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Chapter One Hundred-Twenty-Six
Point of View: Narrator


Nick was sitting at the desk, staring down at the sheet of paper he'd been drawing on all night with the pencil. His hands worked quickly, making fine strokes, then darker ones, shading and rubbing to fix the shading gently with his thumb. His hands were covered with pencil lead and he'd rubbed his nose at one point and gotten it on his face.

"Let's get you down to the cafeteria," suggested the nurse that had come in and just finished making his bed up with fresh sheets.

"I'm not hungry," Nick answered vaguely without looking up from the page.

The nurse stared at him. "How can you be not hungry?" she asked.

"I'm just not," Nick answered.

"Well you're eating. Let's go." She reached over and plucked the pencil out of his hand.

Nick blinked.

He stood up and allowed her to guide him toward a guard, who was waiting in the hallway to escort him to the cafeteria. Nick followed resolutely out the door.

The nurse was gathering up the dirty bed linens. Once Nick had left with the guard, curiosity overtook her and she glanced at the drawing.

A hauntingly beautiful pair of eyes stared up at her from the page. He'd drawn no other facial features - no nose, no mouth, only the outline of a person's face and the eyes.

She quickly tucked the linens under her arm and left the pencil on the desk so that he could finish his drawing when he got back from eating.



Nick took the sandwich they gave him and sat in a corner. He left it sitting on the table in front of him and took shallow breaths, moving to find a position that didn't make his back hurt. He tried to imagine feeling well enough to do the choreography for a Backstreet Boys concert again. It wasn't really very imaginable.

"What're you in for?"

A guy had sat down across from Nick.

Nick stared at him. "I didn't do anything."

"Okay, whatever." The guy leaned against the wall and ripped open his sandwich bag. "I killed a guy," he explained.

Nick looked away.

"He was my neighbor," the guy across from him continued, lifting the bread and inspecting the bologna underneath carefully before replacing the lid. He took a bite of the sandwich, then spoke around the food in his mouth, "But he slept with my partner and I killed him."

Nick blinked, staring at the seat next to him. It was an odd orangey-brown shade.

"My partner was a good guy, though," he continued, "I would've slept with him too." He laughed, "Actually I did, so." He stuck out his hand. "My name's Eric."

Nick turned to look at his hand. He swallowed. "I'm - I'm Nick," he said. He shook Eric's hand. It was sweaty and hot. Nick pulled his hand back quickly. He tucked his hands back under the table and wiped the sweat off his hand onto his pants.

Eric paused. "Nick," he said. He squinted at Nick. Then he laughed. "Oh my God, you're that Backstreet Boy."

Nick made a face at the tabletop.

"You killed Krystal Armaletto."

"I didn't ki--"

"Good call there," Eric said, without waiting to hear what Nick started to say, "She was an obnoxious bitch. Could she have worn less clothes? I don't thi-i-ink so!" Eric sang the last couple words of the sentence. He stuffed the last of his sandwich into his mouth and sucked on his fingertips.

Nick gnawed on his lower lip.

"You gonna eat that?" Eric asked, pointing at Nick's sandwich.

Nick shook his head.

"Thanks doll," Eric grabbed the sandwich and quickly started eating it.

Nick stood up. "I gotta go."

Eric waved as Nick walked away. He found the guard that had walked him to the cafeteria waiting by the door. "I wanna go back to my room now," he said.



Nick finished the drawing and sat in his room staring at it. He pushed it aside and grabbed a new sheet of paper and started drawing another, a different face. Gentle glides of the pencil dug the image out of the sheet. Nick had heard a quote once where a sculptor described his work not as creating something in stone, but in unveiling something that was already there. Similarly, Nick felt as though the pictures he drew were already on the page, he was just darkening the lines no one else could see.

It took a few hours, and all the paper he had in the desk, but before he fell asleep that night, he had a sheath of pictures that he propped up around the room. Sketched images of Zoe, Kayla, Brian, AJ, Howie and Kevin stared back at him as he laid on his side in the bed in the dark, the pillow clutched to his stomach, hugging it close.