The Stoic Nurse's Obsession: My Secret Queen

The air in the Grand Hall of St. Jude's Prep tasted like old paper and anxiety. It was a thick, suffocating atmosphere that usually made teenagers sweat through their starch-stiffened shirts, but Dallas Ruiz just felt cold. She pulled the cuffs of her faded gray hoodie down over her knuckles, the fabric thinning and frayed at the edges. It was a stark, almost offensive contrast to the sea of navy blue blazers and plaid skirts surrounding her.

She kept her head down as she walked down the center aisle. She could feel the eyes on her. They felt like tiny, prickling insects crawling over her skin.

Trash.

Scholarship waste.

Public school charity case.

She didn't need to hear the whispers to know what they were saying. The words hung in the silence between the scraping of chair legs and the shuffling of feet. Dallas found a desk at the very back, in the corner where the shadows from the high vaulted ceiling pooled the darkest. She dropped her backpack onto the floor. It landed with a heavy, wet thud, sounding nothing like the lightweight designer leather bags of her peers.

Mrs. Higgins stood at the front of the room on a raised platform. She looked like a bird of prey scanning for a field mouse. Her eyes, sharp and bead-like behind rimless glasses, snapped to Dallas immediately. Her lip curled. It was a micro-expression, there and gone in a fraction of a second, but Dallas saw it. She saw everything.

Sit down, Ruiz, Higgins said, her voice projecting effortlessly across the hall. Try not to disturb the students who actually have a future to worry about.

A ripple of laughter moved through the room. It wasn't loud, just a low, polite murmur of amusement. Dallas didn't react. She didn't stiffen. She didn't look up. She simply pulled the wooden chair out. The metal legs screeched against the parquet floor, a high-pitched wail that made three students in the row ahead of her flinch.

Dallas sat. She slumped, actually. She slid her spine down until her neck rested on the back of the chair, her legs stretching out under the desk.

Boone Faulkner was sitting three rows up and to the right. He was the golden boy, the quarterback, the student body president. He was currently twirling a Montblanc pen between his fingers with a dexterity that spoke of years of piano lessons or perhaps just nervous energy. He turned his head, just slightly, catching Dallas in his peripheral vision. His brows knit together. He looked confused, as if he were looking at a puzzle piece that had been forced into the wrong box.

The papers were distributed. The Placement Exam. The test that would determine the academic trajectory of every freshman for the next four years. It was the Holy Grail of St. Jude's.

Dallas flipped the booklet open.

She scanned the first page. It wasn't standard math. It was a series of complex non-linear logic puzzles and pattern recognition