"I had forgotten. Disgust shadows desire. Another life is never safely envied." -Robert Wells
chapter 32
It's a normal game of soccer that Jazz and his God are playing with everyone their age-- every couple pair against themselves, and making sure Viv and her twin weren't on the same team to avoid that absolute chaos-- when Castor took off his shirt.
And yeah, he was attractive and had a very nice body.
But it was covered in scars.
Jazz was used to seeing scars; his papa was covered in remains of abuse and self-harm, his mama's marks of being a kidnap victim, his sister's marks from surviving a car crash and suicide attempts, his Tios harsh lines from harassment and different traumatizing events, and the many of his cousin's that have suffered through harsh years that left unforgettable and unremovable remains behind.
He knew what different scars looked like, felt like, were caused by.
And Castors? His were self-harm, but he was also covered-- covered-- in scars that spelt out SPAZ and FREAK and there weren't seven inches that the musician's eyes could travel without getting interrupted by harsh, white lines.
It... it was heartbreaking.
How could someone do that?
How could someone look at Castor-- or anyone else, for that matter-- and think they deserve to be hurt, to think or desire to be the one to hurt them? How could someone do that? How?
It-- god, it felt like someone ripped his whole heart to pieces.
He knew his celestial had trauma-- had bullies and bad experiences but he didn't understand how truly horrible people had been to him.
It wasn't fair.
None of it was fair.
Why were cruel people allowed to be cruel?
Where, along the line of society, did that become acceptable, become expected?
And-- and Castor just continues to jog up to Fly, acting like nothing just happened, because he doesn't know that Jazz's heart just shattered in his chest; that he was choking on emotions and his skin felt too tight to hold them all in.
He talked to the blondie, and his whole body became blurry-- a mess of white lines, tan skin, and green.
Jazz is crying.
And he can't stop it.
He knows that he wasn't there, he knows that he can't feel the ghost of pain of when those scars were made, he knows that he doesn't even know how they were made but... but his whole body hurt like it did.
It hurt like he had been jolted into a whole new reality, a whole new body where he didn't even know how to breathe.
Limp arms take a moment to work, his mind replaying the images of a scarred god as his hands slowly raise to hide his eyes and tear-stained cheeks and he chokes on a sob. Everything felt numb-- felt heavy.
Castor had been hurt-- he used to get hurt a lot.
Nyx is the first one to notice that Jazz was frozen in place, then he feels the shift in her song as soon as she realizes he's crying, her calloused hands immediately trying to get him to look at him.
"Little J?" She murmurs, voice soft but worried. "Are you hurt?"
He choked out a noise that even he couldn't make out-- which he knew only made his older sister's concern worse because her hands tightened around his wrists.
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Jazz Red's Anomaly
Romance"I am the textbook definition of in love with you." *** Jazz Red has had a life full of love; his parents taught him how to value himself, his siblings taught him how to stand up for what he believed in, and his family has taught him what it means t...
