Sinful Covers
She couldn't stop staring at him, stealing glances of him sitting at his desk working. His dark eyes scanned the paper in front of him with expertise, making no mistake, yet her gazing seemed to escape his knowledge. Even so, his simplest actions drew her intrigued thoughts towards him, a butterfly to a spider's web. It was the way he looked at her like he could see through her, all her emotions and desires splayed out in front of him like a fanned deck of cards; and she hated it. She had never felt so vulnerable once in her life, until now; she had never hated someone with such a passion, until now; she had never wanted so much-No! she scolded herself mentally. You must not complete that thought. It's impossible. It will never happen, and you know that, so don't waste your time fantasizing.
But she knew she could only distract her thoughts for a short amount of time before they would return with such a ferocity and urgency than she could deny. She only hoped the bell would ring before she did something stupid that she would regret. She twisted in her seat at her desk, turning away from him, to chat with her friend Jessica, who sat behind her.
"Hey, did you ever finish those worksheets we got yesterday?" Jessica asked after looking up from her work. Her dark brown hair with its frizzy kinks protested against the collar of her shirt. It was Jessica's favorite one, a pastel blue with little pale green buttons and a pale green tank top underneath to match. It was a casual look but somehow stylish with comfortable worn jeans to pull it all together.
"Uh… What worksheets?"
"I take that as a no… Crap, neither did I and I think they are due today. Look, you do one and I'll do the other. Sound fair enough?" Jessica rifled through her bag before pulling out two printed sheets of paper with a flourish. "Give me your copy of page two. You can do page one right?"
She lost her concentration on Jessica's bargain and the brandished paper to sneak another look at him by pretending to search for the date on the classroom's white board. Jessica just stared impatiently at her.
"Hazel!" Jessica whispered with a snap. "Earth to Hazel! Have you even been paying attention?" she hissed.
Despite the low buzz of the whispering classroom he looked up from his papers at the two girls, his eyes inquiring of their interaction. Hazel felt the blood rush to her cheeks and quickly averted her gaze, hiding her surprise and embarrassment from her friend.
"Yeah, Jess. Sorry, I just spaced for a minute. Here," she said quietly as she traded her page two for Jess' page one.
"Okay. Well, there is half an hour left in class to finish this. Better get a move on."
The teacher stood from his desk, "Miss Rain and Miss Salis, would you mind reading over the next section in the textbook to improvise for the class? It's been awhile since we had a stand up improv in class."
Hazel knew her cheeks were deepening in color as her teacher walked around the classroom while Jess only stared at her desk in embarrassment; she hated presenting to the class, they both did. The observing teacher didn't help matters either. The dull beige walls of the classroom contrasted so strongly with his black slacks and navy blue button up shirt that he didn't appear to belong in the classroom with all its blandness. It was really quite intimidating to Hazel.
She let her head mimic Jess' as she stared at the smooth surface of her wood grained desk then robotically reached for her drama textbook on the shelf underneath her seat. The pages smelled a bit like an old library and a bit like mold as she flipped through them.
"Page 154, Rain," a voice murmured just over her shoulder. Hazel practically leaped out of her seat and barely restrained a gasp of shock. She guiltily looked at the teacher nodding and found the right passage while he only chuckled at her. "So far in the scene we have, yours truly, the lead role Rocky who has…" his voice faded out as she focused on the page.
The play they were studying was Cyra And Rocky by Cherie Bennett. Cyrana (called Cyra) is an over-weight teenager with an attractive face who is also smart, witty, sensitive, brave, and an excellent skateboarder. Cyra's gorgeous friend, Chrissy, falls for an equally gorgeous pen-pal, Rockland ("Call me Rocky"), through a class assignment of writing a letter to a stranger. So far Rocky has flown down to Nashville to visit Chrissy and ended up meeting her best friend, Cyra. While Hazel is no where near over-weight, she knew she had a pretty face. Her large light-brown doe eyes framed with thick dark lashes, her petite little nose and her full lips, all left her with an exotic type of beauty that never required makeup; this plus her light olive skin, long dark brown hair with thick loose curls cascading down her back, and her smooth but not gaudy curves, she knew she was attractive.
"Jessica, with your natural ability to be so modest, you would serve best as Chrissy-don't forget to say 'okay' a lot. That leaves Hazel as Cyra. Remember class," he added as he projected his voice across the room, "I'm not Mr. Thomas, I'm Rocky. The best actor isn't an actor, he is a character. If you act as the character, it's only acting. Be the character and you will give the audience the best. I want you all to watch carefully for mistakes and tells of an actor. It's how we improve. Let's begin with the moment right before Chrissy interrupts Rocky and Cyra. Someone kill half the lights please. Cyra, you begin."
They all stepped up to the front of the classroom that was lit. Hazel breathed deeply and tried to center her thoughts. You are Cyra. Cyra is you. Be defiant. Rocky is going to hurt Jessi-Chrissy-your best friend. There is no audience, just the two of you. She looked at her drama teacher with desperation, she had to make Rocky believe her.
"In a package that looks like Chrissy."
"Then, yes." Rocky admitted then cocked his head to the side and gazed at her. "But now I think… maybe… in a package that looks like you."
"Look, Chrissy loves you. And she's my best friend." Hazel narrowed her eyes at Mr. Thomas. No, he's Rocky and I'm Cyra, she corrected herself. She took a step closer to him threateningly. "So even if I believed you, I could never-" But before she could finish Chrissy stepped up to the front of the class and interrupted.
"Yes, you could." Jessica smirked but quickly recovered to Chrissy again and left her face bleak.
"Don't tell me. You're recording this for Youtube or America's Funniest Home Videos." Cyra retorted.
"But this isn't funny." Chrissy argued.
"You set this up, didn't you Chrissy?" Rocky looked at Chrissy incredulously.
Chrissy sighed. "I'm sorry, but I had to, okay? You guys know I'm not good at this. I'm sorry I fooled you, Rocky. I was just afraid you wouldn't like the real me, okay? Okay. I mean, c'mon. For a whole year you only wrote me because you had to for school."
"That's the only reason you wrote me too," he commented as Cyra faded into the background.
"Yeah but then I saw your picture and you looked so hot. I just really, really wanted you to like me." Chrissy looked down at the ground, ashamed of her confession, yet she was shaking with the effort of trying not to smile. Jess never took acting very seriously. She was only in drama with Hazel because she knew she needed a fine art credit to graduate.
"I do like you." he said quickly.
"But you don't love me. You love her." Chrissy turned toward Cyra and held out the blank piece of folded paper, serving as the scene prop. "You left this."
Cyra glared at her best friend and said, "So you thought you'd just read it?" as she snatched the paper from her hands.
"Yes. I mean, no. Okay. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, okay?" Chrissy pleaded.
Cyra sighed, defeated. "I never would have given that to him."
Jessica hesitated and there was a fleeting moment of silence. Completely awkward silence.
"I wouldn't have been able to." Hazel prodded as realization dawned on Jess' face.
"I know." she said slowly and looked back at Rocky. "You're not mad at me are you? 'Cause I don't blame you for loving Cyra."
Rocky glanced at Cyra with something close to remorse but it was gone in a flash. Hazel blinked, did I imagine that? Man, he's good. No wonder he's the drama teacher.
"Who says I love her?" Rocky said.
Hazel's thoughts jumped back just in time. "He doesn't love me, Chrissy-"
"Lights, please. Very good, very good. There are only a few minutes left in class. I hope that you have at least five corrections on the scene. Use this time to write them down and turn them in. Actors are exempt, obviously, from this assignment." It was like Mr. Thomas just flipped a switch and instantly dropped into himself again. He ran his finger's through his sandy brown hair and appraised the three students still standing there awkwardly trying to resituate themselves. "Take your seats, I'll hand you a graded rubric before the bell rings." His eyes lingered on Hazel's before she turned away to hide her flushed face.
She trailed Jessica and slumped in her seat. Five minutes before the bell, she thought, it went by faster than I thought it would. She looked up from her hands in her lap to meet his eyes as they studied her intently. Ms. Edwards, her chemistry teacher from the room across the hall, strolled in and walked up to his desk speaking in a low voice. He refocused his attention on her and smiled thinly. He spoke slowly and quietly but Hazel couldn't read their lips. Ms. Edwards, who was 37 years old, didn't seem fazed that she was flirting with a man ten years younger than her. His spun around in his chair and grabbed a stack of papers handing them to her. As she leaned away from his desk he winked , earning a weird giggle from her, but as soon as her back was facing him his smile dropped flat. Ms. Edwards never turned around to notice, but Hazel's nerves were instantly on edge and she felt a tremble slide up her spine accompanied with a sweet rush of adrenaline. His dark eyes held a devious glint in their depths but none of the other students paid even the slightest attention when he slid his eyes over the bent and chattering heads but stopped at Hazel, the only one looking directly back at him.
She busied herself with handing Jessica's worksheet back as he walked over to the door and opened it. As if on cue, the bell rang and the class lurched to their feet, like it was a race to get to fifth period. She took her time getting her stuff because she hated being squashed in the doorway with the crowd of other students. While the students spilled out the door, Mr. Thomas handed the rubrics to Jess and Hazel. Jessica quickly sped out of the room but the teacher stopped Hazel.
"You did really good in class today." The glint in his eyes was gone but his voice slid under her skin like silk and he was gently holding her arm. "I also noticed you're doing much better than you did at the beginning of the year. You don't tremble nearly as much. I'm proud of you." He released her and stepped back over to his desk. "See you in eighth period."
Her fifth and sixth classes slumped by in a blur, she had spent them brooding over the events in her fourth block. It was halfway through her seventh block before she began paying attention again. The class was having a chem lab called 'Dilution' in which they were adding hydrochloric acid to water to study the heat of dilution. Her lab partner was absent as usual but she took no notice. Ms. Edwards was a pleasant teacher, always offering to help with students who didn't have a partner, and chemistry was Hazel's second favorite class. As Ms. Edwards briefed the class with safety precautions, Hazel examined the beaker of water and the test tube of acid and grabbed another empty beaker. Both liquids were relatively scentless and clear as water.
"Don't forget to record on the chart all of your observations." Ms. Edwards said before heading over to help Hazel at her table. "Would you like some help Hazel?"
"Yes, please. Do you think you could mix the liquids for me so I can record my observations? I wish Renae wasn't absent so much, so that way I could do these things." She smiled shyly up at the teacher.
"I'm sorry, dear. Here you go, now I want you to focus on all your senses to describe the reaction." Ms. Edwards lifted the beaker and poured a generous amount into the test tube. Instantaneously, the glass shattered and the acid exploded out of the test tube. The nearby students shrieked as glass whizzed through the air, narrowly avoiding many. Hazel jerked back as a shard sliced her cheek. There was deep silence for a moment before the class broke into an uproar. Ms. Edwards screamed and Hazel was the only student to react first by grabbing the eye wash kit on the wall, dousing the teacher's face with it. She ushered her over to the sink and turned on the cold water, shoving her hands under it. Luckily, the goggles had protected both their eyes and the apron mostly everything else. By the time security and a nurse got into the room, the ambulance was on the way and Ms. Edwards had stopped crying about the burns on her hands and forearms and a few spots on her neck. Hazel disregarded the school nurse as he disinfected the small cut on her cheek. She lifted up her hand and stared at the perfect little circle of a burn on the back of it where only a single drop had splattered.
"You got lucky. No need for you to go to the hospital." The nurse finished cleaning.
"Will Ms. Edwards be okay?" Hazel asked with a subtly placed note of sincerity.
The nurse reassured her and sent her back to class. Students milling about in the halls stared. She would be the new gossip of the week, she could imagine the headline on the weekly school paper: 'Explosion in Chem Lab Injures One Student and Teacher.' They'll probably think of me as the student who got lucky and survived unharmed. Oh well. Next week there will be new drama about some couple and hopefully Ms. Edwards will be back to normal with minor scars.
She sat through her eighth block in a slight daze, ignoring all of the teacher's worried looks and concerned expressions. Proud of herself for withstanding all the annoying questions and proddings of her classmates, she allowed herself to relax. Everything was going smoothly. The bell rang, ripping her from her thoughts of the choir teacher and she began to pack her stuff. She felt someone touch her arm and looked up to see her choir teacher.
"I can understand why you wouldn't want to sing. Are you sure you're alright?"
Hazel nodded slowly and let the corner of her mouth twitch up into a sly smile. "Would you like me to stay after school, Mr. Thomas?"
His eyes flashed dangerously across the empty classroom. "Yes, I would."