pass out the sonnet books from the back bookshelf? We’re going to take a Hamlet break for a few days and focus on the other writing format Shakespeare was best known for.”

As two students start passing books around the room, I cue up the projector and my Elizabethan sonnet notes.

“This will be on the unit test, guys,” I warn, pointing to the screen. “So I suggest writing it down.”

There’s a collective groan, but most of them start digging notebooks and pens out of their bags. I let my eyes flick around the room, landing briefly on Smith, who doesn’t have a thing on his desk. When I meet his gaze, he lifts one brow, as though challenging me to call him out.

“Mr. Asher?” I say, letting my irritation very clearly seep into my voice. “Did you forget something?”

He gives an innocent sort of frown, then glances around. “Nope. Not that I’m aware of.”

I make a show of deliberately opening my top desk drawer, getting a pen, closing the drawer, then walking down the rows of desk to where Smith is sitting, smirking up at me. I set the pen down silently, then lean forward a bit to meet his gaze.

“Bring a pen to my class. Every day. If you refuse, I’ll fail you.”

There’s a juvenile-sounding ooooh coming from a few students in the back. I ignore them, and Smith, as I walk back to the front of the room. When I turn around, I think the expression on his face might actually be a grudging sort of respect. When he uncaps the pen, I feel a little victorious.

“So, sonnets,” I begin, using my laser pointer to go through the notes on the screen. I touch on the more obvious points, like the fourteen lines and the iambic pentameter, then discuss a couple of lesser-known specifics, like the moral in a rhyming couplet.

“Now we’re going to read a few out loud,” I say, turning back to the class and opening my sonnet book. “Anyone want to volunteer?”

Most of the students are looking at me as though they’d literally rather set themselves on fire than read a poem aloud in class. I give them a wry smile and hold up my own hand.

“That’s fine—I can start. Turn to page eighty-six—Sonnet one hundred sixteen.”

I glance down at the poem I’d selected to read and I immediately want to groan. Instead, I clear my throat and give the class a weak smile. Then I start to read.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

I pause, looking around the room, but purposely avoid looking at Smith. Not that it matters—I can feel his eyes as if he were branding me with his gaze. I inhale slowly, then continue.

O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

The space around me is beginning to feel hot and prickly. I feel scrutinized. I clear my throat again.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

I take a deep breath before finishing with the couplet

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

“So, you can notice how the couplet has a lesson, right? Can you tell me what the lesson is?”

Javon, a beefy kid on the wrestling team, raises a hand and I nod at him encouragingly.

“What do you think, Javon?”

“So, it’s like love is perfect and all that,” he says slowly. “And if Shakespeare’s wrong, he’s saying that love never existed at all. Or something.”

I grin at him. “That’s close—really close. Basically, yes, Shakespeare believes in an ideal form of love—a perfect love.”

“What a pansy,” Tyson snorts. “Perfect love is bullshit.”

“Language, Tyson!” I snap at him. “Next time, it’s a detention.”

I cross my arms.

“And, maybe you’re right. Maybe perfect love isn’t real—but we can’t fault people for what they believe in, especially if their convictions are strong.”

Tyson grumbles something under his breath, but I ignore him.

“Who wants to read the next one?”

Smith calls out, “I’ll do it.”

I try not to meet his gaze when I say, “Okay. Thank you—the second sonnet we’re reading is number fifty-three.”

He nods, flipping the pages in his book backward. Everyone else follows suit and I sit on the edge of my desk, waiting for them to find the page. When Smith gets there, his eyes move over the words. Then, like me, he clears his throat before beginning.

What is your substance, whereof are you made,

That millions of strange shadows on you tend?

Since every one hath, every one, one shade,

And you, but one, can every shadow lend.

His voice is deep and almost haunting as he reads. I look around the room and I can’t help but notice how many of the girls are watching him as he reads.

And I can’t help but admit that I’m one of them.

At least until his eyes flick up to see me watching him and I have to glance away. There’s a small smile tugging at his lips as he continues.

Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit