“Right—let’s get straight on with it. Poetry today.” I turn the pages in my poetry book to the page I’ve bookmarked. “This poem is called ‘Sold,’ by Paul Henry.”

Someone in the front row actually yawns and I grip the book harder to resist the urge to chuck the damned thing at him. I barely slept after last night’s dream, or hallucination, or whatever it was. And now I’m supposed to enthuse this eleventh-grade class about poetry?

I start reading the short poem and my throat gets tight halfway through. I’ve read this poem before, taught classes extracting every meaning and emotion from the poignant lines about a life embedded in the walls of a house, but today in my exhausted state the words stir up too many memories and thoughts of home, of Bella. My eyes are burning and I blink. When I look up, my voice trails off completely and I wonder if I’m so tired I’ve actually drifted into sleep, because for a split second the yawning boy turns into Bella sitting at the front of the class, leaves and twigs from the woods on the desk and an open poetry book in front of her. Come home, Tess, her voice whispers in my mind. I’ll wait for you in the woods. I rub my eyes and shake my head but she won’t stop. She won’t shut up.

It wasn’t an accident, she says. Over and over. The world spins and I lean forward, elbows on my desk, head in my hands.

“Um…Miss? Miss Cooper?”

I open my eyes and Bella’s gone. Someone in the class giggles, someone else is on their feet.

“Are you okay, Miss?” It’s Rebecca Martin asking, and there’s laughter in her voice, a hint of glee as her teacher goes gaga. Don’t they all long for this, some sign of weakness they can get their hooks into? Rebecca most of all.

I grit my teeth. “Sorry, I just…lost my train of thought for a second.”

Rebecca laughs again, loud, derisive, joined by more of the class this time. Gotcha, her laughter says. “A second? You’ve been sitting with your head in your hands for, like, ages.”

I stare at her, paralyzed. It would be Rebecca Martin, of course, with her sly smile, the whole class laughing now as she sets off again.

“Think you need a break, Miss—get yourself a Red Bull. Had a few too many last night, did you? Or was it this morning even?” Laugher rolls again through the classroom.