Queen of the Clueless #2 of 3 (COMPLETE)

Chapter 11

I'm touching a cloud. I'm actually touching it.

So it doesn't really feel like cotton candy in my hand, which is kind of disappointing.

"It's just fog," he tells me. Of course it is. I didn't know that for sure until right this second. City girls don't know a thing about this kind of fog.

Or being so high up that when the fog thins in places, all you see are tiny trees and they're so far away.

My heart thumps extra every time I see it, like it's squealing. OMG OMG OMG

"You know what our problem is?" I say to Quin, who is here beside me but feels like he just arrived, "Forgetting."

"It's not really forgetting."

"I don't remember what I did to make Aman so angry."

"You didn't do anything. There's nothing to forget."

I continue, "And you don't remember all of this. Won't remember all of this when it counts."

"That's not how it works."

The conversation, yet again, is incomprehensible to me. When I dream I only know that I am not Hannah. I don't look like Hannah, don't have her legs, or hair, or feet, or hands. I am someone else, someone infinitely more important. If only because I am being honored with Quin's attention in these unidentifiable places and times.

"Maybe I know some things you don't," I say, and it's one of those rare times when the goddess says what Hannah feels exactly.

Quin sighs. "I wish you would just tell me what to do then."

* * *

Ugh. Twenty-four years old. Denise Cabral, history teacher, on her second year of teaching at Ford River, currently taking a master's degree in education.

I mean, she was barely out of school herself! Ford River tuition was so expensive and this was the kind of educator they were getting? What made a twenty-four-year-old think that she could teach us anything?

So that was how I spent my work hours at the Guidance Office that Monday. Snooping around the online teachers' profiles and finding out everything I could about Denise Cabral.

The photo that was attached to her profile was a simple shot, probably taken during one of her classes, but I did recognize her. I never took a class with her, but I had seen her around. She was very pretty.

Mature. Smart-looking.

How long had she and Quin been hanging out? Why didn't I know about it?

Because you were so self-absorbed with your goddess drama. Yes, that, and I may have forgotten that life went on and there were billions of other people in the world. It wasn't like I spent twenty-four hours a day with Quin. Of course he had the time to hang out with other people.

So so so so embarrassing. Cannot believe he never mentioned this. Haaaate.

But no, this wasn't surprising really. This was Quin, after all.

"Hannah, are you done with the flash drive?" Ms. Farrah Flores, guidance counselor, asked me, her face appearing right above the screen of the laptop I had been staring at.

"I'm not, just a sec, sorry sorry..." I wasn't done with it because in the middle of copying the files (actual work) I wandered onto the faculty online portal.

"It's okay. You're looking up Denise? Why, thinking of taking her class?"

Busted. "Um, yeah."

"She's great. Students love her. You'll enjoy her class, I'm sure."

"I don't know about that."

"Well, you and I get along."

Ms. Farrah was so nice. I mean, she wasn't even thirty yet, and so intelligent, and pretty, and sometimes I really felt like she was more a friend...

(Okay, so she was a lot like Denise Cabral, but Ms. Farrah was happily engaged—she told me the whole story herself—and not hanging out with college boys, as far as I knew.)

I just remembered what else Ms. Farrah was.

Devoted to me.

"Ms. Farrah, does Ms. Cabral have a boyfriend?"

"I don't know, Hannah. I don't really know her very well."

I smiled sweetly. "Can you find out please, if she's with anyone right now? If she's seeing anybody, and how long she's been seeing him?"

When you've poured your heart out to the goddess of love, you can't say no when she asks you to do something.

When I ask you to do something.

"Sure, Hannah," Ms. Farrah said. "I'll find out for you."

"Thank you so much," I said, unplugging the flash drive and placing it in her hand.

I held my breath as Ms. Farrah went back into her office, half expecting her to turn around and ask me why I had just ordered her to snoop like that.

But she didn't.