Something Like Shame (BWWM)

Chapter 17

Things weren't so bad after a while. I had grown use to seeing Sebastian in class and a certain part of me- the very same damned part that looked forward to seeing him everyday- eventually gave up it's ignorant hope. There was a point where I had recurring dreams of Sebastian every night of that one night in the hotel room, his fingers grazing over every inch of my skin as he sank me deeper and deeper into the mattress. Then, just as he whispered something unintelligible into my ear, I evaporated in a single breath and Carmen replaced me and he'd be smiling and she'd burst with tinkling laughter like the shrieks of glass on steel... after the first week of waking in cold sweats, I gave up on even sleeping and that hardly helped the anxiety. It was the most terrible mania I'd ever been in, it was my hell.

I eventually learned to stop toiling over the image so much, instead I chose to numb myself. This numbness ebbed at me like opium as the distance between he and I grew over the weeks into an open fissure.

With Seth on my left and Linda on my right, I sat in on a movie for free, one Sunday morning. Something in me found a way to function after that run-in with him at the Palace. Something told me to move on with my life and I did- by getting a job. It forced me to get myself out of bed when I just couldn't and, when the theatre called for it, I learned to force myself to hurry and rush to do important things that were sometimes tedious like tearing tickets.

We watched an old stop-motion film that night and, for the first time, I found a way to smile like Carmen did that one day, like I was whole-heartedly happy. By the time it was over, the sun was still high in the sky and through the thin layers of clouds there was heat and that felt alright as we made our way to the park after the movie.

Linda pulled out a cigarette and took a seat on the grass in front of us before passing one to Seth as he and I sat at a bench. I pretended not to hate the acrid tobacco smell.

"So I want to try something new." Seth said, speaking out of the side of his mouth and past the cigarette.

"What's that?" I asked, holding my breath.

"Well, it's called juxtaposition, Henna."

"Yeah?"

"And," he lit the cigarette with a click before passing the lighter to Linda, "well, I'll mix some of my prints with my photography. You know, cut out the middle man. But, here's the thing I've been meaning to tell you guys-"

Linda exhaled a stream through her nostrils, nose ring winking at us through through the haze, "The suspense is killing."

"Okay, well, I want to use you both as models." He turned to me, scratching a line of stubble on his jaw, scrutinizing me, "Especially you, Henna."

"Why? Where's it going to be displayed?"

"It'll only be in central market..."

"And what does that mean?"

"It'll kind of be on sale."

"I don't know if I'm okay with that."

"I'll share the commission evenly, Henna. I'm not in it for the money or anything." He toyed with his lighter flicking it on and off, quiet, "It'll just be fun."

"Yeah, but everyone'll see it."

"That's the point, isn't it? To branch out, you know?"

Linda coughed, "Right."

"And, as a group of contemporaries, we have to support one another." Taking another drag from the cancer stick, he smiled crookedly so that I could see his crooked tooth, "We're each other's flying buttresses, Henna."

I chewed my lip, "I'm not quite sure where you're going here."

"All you have to do, Henna, is say yes so that I can start working."

I had to admit that there was something that just felt heady about being used as someone's muse and especially Seth's at that. He was talented and, to have him ask for us, it was the greatest compliment. Yet still, everyone would see it because, knowing Seth, this was going to be larger than life in some way.

"Are you in?"

"Maybe so." We walked back home then.
Linda stopped in front of her driveway and kneaded her shoulder, nervous. Once she thought Seth wasn't paying attention, she asked, "What happened with Wick?"

"Huh?" I could barely eat anything, instead I nibbled on a granola bar and sipped from a bottle of green tea. Seth broke out into a fit of coughs, green and brown crumbs flying out from between his teeth. I leaned out of the line of fire. He was nervous.

Ignoring that cold finger of dread scraping my skin, I scrambled for a good answer. She had that same no-bullshit look in her eyes almost every day of the week and she was wearing it right then. She noticed a change and so I had to be honest. "I'm not sure if he can help me with my work anymore. Why?"

She furrowed her brow and kicked a rock toward me, a game we'd been playing since Grade School. I kicked it back. "Seth, do you know how to chew your food? The cookies'll still be there if you eat them one at a time." He nodded vehemently, any harder and his head would have flown off his shoulders. "It's just that he's changed. He's been snapping a lot more and getting really crabby with us lately, you know? I just don't get it. We have to wait for like ten whole minutes in the hall after the bell ring before he starts class in the morning because he never has his shit together and he gives us homework out of spite. My grade's plummeting, everyone's grades are plummeting... It literally hurts me to sit in his class these days and I dunno," she shrugged, "I just thought you'd have an answer."

"Nope." I shrugged. "It just isn't working."

"I'm sorry about that, Henna. He meant a lot to you, I know."

"What?"

"As a mentor, he was important to you. I know the feels."

She made her way up the driveway and once the door clasped shut, Seth finally controlled his breathing well enough to speak, "You haven't told her."

I grabbed his elbow and dragged him until we were well away from her house and closer to the access road. My voice was nearly drowned out by the whiz of the passig cars and thump of the beats, "If I tell her, she tells Ricky and, if there is anything I know about Ricky, it's that he's a wild card with the moral compass of a Puritan. You never know with him." I scratched my scalp and shrugged.

"Then what are you gonna do? Keep hiding?"

"Kind of."

He rolled his eyes, "What do you mean 'kind of'? You can't kind of be in a relationship with anyone, especially a teacher."

"No one'll ever find out about it because it's over now. He's got someone." I said it through gritted teeth and trained my eyes on the passing cars, from a burnt orange Camero, to a silver SUV, then a forest green mini-van.

"I'm sorry."

"Why? You were the one that rooted for all of this to be over."

"Because you were in love and losing love sucks." He frowned a sincere frown and my face must've fallen too because he asked me if I wanted to know something great.

I paused and stared at his dancing blue eyes, "What?"

Seth smiled and with a low voice, he said, "Like energy, love never dies. It transfers."

"You're a real dork. You know that?" He clasped a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it, stopping us so that we stood facing each other in the tall grass next to our street.

Pulling out his camera, he snapped a series of photos of me right then and I felt myself shudder with every single one. There was a spark here.