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meets hers. He kisses her so ravenously, pressing his body against her with such force, that I can barely watch. I feel my face growing hot for her and have to pull myself out of it when I feel the heat radiating off Julia’s skin.
    “No, Bret!” a voice mumbles. Julia’s.
    Mr. Colburn’s eyes spring open. Julia turns to the other side, clutching her pillow, still sleeping, still unaware of our presence. “Julia …,” my student says, bowing low to her ear. “Julia!”
    “She cannot hear you,” I remind him. I’m glad I haven’t yet told him he can speak to her in her dreams; from the look on his face, he is far too unstable.
    His hands tremble. His voice is ragged. “Why? Why was he in her dream? Why was he kissing her?”
    I give him a smile to cut the tension. “When was the last time you were able to control what you dreamt of? It means nothing.”
    He processes that for a moment and then rubs his eyes.
    “It’s got to mean something.”
    “Trust me. It doesn’t.” I say this only to calm him; any fool who has ever had a dream knows that sometimes they do have meaning. But only Julia knows what exactly it means. Thank goodness, his face softens. I check the clock at her bedside. “And we must be going on to our other charges.”
    He slowly follows me out the window but then stops to watch Julia before he passes into the night. For the first time, that happy-go-lucky grin has been replaced by a troubled frown.
    “What are you thinking?” I ask him.
    He doesn’t answer, but I know. I know he is wondering if joining the Sandmen was the right decision after all.

CHAPTER 9
Julia
    “H ow you holding up, Jules?” my locker neighbor Ebony asks when I stop to throw my bag into my locker.
    “Fine, thanks,” I say. It’s the same answer I’ve given to every one of the three dozen people who have asked me the same thing. Maybe I should come up with something wittier. After all, I know the drill: they don’t really want to know the answer. If I said something else, their eyes would glaze over.
    Monday morning, all eyes are still on me. People step aside in the hallway as I pass. The funeral was weeks ago. I wonder how long it will be before they stop thinking of me as Front-Page Julia and start thinking of me as Julia again. Maybe that won’t ever happen; after all, I was known as the victim for years after that incident when I was seven. That is, until I met Griffin. I remember the first time he kissed me. He stroked my cheek, right by the scars,and his hand felt like sandpaper. I shuddered. “I bet you’re wondering how I got those, huh?” I whispered to him.
    He grinned and whispered back, “Nope. I’m wondering why someone so smoking hot would be so stupid as to care about something so small. You need to keep your hair out of your face.” From then on, he was constantly pushing my hair behind my ear so that it wouldn’t fall down over my cheeks. We never talked about my past. I find myself wishing that he were here again, just to tell me what I’m having a hard time remembering now. What was it he used to say? It’s all in the past. Leave it there .
    I wish everyone would follow Griffin’s advice. It’s the last week of the school year, so in another three days, I won’t see most of these people for months. I wonder how much of my past can be erased in a little less than three months. Maybe by the time I come back, I can just be Julia again.
    Yeah. Fat chance.
    I wonder what I’ll have to do this time to be thought of as normal again. Before, it was Griffin who made me normal. Now … maybe I need to attach myself to a new guy. And the logical choice is Bret. I think about last night’s dream for the hundredth time this morning and shudder. Though my brain is telling me that makes sense, my heart seems to want to run in the other direction.
    All the students are walking around with that extra spring in their steps that comes with knowing summer vacation is just around the corner.