Smiling at Everything

"Are you sure?" Zack asked, "Because I understand if you don't want to."

"I want to talk to you. I want you to know. But you can't tell anyone," Jazz said.

She was ready. Zack needed to know for them to grow closer. Otherwise, there would be a looming secret constantly shadowing them. Jazz had to tell him and now was as good as ever.

"If it's that important to you, I'll keep it a secret. But I do think you should tell them eventually. Or tell them something eventually. They're your friends. They deserve to know," Zack said.

Jazz shrugged, "I guess."

It was silent. Jazz didn't know what to say. She didn't know how to start. Zack was waiting for her to gather herself. Just waiting. He wasn't going to push her to tell him anything that she wasn't ready to tell him. It was up to her to feel comfortable enough to spill her life story. Zack could only do so much.

"I," Jazz paused, "I don't know where to start."

"Anywhere you feel comfortable. You don't have to tell me everything if you don't want to. You don't have to tell me anything at all."

Jazz took a deep breath, "When I was in seventh grade, Neon and I had gym together with Coach Carr. You don't know who he is but, um, he was really strict about dress code for gym. No one understood why. I mean, it's only Physical Education. Who cares how you dress as long as you can do whatever the coach has planned? Neon and I just assumed he was high-strung. I still don't know why he was so obsessed with dress code."

"Some teachers just don't understand how pointless their class is," Zack commented.

Jazz eyed his muscles, "I bet you were the student who excelled in everything P.E. related."

"So what if I was?"

"Your peers must have hated you. No one in our class ever tried, except that one girl Susie, or something like that. She was coach's pet. Neon and I hated her. She always had the right things for class and excelled in all aspects physical. Sometimes we thought that Coach Carr hated all the students except for her and used dress code as a reason to punish us. She never got in trouble if she wore the wrong color sweatpants."

"Did you?" Zack asked.

She had to have a point to ranting about dress code. He wasn't quite sure what yet but there was a point. She wouldn't go off about some girl never getting in trouble if she herself hadn't gotten in trouble. Though, he found it hard to believe she ever got in trouble.

Jazz's eyes darkened. She looked to her lap, where the twins sat happily playing with each other.

"I brought these bright green sweatpants one day and I ended up getting detention with Coach Carr for that afternoon. When I went to his office, he had me fold jerseys for awhile. After about ten minutes, he told me that he had a way for me to get out of detention faster. I didn't think it was anything bad. I just assumed he had some filing for me to do. I didn't even think anything of it when he closed the blinds to his office. But I knew something was wrong when he forced me to my knees. I wasn't stupid. I knew what sex was and I knew you were supposed to do it willingly with someone you actually liked. I didn't want him to touch me. I cried and I begged him to stop but he kept going."

"Jazz, did he," Zack trailed off.

He didn't want to say it. Sure, he had been suspecting something along the lines. But she was in seventh grade. She was so young. How could anyone do that to a child?

"He raped me," Jazz stated, "And it wasn't the last time. I had detention two more times with him for reasons that didn't even make sense. He forced me to do things both of those times. I couldn't stop him. He was so much bigger than me. I didn't have the strength to push him off no matter how hard I tried. I didn't even tell anyone after it happened. Not until another girl who was raped by him pressed charges and asked me to help testify. I'm not sure how she found out but she did. During the summer, I helped her family pay for an attorney with the credit card my mother gave me. I didn't actually have to go to court. All I had to do was have my testimony recorded by the police. So I did that and he was found guilty of all kinds of charges. Apparently, he did more that rape little girls. He's the reason you can't call me 'Presley.'"

"That's why you started cutting."

"It is, but I'm not done yet."

That was only part of the story.

"There's more?" Zack asked, disbelief clear in his voice.

Jazz nodded, biting her lip. She didn't know if she should continue. Zack had been fine throughout it so far but what if he freaked out hearing the last part of the story? What if he thought she was some dirty whore for not doing something to stop what happened to her? What if he thought she had secretly wanted it?

And what if she couldn't get through the next part without breaking down?

"Do you want to tell me the rest?" Zack asked.

He could sense her discomfort. He always could.

"I do. Just don't freak out or get mad or something."

"Jazz, I promise I'll be here for you when you finish your story."

Jazz smiled, the warm fluttery feeling running through her body. Zack was so nice to her. What did she do to deserve him?

"Well," Jazz started, "things were calm for awhile. I was cutting but there were no teachers forcing me into sexual favors. The trial was never publicized so I kept it a secret. I ended up starting my drift away from Neon during the summer. We tried to keep in contact during our freshman year in high school but she started having problems with anorexia and we lost a bit of contact. I didn't really have any other friends in high school. People were attracted to me but I just liked being a loner more. No one in the band knows that. For the first few weeks of the year, I sat in the library to eat. My English teacher Mr. Derek Peters happened to walk in one day and he offered his classroom as a lunch room for me."

"He sounds like a good guy."

"He was," Jazz agreed, "He was amazing. I talked to him about a lot of things. He was the person I turned to for anything I was having problems with. I never told him I was raped but he knew I cut. 'Juliet' he used to say 'you're too pretty to mutilate your body like that.' He used to call me 'Juliet' because he thought I played Juliet well when we read Romeo and Juliet out loud in class. I thought he was this great guy who could do no wrong. I held him up on a pedestal."

"What happened?"

"Three weeks before the semester ended, he told me I was failing, which didn't make sense because I had perfect scores on everything. When I told him that, he said he could easily erase the scores from his grade book and claim I never turned anything in, that I forged the grades on my papers and tests. I didn't understand why he was threatening my grade but I knew my parents would have killed me for failing English. He gave me a choice, either fail or," Jazz hesitated, deciding the word was best not said, "And then he told me to lay on the desk. When I didn't, he threw me onto it. For the last three weeks of my freshman year, he kept me as his personal whore, threatening my grade when I tried to get him to stop."

"Why didn't you tell anyone when it started?" Zack asked.

"I was scared. My first year in high school with all these people in my classes who were at least a year older than me, sometimes more depending on the class. I didn't know what to do."

"So you suffered through the last few weeks of your freshman year? Did you at least report him?"

"I didn't. Another teacher did. She found out about what happened and pressed charges against him when I refused to. This time, the case revolved around me so I had to get an attorney for myself. I used my dad's credit card to hire Robert Gordon."

"Isn't that your stepfather?"

"It is but I don't think he remembers the case. You would think he would. I remember the trial clearly. I had to go to that one. I couldn't just do a statement via recording because I had to point out who raped me, give my story, get questioned by both sides, and watch the tapes to identify myself."

"Tapes? What tapes?"

"Mr. Peters filmed everything he did to me," Jazz shook her head, tears perching in her eyes, "I couldn't believe it when I found out. But I was on the tapes. Every single one. Crying for mercy, asking him to stop, begging for help."

A few tears escaped from her eyes and trailed down her cheeks. She couldn't think about what happened without feeling bad. She had been betrayed by a teacher she trusted. Someone she thought she could rely on.

Zack grabbed the preoccupied twins from Jazz's lap and placed them on the ground by her feet before pulling Jazz into his arms. Her body shook, trying to keep the tears from flooding her.

"It's okay to cry," Zack stated.

"You don't hate me?" Jazz whimpered.

"Of course not. I care about you so much, Jazz. This could never make me hate you."

With that, the flood gates to Jazz's eyes released a downpour of tears.