He snorts. “Not bad.”
“Yeah, well, if you were to get a role in a Samuel Beckett play, you’d be cast as Godot.”
He smirks, eyeing me appreciatively. “I would’ve taken you for a Jane Austen girl.”
“Well, I suppose if I were forced to endure your company long enough, I might grow fond of you despite myself.”
He chuckles. “Jane Eyre was better. Wuthering Heights, though, that was a mess. Weren’t they related, the couple at the end?”
“It was a metaphor.”
“People can’t be metaphors.”
“No,” I murmur. “People are a lot more complicated than that.”
It’s getting heavy, the subject matter, and I’m not ready for a deep conversation with this guy or anyone else here, even if he does seem pretty cool. Not everyone would’ve understood all of my puns, and his got better as he went along.
I can just imagine how a war of literary puns would've gone with Brett. He would have managed to find a way to insult me, saying something like I was no Helen, that my face wouldn't launch one ship, let alone a thousand.
“No more puns?” he asks.
"To quote the passive-aggressive raven, 'Never mind.'"
“Damn, man, she’s better than you,” the guy sitting next to Tyler says.
“I’m just being nice,” he says.
“Because I’m the new girl? How sweet of you.” I roll my eyes.
“I’m not Scrooge,” he jokes.
“I’m no Bella Swan.”
“No? Not a fan of sparkling vampires?”
“I prefer the kind that can turn into a bat. Why can’t they do that anymore?”
“And travel by mist or fog. That was cool.”
“Mr. Tremaine, Miss… Armstrong, care to enlighten the class as to what is so enthralling?” the scarecrow of a teacher asks, glaring at us.
I glance at Tyler.
He smirks as he drawls, “We’re discussing the difference in vampires over the course of literary history.”
“Ah…”
“Vampires have gotten weaker over the years,” Tyler continues. “At first, they were the stuff of legends, horrors, nightmares. They came for your blood. They killed without mercy. They were to be feared, not revered, not something one would ever want to be.”
“Tortured villains,” I interject.
“Now, though, they’re pansies. They exist to watch teenage girls as they sleep, to sparkle in the sunlight. Why has this change come about? What does this say about society? That is what…” Tyler glances at me.
“Erika,” I murmur.
“That is what Erika and I have been talking about.”
"Yes, well, although I think you might find this more fascinating than the subject at hand, I would prefer it if you would listen." Mr. August glowers at us. "Any more talking behind my back by either of you, and you both will owe me a five-page essay on this very subject."