by Rose, Ashley
She leaned to one side as a dancer blocked her view. Nash was falling back into the jazz hip hop while the others returned to their positions and their respective dance styles. She swallowed and leaned back in her chair as he took front stage again, his body moving in precise choreography. She watched his biceps and shoulders tighten as he performed some floor moves, getting a quick flash of his abs as he spun and lay flat on his back. As the performance came to a lyrical performance section, Gabby and another girl came forward and dragged Nash’s prone body backwards. The group parted and then closed ranks after him. Nash was pulled back and off to what would be offstage if they were actually on a stage. The two girls stayed with him as Nash sat up and watched the performance.
After several eight-counts, Nash stood up and prepared to enter the ‘stage’ again. He held both arms out and the two girls jumped on him, wrapping themselves around his torso. On beat, Nash glided back out onto the floor and everyone turned to him, acting out the song while dancing. Nash pretended to throw Gabby off, and she smoothly fell to the floor and slid away with theatric grace. The other girl was harder to get off. Nash pretended to rip at her, while dancing, as she clung on. Other boys pulled at her until she was finally pulled free, falling back into the arms of two dancers.
The performance continued, shifting back and forth between dance styles beautifully. Lorna’s eyes were on Nash the whole time. Watching him move was endlessly entertaining, and she was sad as the group portion of the performance came to an end.
Shep silenced the music with the press of the button and stood up. “Looked great, people! We’ve still got to clean up a few things, work on a few transitions, but the group piece looked good. Take a five-minute break.”
Nash, now breathing hard, joined the others for water.
Shep turned to her. “What did you think?”
“Hm?” She pulled her eyes from Nash’s retreating backside.
“About the group. What did you think?”
“Oh! I...”
“Was only watching Nash?” he filled in.
“Err...sorry?”
Shep laughed. “No problem. I knew you would.”
“You did?”
“Yep.” He threw an arm over her shoulders. “That’s why I wanted you to watch. I could watch the group because I knew you were watching Nash.”
She blushed. “Great.”
He laughed. “Don’t worry about it, I won’t tell. But what did you think about it? Nash’s part.”
“It was amazing. And his skills. I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting it, I guess. He has such a presence. I wish I could command attention on stage like that.”
“News flash. All dancers want that. And you’ve already got it.”
“What?” She looked at him. “Do not.”
“Sorry to break it to you. Why do you think Nash picked you? You do command attention, you are a presence on stage.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” His tone begged her to believe him.
She frowned and her eyes landed on Nash again. Her stomach turned at the thought of being as prominent on stage as he was.
“I’m not gonna lie, baby. Between you and Nash, that stage is going to be on fire.”
26
Jaz
Jaz managed to stay in her room most of the day, after returning from Travis’ place. Her emotions were all over the place, and she knew she’d go crazy if she stayed cooped up much longer.
After sitting for a while, feeling lost, her eyes landed on her sketchbook. She didn’t want to go sit and draw people right now, but it would provide something to do at least, a distraction. Maybe that’s all she needed. Jaz grabbed her trusty polarized shades and sketches on her way out the door. She avoided her usual spots. She suddenly really didn’t want to see Snickers, not when she was in this kind of mood. Or lack of mood.
She settled on a couch in a lounging area indoors and looked around. There were lots of people sitting in the area; doing homework, talking. Lots of people to draw. Her eyes picked a man out of the crowd. He was a bit older, maybe an assistant professor.
Her pencil started moving. It felt weird somehow, kind of off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She kept going anyway, and the face formed, and then the eyes, nose and mouth. But as she added detail to the face, she frowned and looked back at her subject. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong because the sketch didn’t look like him at all. The guy in her sketch didn’t really look like anyone—he just looked generic. She left his hair light, even though her subject’s hair was a dark brown. The features were indistinctive and almost indescribable. Even though it had all the makings of a face, it didn’t look like anyone she knew. It was clearly male, but that was it.
Jazz stared at it for several minutes, confused and frustrated, before she realized who she was looking at. She sucked in a quick breath and dropped the sketchbook. A few eyes turned to her as the thing flapped to the ground but she ignored them. She remained frozen for a few moments and then bent down slowly to pick up the book by its binding. As she placed it back on her lap, it fell open to the sketch she’d just drawn. It was him, the blond guy who had introduced himself at the party. The one who had drugged and raped her.
Fervently, she flipped to a new page and tried to focus her fuzzy memory in on the boy. If only she could get a picture of him, that would be something. But as she sketched, the face morphed until she wasn’t exactly sure what he looked like. This face came out different than the first, but just as generic, just as nondescript. The face had features but nothing prominent, nothing that would set him apart from a crowd.
She focused on the sketches, forgetting everyone around her, and drew several more, painfully detailed, trying to bring the boy from her memory onto the paper. But each time was a failure, each one looking different but the same. She squeezed the pencil in frustration but knew that the reason she couldn’t remember was whatever drug he’d given her. That was the whole point, to make her forget who he was. It had done its job.
If she couldn’t remember him clearly, why had she drawn him subconsciously? She sighed and looked up, picking another subject. Before she’d gotten even halfway through the basic outline she knew how it was going to come out, another generic version of a cloudy face in her memory.
She stood up, unsure of exactly what she meant to do, and walked outside. At the coffee stand where she’d first sighted Snickers, she found him again, homework spread in front of him, coffee on his left and Snickers bar right next to it.
Unsure of her purpose, she walked up to the little table he was seated at and sat down directly across from him.
Snickers looked up and then frowned. His mouth opened but he didn’t say anything. After a moment he shut it and continued to frown. She ignored his confusion and opened to a fresh page to begin her sketch. If there was anyone who she could properly capture on paper, it was him, this boy who she didn’t even know.
She almost wanted to cry in relief when her pencil formed the shape of his head. It was his head, with his cropped dark hair and prominent cheekbones, not the faceless boy in her memory.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She looked up, mostly to get another view of his eyes, but answered at the same time. “Sketching you.”
“I see that. Why?” His voice had that same deep, rough timbre that she remembered.
“Does it matter?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. He stopped his homework and was obviously trying to figure out what to do. “Go away.”
She blinked and looked up from where her pencil was forming his lips. “Wow. Rude,” she teased lightly, hoping he’d lighten up.
“I don’t know you. And you didn’t ask permission to draw me. Please, stop.”
She paused. Was he really against being drawn? “Do you have a problem or something?”
He frowned, and she wasn’t sure if he had any other expression to use. “So you aren’t going to leave?”
“I
just want to draw you,” she said honestly.
He pursed his lips, which was a little different from a frown. After a second of thought, he put his pen down and closed his text book.
“What?”
He began putting his stuff in his bag, and she reached out to grab his wrist. He jerked his arm away, his glare hardening. “Don’t touch me.”
“Whoa. You don’t have to leave. Please, I just want to draw you.”
“Well, I don’t want to be drawn.” He pushed the rest of his things into his bag and began to stand up. As he reached for his Snickers bar, she shot her hand out, putting her hand over it, making him touch the back of her fingers. He pulled his hand away quickly and then glared. “Give it.”
“No.”
“It’s mine.”
“I know. But I don’t want you to leave.”
“I don’t care. Just give it to me.”
“No,” she repeated.
“Please.”
“Snickers, just sit down, okay?”
He cocked his head. “Either you’re talking to a candy bar or you just called me Snickers.”
“Er...I don’t know your real name. Sit down please.”
“No.” He shouldered his backpack. “I’ll just get another one.” He turned to leave.
“Wait!” She stood up, her tone more desperate than she’d meant for it to be, and it stopped him in his tracks. “Please, I need to draw you.”
He turned slowly. “Why?”
“It’s what I do,” she lied. I need to draw you to get the other face out of my mind, to escape him.
“I’m sorry.” He sounded sincere. “But I have to go.”
“Please. I promise, it’ll just take a few minutes.”
He paused for a moment and glared at her suspiciously. “Did someone send you? Is that why you’ve been following me?”
She blinked. “What? Who would send me?”
“You tell me.”
“No, no one sent me. I just draw people.”
“Why me?” he asked warily.
“Sit down. I’ll tell you.”
He still looked doubtful.
“Please. I don’t mean to annoy you or anything. I know this is totally weird but just sit, do your homework. I won’t bother you. I’ll leave when I’m done.”
He shook his head.
“Please.” She didn’t try to mask her desperate tone this time. She could almost see it tugging on his heart strings as he continued to assess her. He slowly sat back down. She removed her hand from his candy bar and he touched it, almost as if it was a security blanket.
“Please. Go back to what you were doing. You won’t even know I’m here.”
He slowly shrugged off his bag and opened it again. “You said you’d tell me why you’re drawing me.”
“Oh.” She focused on his hairline, making little marks with her pencil. “Right. Well...” She added more hair—his was super thick, though short, and lay flat on his head in different directions. She just wanted to run her hands through it to see if it was as soft as it looked. “You have beautiful features.”
That answer didn’t seem to appease him. In fact, it just seemed to make him more uncomfortable.
“I just mean…you have good features for drawing, and I like to draw you.”
More silence from him.
“Okay, can you relax a tad? You’re harder to draw when you’re glaring.”
His gaze faltered to confusion.
“Look, I just want to draw you. No big deal, right? So just...do your homework and ignore me.”
But he didn’t. He just sat there, holding the Snickers bar and looking unsure of himself.
“Or not.” She worked on his jawline, cocking her head to get it perfect. “So what’s your name?”
“Why do you want to know?” he asked carefully.
“Umm...because I’m trying to make conversation? Mine is Jaz.”
He didn’t answer for a moment, but then said, “Bishop.”
“That’s a cool name. Not as cool as Snickers, but hey.”
“Jaz? I’ve never heard that name before.” He released the candy bar and started to pull his homework out of his backpack.
“It’s Jazlyn. But no one calls me that. I hate it.”
“Oh.”
“So, what do you do?”
“What do you mean? I’m a student,” he said too quickly, hurriedly.
“Well, yeah, but what else?”
“I don’t have a job, if that’s what you mean.”
“Hobbies?”
He didn’t answer for a while. “I focus on school.”
“A nerd then? Wouldn’t have pegged you for it.” She shaded in his lips and then focused on his ears. Looking up at him, she leaned forward to get a good look. “Your ears are pierced.”
He reached up self-consciously.
“No earrings though?”
“I don’t wear earrings anymore.”
“But you used to?” she asked conversationally, drawing in the little dimples in his ears.
“Maybe.”
She laughed. “So you just got your ears pierced but didn’t wear anything in them?”
He didn’t answer, just looked down at his textbook.
“Okay. Okay. You don’t like to talk, I see.”
“I don’t know you.”
“So? There’s only one way to get to know someone. Do you just not talk to anyone?”
He looked up, almost as though he was going to say that was true.
She just shrugged and looked back down at the sketch, relieved that it looked like him. Her pencil swept under each cheekbone a couple times, making them stand out a bit more. His eyes were next so she looked up to get a clearer picture. They were a warm baby blue, but he had one of the darkest looks she’d ever seen, which was a total contradiction. If only he would smile, his eyes would be brilliant.
“You have beautiful eyes,” she blurted out.
He blinked his dark lashes once.
“But you look so freakin’ sad all the time. It ruins it.”
He obviously didn’t know how to respond. “Ok?”
She shrugged and bent over the sketch to carefully shade in his pupil. “I don’t mean to be a huge pain in the ass, you know.”
“This is really the only reason you’ve been following me?”
She shrugged. “I’m just curious about you.”
He spun his candy bar around in slow circles on the tabletop. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Not sure. But really, I didn’t mean to be so pushy. I’d like to make it up to you.” She attempted to be subtle yet obvious at the same time. She’d honed her pick-up skills over the years, and she didn’t usually have to be too blunt.
“What?”
He didn’t get the hint.
“You know,” she said pointedly. “I’ve been causing you trouble, following you and stuff.I just thought I’d offer a little...you know... compensation. For letting me draw you.”
“I don’t want any money, if that’s what you’re talking about,” he said warily.
She laughed and added to his eyebrows on the sketch. “Not money. I was thinking something a bit more personal.”
Looking up from the sketch, she could see that he still wasn’t getting it.
“Sex,” she said directly. “I’m offering you sex.”
He blinked, but after a moment his eyes widened and he tensed up. “What?”
“Don’t act so surprised. You’re an attractive guy. I’m sure you get lots of tail.”
He shook his head, at a loss for words.
She’d understand if he was shy, but he wasn’t blushing and he didn’t seem flustered. Just confused. “Oh come on, all guys are horn dogs. Don’t try to say you’re really going to turn me down.”
“No thanks.”
“You’re kidding me,” she said, disbelievingly.
“What?”
“You’re really not jumping at the opportunity? Are you gay?”
&
nbsp; “No, I just don’t sleep with random girls,” he said hesitantly.
She narrowed her eyes at him, taking it as a challenge. “Oh, come on. Don’t you wanna take me somewhere,” she put on a sultry grin, “get me naked?”
But instead of looking interested, he looked ready to bolt. “If you’re done sketching me, I’m leaving.”
“Seriously?” She leaned across the table. “Am I not attractive to you?”
“Jaz, please. If you want to sketch me, fine, but I’m not...I can’t go there with you.”
“Why not?” He hadn’t known she’d been raped, so he couldn’t be disgusted. But maybe he could tell?
“Because.” His tone was strained, and he was getting increasingly uncomfortable.
“Because why? I’m tainted now?”
He frowned. “Tainted?”
“Never mind,” she muttered.
He had retreated into his shell, and she was suddenly on edge. She focused on the sketch in an attempt to calm down.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Forget it,” she muttered, adding both of his names to the corner of the sketch with harsh stokes of her pencil. “I’m not going to fucking beg you, I haven’t sunk that low. Not yet.”
“It’s not you. You’re very pretty.” He sighed. “If I was a different person with different circumstances...I just can’t.”
When she looked up, his eyes were lowered. His hands were shaking now, and he was trying to hide it by fiddling with his candy bar.
“But why not? Girlfriend?’
“No. I just can’t.”
“Like physically, you mean?” she asked carefully.
“No. Not that. I can physically.” He ran a hand over his hair and then smoothed it down again nervously. “Please, can we not talk about this anymore?”
She kept quiet even though she was curious. It was rather whore-ish of her. But she needed to sleep with someone, to prove that she wasn’t ruined.
“I’m really sorry,” he repeated.
“Just forget about it.”
“You seem upset.”
She kept her eyes glued to the sketch, adding more details. “How perceptive of you.” Jaz immediately regretted her tone as soon as the words left her mouth. She looked up and saw his withdrawn expression. “Look, I’m sorry. I’ve just had a crappy time lately. Sketching helps me forget.”