Sweetness follows
English class moves like sludge. A Sub is writing something about dramatic irony on the board in squeaky green marker, and Jackie is pretending to take notes.
She underlines the same word three times.
The notebook in front of her is mostly blank, except for a corner where she’s drawn petals again. Five. Always five.
She shifts in her seat. The room is too warm. Her sweater feels too tight around the wrists.
Shauna’s two rows over, one seat up. Close enough that Jackie can see the back of her neck where a few strands of hair have fallen loose from her braid. Close enough that she can track the rhythm of Shauna’s handwriting—slanted, neat, always the same.
Shauna laughs quietly at something the teacher says. Jackie hears it and feels it in her ribs.
⸻
She tries not to look.
Really, she does.
But she keeps doing it anyway—little glances when Shauna tucks her hair behind her ear, when she bites her pen cap, when she shifts in her chair and her flannel slips down one shoulder.
Not the same flannel Jackie remembers. But similar enough.
Shauna turns her head slightly and Jackie looks away, fast, like she was caught cheating on a test.
Her face goes hot.
⸻
The copy of Eros the Bittersweet is in her backpack. She brought it to school even though they’re not working together today. She dog-eared another page on the bus. Something about triangles again. Something about absence.
Jackie didn’t understand it. But she reread it anyway.
She’d never admit it out loud, but she thinks she understands Shauna better in that book than she ever did in real life. Like the distance helps. Like not being in it makes it make more sense.
It doesn’t help that Shauna’s wearing lip balm that smells like cherry. Jackie catches a whiff of it when someone opens a window.
She closes her eyes for a second.
Breathes in. Breathes out.
⸻
When class ends, everyone starts packing up at once.
Shauna stands. She doesn’t look back.
Jackie lingers in her seat.
Pretends to search for a pen she never dropped.
Watches Shauna walk away, a hand slipping into her pocket, her backpack strap sliding off her shoulder, just like always.
Jackie looks down at her notes.
Underlines a line that isn’t important.
Then adds another petal to the flower in the margin.
Six this time.
Just to see what it feels like.