Smiling at Everything

Jazz stared at her reflection in the mirror of the dressing room. Like Joseph wanted, she was dressed as a Japanese school girl from the mangas she read and the animes she watched. However, the outfit was more revealing. The blue pleated skirt barely covered her behind; the school shirt with blue sailor collar stopped just below the base of her bra, resulting in the red tie around her neck being longer in length than the shirt; her knee high white stockings attached to the garter belt underneath her skirt. Even her underwear had been picked out for the shoot in the event it were to show: a pair of pure white, lace panties and matching bra.

She did con Joseph into letting her wear her bracelets though.

Joseph claimed it was for the "sake of the photo shoot" when Zack complained that the outfit was inappropriate. Zack wasn't the only one who complained about the inappropriate idea behind the shoot. Neon found it necessary to point out that RxN did have younger fans. This shoot wasn't meant to be the epitome of a porno cover.

Joseph made the point that most of Jazz's fans were hormonal individuals and the matter was dropped.

Jazz sighed, turning away from the mirror. She knew the outfit fit her well but the outfit wasn't the problem. Had the shoot been any other theme, she would have been fine. She didn't know if she could go out there and see Zack dressed as a gym coach. His outfit didn't have to resemble her old gym coach's in any way. The fact that she knew what he was supposed to be was enough to set her off. He was playing the man who brutally murdered her sanity in seventh grade, the man who took her during three different dentitions.

Sure, he wasn't the man who threatened her grade during the last few weeks of her freshmen year and made her his personal whore but he was bad enough to scar her for life.

Maybe she could suspend the memories enough to get through the photo shoot. That could work. She just needed to remember that Zack was all over her, not them. That wouldn't be too hard. Zack was better looking and much better built than them.

She could do this.

The door to the dressing room opened, soundless. Zack stood there, shirtless of course. A pair of work out shorts clutched his waist, a silver whistle hanging from his neck.

This was Joseph's interpretation of gym coach? Zack looked more like an Abercrombie model than anything else. Or a lifeguard if the shorts were replaced with swim trunks. The only thing on him that told Jazz what he was supposed to be was the whistle glinting against his chest. That wouldn't be enough to send Jazz's mind into a frenzy. It couldn't be. It was just a whistle.

But, for some reason, she couldn't stop staring at the whistle.

Zack let his eyes glide over Jazz's body. A set of explicit thoughts immediately bombarded his mind. He was convinced that Joseph was trying to kill him by dressing Jazz like that.

He tore his eyes away from Jazz's body to look at her face. She was staring at his chest with a vacant expression. She wasn't spacing out but something was obviously wrong. He had to find some way to take her mind away from whatever was beginning to consume it.

"Ready to get out there and do this shoot, Presley?" Zack asked.

And Jazz's mind shut down.

The memories took advantage of the moment, flooding her mind with images. Zack slowly faded from her vision, replaced by a slightly pudgy gym coach with an angry expression that seemed to be permanently ingrained into his face. Jazz yelped and backed up against the dressing room vanity, the miscellaneous articles on the surface falling to the floor with a clatter. The man began walking toward her. With each step, Jazz backed farther into the corner where the vanity and wall met.

"Want to get out of detention faster, Presley?"

"No. No. No. No. No," Jazz repeated, tears threatening to fall from her eyes.

Jazz's back hit the corner. She was trapped, as she had been three times before, with her middle school gym coach. And she was just as defenseless as she had been at that time.

"Only bad girls get detention, Presley. Do you know what happens to bad girls? They get punished."

Jazz slid down the wall, pulling her knees to her chest. Tears stormed down her face, sobs ripping from her throat.

"Please don't," Jazz pleaded.

"I bet you'd like a little spanking, wouldn't you. I bet you let all the boys spank you. With a body like that, Presley, you're probably nothing but a little slut, a stupid little slut."

"Stop it," Jazz demanded, clutching her head in her hands and squeezing her eyes shut.

A pair of hands gripped her shoulders firmly, shaking her body with a large amount of force. A yell of "Elvis" made her snap her eyes open. Zack's face was the first thing she saw, full of concern. His breaths came out in short spurts, his face flushed. Jazz threw herself onto him, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face against the crook of it. Zack's arms slid around her waist. Jazz let her tears continue to fall against Zack's neck, likely staining his skin with eyeliner.

Zack was confused to say the least. He didn't know what had been going through her mind during the episode. The things she yelled didn't make sense; he hadn't said anything that would have provoked the phrases to come out. All he had said was her name repeatedly, yelled it till his throat hurt, in hopes of getting her to snap out of the fog she was in. He had no idea what brought it on, what had been going through her head. She seemed to be conscious the entire time; her eyes were open, she was looking at him, she spoke coherently. But he knew she hadn't been all there throughout the entire incident.

Jazz's tears subsided, leaving her sniffling in Zack's arms. His arms were comforting, she could admit it. Just as she always assumed being able to cry in someone's arms would be comforting.

"Are you okay?" Zack asked.

"I am now," Jazz mumbled.

"What the hell just happened, Jazz?"

"Nothing."

Zack pulled Jazz away from him to look her in the eyes. For the third time, he was seeing her in the aftermath of a cry.

"That's bullshit. After what just happened, you expect me to believe it was nothing? You expect to be able to cover it up like that?" Zack asked.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You need to."

"Not now."

"When then? When you decide to kill yourself because you can't take it? Are going to leave a note for all your friends and family telling them?"

"I'm not going to kill myself."

That was an absolutely ridiculous assumption. Jazz wouldn't try to kill herself. She would never do that. The only way she would die is if she were in some freak accident. Or if she returned to cutting and hit an artery.

Going back to cutting was looking better and better as the days went on.

"But you could."

"But I won't," Jazz denied.

Zack sighed. She wouldn't break on the issue, she was too stubborn. When she was ready to tell him, she would. Hopefully, that would happen before anything drastic were to happen.

"Can I at least know why you freaked out?" Zack asked.

Jazz bit her lip. She couldn't tell him he reminded her of her past gym coach. Not without explaining everything to him or without him becoming suspicious.

"Don't call me 'Presley' ever again," Jazz stated.

"I'll remember that. Do you want to fix your makeup before we go out there?"

"We're probably already late."

"We had over an hour when I walked in here."

Jazz gave him a blank stare. Why the hell did he walk in there an hour early? This whole situation could have been avoided if he waited.

"Joseph wanted us to practice poses," Zack said.

"Oh, 'Joseph' wanted us to practice," Jazz made quotation marks with her fingers when she said Joseph's name.

"He did."

"Whatever you say, Beatrice. You may want to get that mascara off your neck. That's not where it's supposed to go."

"That's there because you cried on my neck."

"Cry? I didn't do that," mock-confusion coated Jazz's voice.

Zack stared at her, mouth open slightly. He could tell by the pleading look in her eyes that she wanted him to forget anything ever happened, to help her hide the fact she cried.

Zack snapped out of his stupor, "What was I thinking? Of course you didn't cry."

If that's what she needed him to do so she could get through the photo shoot, he would do it.