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giving up some of the more intimate details about the romance of the location and how they were yelling one moment then caught up in it the next. Emma hung on her every word and sighed romantically at the appropriate moments. It was the perfect ten minutes to Kira, who had been thinking too many deep thoughts recently. She just wished she had thought to supply some chocolate or peanut butter. One thing was certain though, next time she needed to watch romantic movies like The Notebook, Emma would definitely be the one to call. She needed another person besides her mother who could appreciate the “I want to cry because this is so heartbreakingly romantic” sort of movie.

Eventually, Kira drove away from the school and found her way back home, just in time to make dinner. She sat her little sister on the counter as she prepared the chicken picatta and heard all about Chloe’s day with her imaginary friend Beth. Sometimes Kira wished she was still in those days of make-believe, but despite how nerve-racking the past few weeks had been, she knew she was on the verge of figuring it all out. She just needed a bit more patience.

The next day, all Kira could think about was how to put her plan into action. She barely spoke to her friends at lunch and was silent during her walk to English with Luke. Just as they were about to turn into the classroom, she stopped moving.

"Hey, Luke?" He turned when he heard her speak. "I forgot something in my locker. I’ll meet you inside."

He nodded and continued into the classroom.

She tried to walk at a normal pace, but quickly sped to her hiding spot and peered around the corner of a locker to keep a lookout on the classroom door. For a moment she was worried that Tristan would be the one to sneak up on her, but Kira soon saw Mr. Bell enter the classroom, and Tristan was close behind.

After he disappeared inside, Kira made her way to the door, hoping that an open seat was left next to Tristan and that all of this planning wasn’t for nothing. Luke sat at the front of the classroom with an open seat next to him, and Tristan was two feet from her next to the other open seat. She flashed an apologetic look at Luke and sat down, trying to look guilty at being late instead of smug at having everything go smoothly.

Tristan didn’t glance at her, but she thought she saw his arm muscles tighten in anger when she sat down a few inches from him. Kira tried to act innocent and pulled out some paper to jot down notes during the first half of class. Really, she was losing all of her patience waiting for Mr. Bell to end the lecture and start with the acting lessons. If he didn’t do it soon, she knew her chance to trap Tristan for a few minutes would be lost. She couldn’t really pull the “I left something in my locker” act again. Kira knew Luke would be suspicious.

Finally, Mr. Bell walked down the aisles assigning pairs, and Kira let out a silent breath of relief when she and Tristan were paired together.

"Okay, everyone, now that we’ve finished reading the play, I want you all to practice reading Shakespeare out loud. He was a playwright after all, his words were meant to be spoken. I think the balcony scene will do since I paired you all in coed groups. You are all hormonal teenagers, right?"

The class responded with a laugh, and everyone opened their books to act 2, scene 2. Tristan turned to Kira with what she could only call a pained expression and tried his best to read some of the most romantic lines ever written in a completely melancholic voice.

"'But soft what light through yonder window breaks. It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief that thou her maid art far more fair than she.'"

Kira couldn’t help but laugh at him as he speedily grumbled out the lines without even an ounce of passion. "You know this is supposed to be a love scene, right?"

He looked up at her with contempt while she tried to swallow her smile. "Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed."

He looked back down at the page and continued to read aloud in his monotone voice, totally ignoring her, which just prompted her to continue.

"Look, Tristan, there’s no point hiding the fact that you like me, from me I mean. I flipped through your notebook again after I saw that you’d left it behind. I saw the drawings you made of me." He looked up at her then, and Kira handed his small moleskin back to him, happy to at least have that out of the way. For some reason, she thought he was looking at her like she was an unruly child who wouldn't follow instructions. Where he got that from, she had no idea, but he continued with his speech so she continued talking over him.

"They were really great, actually—pretty flattering." She smiled, hoping he would look at her again, but he didn’t. "Anyway, I think we should talk about what happened, not here obviously, but somewhere where we can meet in private." They both chose that moment to look around, and Kira saw they had the attention of both Luke and Tristan’s friends. Yeah, the classroom was definitely not the right place to have this conversation, and she kind of hoped talking would lead to other things like it had last time…

He finished reading his lines. "Hey, Juliet, it’s your turn." He smirked.

"Oh, right." She looked down at her book. "'O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art though Romeo.'" She tried to copy his apathetic style of reading and was secretly overjoyed when he laughed at her.

"I get it, I sounded like an idiot." She just continued giving him the same silent treatment he had given her. "Okay, here’s the truth, Kira. We can’t talk here, and we shouldn’t even be talking now, or maybe ever."

"You told me that already." She stopped reading.

"Yet, you seem to have trouble understanding it. English is your first language, right?" She rolled her eyes at the joke. "Like I said before, we just can’t ever be."

"I understand what you’re saying, but I also know you don’t mean it." She leaned closer to him to prevent from being overheard.

"I do," he said, forcing the point.

"Oh really?" she tried to push him now. "It didn’t seem that way when you kissed me."

"Kira, forget that ever happened, okay?"

"Or what? You don’t scare me."

"I should," he said and shot Kira a lethal look.

His eyes changed color to the lightest blue she could imagine, and they held her captive. Not in the romantic way, but as though she were a prisoner held paralyzed. His eyes were ice cold, making her shiver as though she had been dropped in an arctic pool, and slowly his pupils began to expand, overtaking his irises.

Kira was scared, but more than that, she felt like he knew it and didn’t care. Try as she might, she couldn't look away—completely stuck. Slowly, a feeling of warmth spread to her hands, burning hot, a sense of power that fought the fear tightening her stomach in knots.

Whipping her gaze to the floor, Kira breathed heavy as she finally broke his stare. Her fingertips still tingled with the heat that had coursed through her, allowing her to break his gaze. Kira leaned back against her chair, away from him, and touched her fingers to her cheek.

They burned into her skin.

"What the hell was that?" she asked unsteadily, still not looking up. The heat emanating from her hand absorbed all of Kira’s thoughts.

"Me," he said with the venom gone from his voice. She looked at him again and caught the unbearably sad expression in his eyes before he looked away.

Or me? she thought, feeling the warmth finally ebb.

"Rewriting Shakespeare, are we?" Mr. Bell walked between them, and Kira couldn’t help but let a guilty look cross her face. They most certainly had not been following the assignment, but she wanted to hug Mr. Bell for breaking the silence and pausing her thoughts. "Tristan, you seem to have a hard time following the classroom rules." Tristan looked at Mr. Bell defiantly, and Kira felt a little sorry that she had caused the whole thing. "What were you and Miss Dawson talking about so passionately? It definitely was not Romeo and Juliet."

"Screw you," Tristan replied. Every student in the classroom inhaled in shock. She couldn’t tell if he said it just to be defiant or to hide their conversation from his friends.

"Well, Mr. Kent." Tristan looked up at the use of his last name. "Perhaps you and Miss Dawson would like to show everyone how it’s done. Tomb scene. Front of the class. Now."

Kira stood and practically pulled Tristan from his seat to stop him from getting both of them punished with extra homework.

As they walked to the front of the class, he whispered to her, "Think you can be quiet and play dead for a few minutes?"

When they reached the front, she turned to face him and, with his body hiding her face from the rest of the class, said defiantly, "Think you can pretend to not enjoy kissing me for your friends?"

"Think you can for Luke?" He smirked and moved aside.

Damn him, she thought, he always has to have the last word.

"You can start with Romeo’s monologue," Mr. Bell prodded, and Tristan began to read.

Kira listened intently for the cue that meant he would lean down to give her a quick kiss in front of the classroom. As she listened, she realized he was much better at reading than he let on. His voice was full of passion as he paused at the appropriate moments and rushed through some lines as though the words were his own. Kira lay still on the front table with closed eyes, but was sure he had captivated the entire classroom as he read Romeo’s lines. And she felt herself fall for him a little bit more the longer he spoke.

"'Eyes, look your last.'"

Even through closed lids, his gaze sent a thrill down her spine.

"'Arms, take your last embrace.'"

His body gently settled on top of her own. He seemed to speak only to her ear.

"'And lips,'" he whispered, running his thumb along the edge of her lower lip, something the script definitely didn’t call for. "'Oh you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss, a dateless bargain to engrossing death.'"

He lifted himself off of her to continue reading. Kira heard him utter the last few lines and recognized the swish of his clothes as he lifted his arm to swallow invisible poison.

"'Oh true apothecary, thy drugs are quick,'" he spoke with a stalled voice. His hands fell on either side of her face and the desk creaked as he leaned slowly down. From the brush of warm air, she knew that his lips were only an inch away.

"'Thus with a kiss I die.'"

For what seemed like a millennium, Kira lay still, waiting, until finally, in the softest kiss she could ever imagine, his lips landed on hers and remained there for a few seconds longer than they should have. Her lips curved into a smile and his did the same. Unfortunately, he then pretended to fall off the desk and die.

Shoot, Kira thought, listening to the engrossed silence of the class, how the heck am I supposed to follow that?

Mr. Bell spoke for the other characters, until she knew it was her time to wake. Kira opened her eyes slowly and sat up to speak her lines to the friar. She tried to look appropriately shocked when she was told of Romeo’s death but heard some people snicker at her failed attempt. And just when Kira was supposed to have her own monologue, the bell thankfully rang and saved her from the embarrassing experience.

Kira looked down at Tristan and almost believed him dead, until he jumped up, winked at her, and fled from the classroom. Kira sat for a moment longer, trying to guess who had come out of that exchange with the upper hand, wondering if Tristan would agree to talk things over in private.

More importantly, she felt her own cheek, trying to recall the overwhelming warmth that spread from her hand to that very spot. Kira had no idea what had happened, and she didn’t know who to ask for answers.

With a heavy sigh,