Page 143 of Sweet Nightmare

Quite the opposite, actually. The bed is a dream, which somehow makes my inability to sleep even more annoying. The mattress alone probably cost more than some people’s cars, the white blankets are soft enough to make getting out of bed really hard, and the room is kept at exactly the temperature I prefer.

Everything was perfect.

And apparently, my nervous system is getting too damn comfortable here.

I shift beneath the blankets and stare at the ceiling while Mozart plays softly from my phone, the music barely louder than the whisper of the wind against the glass. The storm has softened somewhat throughout the evening, but the world outside remains buried under several feet of snow. There is something strangely peaceful about storms, something usually makes sleep come easier.

Today, it doesn’t.

Instead, my thoughts keep circling everything that has inconvenienced me lately. Being trapped here. My traitorous mother. The elaborate ways I intend to psychologically torment Stevie when I get home. And, more annoyingly, the strange feelings that have started surfacing after years of carefully maintaining complete emotional coldness.

Then there is Stephen.

I close my eyes and take a slow breath, attempting to mentally catalogue every distasteful habit I have noticed about him.

He swears too much.

He is arrogant.

He is territorial about everything he owns.

He has an irritating habit of looking at me as though he already knows what I’m going to say.

He throws snowballs at people’s heads.

He calls me princess.

He has absolutely no concept of personal boundaries.

I mentally add several more offenses to the list.

It does absolutely nothing.

If anything, it makes him harder to ignore.

As if my brain has decided this is some elaborate form of torture, his face appears in my thoughts with perfect clarity.

His brown, hollowed eyes, which seem to light up whenever we're verbally sparring. The small smile that somehow makes my otherwise sensible heart perform an entirely unnecessary little flip. The way his gaze stayed on mine in the library when neither of us seemed willing to look away. The faint triumph in his expression when I finally looked away first.

I open my eyes.

Goodnight, Artemis.

The first time he said my name without using Ice Princess as an insult.

It shouldn’t have affected me.

It was a simple goodbye.

Nothing significant.

Nothing worth remembering.

And yet my brain has apparently decided to replay those two words every fifteen minutes.

I stare at the ceiling.

“I’m going to lose my mind here.”