A Story From the Deep End

Don't You Know That You're Toxic?

He was on the other side of the room, and I pretended not to notice as I made my way over to his computer and sat in his chair. Next to me was the only other girl in the room, and I struck up a pretty meaningless conversation with her.

"So, how far have you gotten with the work?" I asked.

"Eh, not far, I really need to do a few more drawings, but other than that, I'm good for another week."

"I'm surprised you got that far. You don't seem to do much other than use that thing," I said, pointing at the phone in her hand.

"I make it work, I guess. How far are you?"

"I'm about done with all mine," I said, watching Jason cross the room out of the corner of my eye, noticing the sly smile that crossed his face as he saw I was in his seat.

"You're lucky," she said.

"You think so?" I asked as I opened Jason's work folder and looked through his architectural drawings. I had admired him doing them before, and it was one of the things I liked about him. The way he pretended not to care about is work, but how he so obviously did and was good at it, too. I knew in the back of my mind that he was watching me do this, and that he was probably trying to hide his smile behind a clenched jaw. But he wasn't tricking me.

The question I had posed to my female companion went rhetorically unanswered, as she fell back under the spell of her phone. I continued to look through the creative form in his drawings, and I was perplexed by how good they were. I'd never done any of them on my own (at least on the computer), but I really liked the idea of becoming an architectural drafter, which is why I was taking the class. I waited a minute before turning around- leaving the file open, I turned back to my chair to go talk with the group of friends I'd made during the year. To my surprise, Jason was sitting in my chair. I caught him looking at me from the corner of his eye as he struck up a conversation with two of the better friends I'd made in class that year. Jason switched up his body language, sitting up straight and crossing his arms as I rolled his chair over to the forming circle and added myself into their conversation. Jason coyly smiled at me as I sat in his chair, him still in mine.

"Did you want this?" he asked playfully, the tinge in his voice making it obvious he wouldn't give it up, anyway.

"Nah, I can make due," I said back, returning his smile. "I mean, it would be nice to have my seat, though."

"Well, you could just sit in his lap," said Nate, a wiry boy with a light beard.

"Your right," I laughed, turning to Nate, and noticing the way Jason clenched his jaw in an effort to hide whatever emotion it otherwise would have conveyed. Had I caught a bit of jealousy?

"Oh, really?" questioned Derek, a boy with a constantly flirtatious attitude and a drug addiction. "I'd like a piece of that action," he said, patting his lap and throwing me a large smile.

"I figured you might," I sneered.

With a slightly aggravated tone in his voice, Jason turned to Nate. "So your having trouble, is what you're saying?"

"Yeah, I'm not performing the same way I usually do and I have no idea why."

"Well, I had a problem with that last year, and I understand. It sucks. But all I can tell you is that your should lay off for a few days and just save up. How often do you do it?"

"Like once a day, at the very least—"and suddenly I realized what was going on. I turned to Derek, who was sitting next to me, sinking into whatever thoughts he was having- probably faded right now, but I was used to it.