Perfectly Flawed (2 page)

Why am I telling you any of this?

Because I can.

Too simple an answer for you?

Well, I actually have no idea. Not a one. I
can’t remember any of it. Never could. All I know is what the
police said on the news, what the newspapers printed, what my
therapist told me (and I assume all of what she told me was a lie
fabricated to help me
heal
quickly), and what my Aunt Hilary
could stomach to repeat to me. That was five words,
I’m sorry,
but they’re dead
. I looked up the trial online once—I know, not
the brightest idea for the victim—but I wanted to see if I could
learn something new, something the aforementioned neglected to tell
me, but it was very blank, very bare on the details. I was more
confused than before because I didn’t even know half of the words
in the file. I was around twelve when I Googled it.

I should be dead and decomposing six feet
below, spending my days with Elvis and my great Aunt Ida—maybe with
my mom and brother and sister, too. The twelve stab wounds on my
body agree with me and ache whenever this thought crosses my
mind.

But I’m still here, breathing, rather than
slowly morphing into the next generation’s new fossil fuel.

It sucks, I know—I sounded so pathetic, right
there—but let’s be honest, it made me more
interesting
,
didn’t it? It gives people a reason to talk about me even if
they’re too scared to talk to me or only want to bully me.
Although, what they say isn’t really that great or important,
people still know who I am. The entire country, from what I can
understand, knows who I am. At least, I think they do. I could be
wrong about that all together. Although, no one has really said
anything, done anything, to me in quite some time. A few years,
actually. I still get the look, though. You know, the look that
says,
I’m waiting for the day you finally snap just so I can
tell the surviving people, ‘I told you,’ after you’ve massacred
majority of the town
.

See, it’s harder to ignore the
psychotic
gene and
crazy
DNA running within me. I am
the most interesting and downright intriguing girl in school even
if most of my classmates ignore me.

Hey, I can say I’ve literally been stabbed in
the back.

Get it? …no?

Tough crowd.

Maybe it’s a good thing that I can’t remember
what happened to me and what happened to my family. Whom am I
kidding; it’s freaking fantastic that I can’t remember. I can’t
remember my dad, Thank God. I wouldn’t even know the man if I were
to pass him on the street—which will never, ever happen. Aunt
Hilary even moved us from Texas to Washington State to make things
easier on me, to make growing up easier on me. She was hoping that
I wouldn’t be That Girl. But a story like mine tends to follow me
around. It sticks like glue to me wherever I am, no matter who I
pretend to be.

Everywhere I go—the mall, school—all I hear
are the usual questions.
Aren’t you the daughter of the
murderer?
The chatty mothers ask me with fake-pity and
faux-sympathy stuck on their Botox’d faces before turning to
discuss my
supposed
scars and what they’re baking for the
jazz band bake sale.
Didn’t your dad, like, try to kill you or
something?
The chatty mothers’ gossipy daughters ask in their
pursuit of the perfect juicy story before turning up their plastic,
birthday present noses, flipping their chemically perfect hair, and
pretending that I don’t exist so I don’t ruin their perfect view of
the discount rack.

I swear, if I hear
Oh, you poor
thing!
—in any context, whether it be genuine, pathetically
sarcastic, or a way to feign interest so I divulge my secrets—one
more time, I may just snap and show these people how far from the
tree this apple really fell.

These are the reasons why I prefer to remain
invisible.

I try, at least.

I pull my damp and drying hair over my left
shoulder, completely exposing the right side of my neck, and watch
the water droplets fall to the rug the color of a morning sky on a
sunny day. My naturally dark curls are almost dry. I paint my face
with the usual coat of makeup, nothing over the top and dramatic,
then brush my teeth using the disgusting cinnamon toothpaste I hate
but have yet to replace before leaving the bathroom.

The cold air of the hallway seeps through my
clothes, my skin, chilling me to the bone. I shiver for a brief
moment before my body can adjust to the normal temperature of the
large house and force my bare feet to start their journey.

I walk back into my bedroom. The pale green
walls of my sanctuary are covered in various posters of my favorite
bands, sports teams, actors, and movies, pictures of me and
friends, a calendar, a bulletin/whiteboard, and the butterflies
that covered my childhood room. I like butterflies. There is a
light pink accent wall and the ceiling is a pastel purple—because I
was an odd thirteen year old. The colors don’t usually mix well but
I still like it. The pink wall isn’t as cluttered as the rest of
the room; it holds three paintings done by my closest friend and
four pictures of my family. My mother’s smiling face beams at me
while Ivy and Noah—my sister and brother—smile to the camera.
Hilary cut my father from the picture before she gave me the
picture. I saw her burning his face from all of the pictures in the
fireplace, the only time that I’ve ever seen it used.

This is my cave, my safe haven, the wonderful
world that I have created for myself. This is the place that says
who I truly am—what I like, what I love—at least, I’d like to
believe that it does. In here, no one can hurt me.

I make my bed, using hospital corners,
because I’m a bit weird, and the urge to crawl back in and destroy
my hard work overwhelms me. I resist, and back away, making my way
to my cluttered desk to prepare my backpack, shoving all binders
and pieces of homework into their respective places before zipping
it up and shouldering it.

I make my way down the stairs, listening to
the old wood creak beneath my steps, and drop my pack by the piano
bench in the living room before turning the lock on the door,
unlocking it. In the kitchen, I lower three slices of bread into
the four-slot toaster, tug the butter and peanut butter from their
respective places, and pour two glasses of orange juice (no pulp)
and one glass of apple juice.

“Hello?” Right on schedule. A small smile
tugs on the corners of my lips as I wait. “Where are you?”

“In here,” I yell, hearing the heavy steps
stomp toward me from the living room. As long as I’ve known him,
he’s still incapable of taking light steps. He always sounds like
he’s marching somewhere. “Hey,” I say, not looking at the boy
leaning against the counter on my left. I slather butter on one
piece of toast moments before he snatches it from my hand and
shoves it into his mouth, taking a large, hungry bite. I nibble the
corner of my bottom lip, trying not to sarcastically snap
That’s
attractive
. He quickly washes it down with the orange juice set
aside for him and smiles at me as if none of that happened.

“Thanks, Joey,” Zephyr mumbles after his
second devouring bite, his mouth full of soggy, mushy toast. I
start smearing peanut butter on the other two slices, just waiting
patiently, like I do every morning.

The door closes for a second time and
something heavy drops to the floor with a thick
thud
.
Ah,
the beautiful sound of textbooks in the morning
. I can smell
the thick vanilla scented perfume she wears as it quickly floats
through the air before I see her glide into the kitchen.

“You just left me,” Jamie grumbles. She
doesn’t whine. Quickly, her eyes shoot an angry glance toward her
little brother. Her manicured hand snatches one of the peanut
butter slices from the plate sitting in front of me on the beige
counter, like normal, and she takes a small bite out of the corner.
Jamie won’t ruin her lip-gloss, but she’ll still reapply the pink
glossy coat when she’s finished eating. Anything for her to look
absolutely perfect. She is all about
perfection
. “How’re ya
doing, Joey?” Jamie asks, all sweet and kind to me, not how she was
just speaking to Zephyr.

I look up, connecting with Jamie’s subtly
lined mahogany eyes. Upon close inspection when we were kids, on
the basis of science, we saw that her eyes are lightened with
flecks of gold and honey, nothing like Zephyr’s dark chocolate eyes
that make me feel like I’m looking into two pools of a starless
night sky.

As she stands before me—her back straight,
her shoulders back—Jamie has a presence that commands your
attention. When she walks into a room you can’t
not
look at
her, you can’t even pretend that you didn’t see her. She’s like a
magnet attracting your stare. You just stare and gawk at her while
your mouth drops open and your drool collects on the front of your
shirt in an obvious hideous dark spot. It may be her overwhelming
height—she’s just south of six feet—or her flawless, model-like
features. No one can avoid her and no one can ignore her. Even her
boyfriend knows how lucky he is.

Zephyr is just the same, just for different
reasons. While he is just as stunning—as my one of his best
friends, I feel that I can say that without any, uh… context. He’s
also around six-three, maybe six-four, with shoulder length dark
brown hair that almost rivals his sister’s, in volume and
silky/softness, and eyes that, I swear to you, look into your soul.
When he looks at you, there’s something that makes you believe he
only
has eyes for you.

Both the Kalivas kids have tanned skin, only
growing darker when they spend any amount of time in the sun, or
outside for that matter, but they never burn. We have that in
common.

“Good,” I reply, being polite right back to
her—just like any other morning—and rubbing it in Zephyr’s face.
Although, she was my first best friend, like Zephyr, why wouldn’t I
be nice and polite to her, even if only to gloat? “Yourself?” It’s
too formal, but I say it every time.

“Pretty good,” she answers, a small smile
tugging at her re-glossed lips. Jamie turns to lean against the
counter, pushing Zephyr from his spot. She’s acting every but the
big sister I wish I still had. Zephyr moves to take a seat at the
dining room table against the far wall, relaxing into the chair as
his eyes scan the kitchen. They stop on me; I can feel it like the
heat from the sun, warm and gentle. I turn to watch him drag his
hand through his hair, pulling it away from his face before it fall
back into his eyes.

Jamie is distracted with her small breakfast,
holding the glass of orange juice by her mouth as she checks the
text messages on her phone, completely cut off from the world as
her thumb
tap
,
tap
,
tap
s against the screen as
she types out a message.

This is my morning—my
normal
morning.
With the kids next door stealing my food, all of us waiting to head
to school, this is familiar. I love familiar.

The Kalivas kids, Jamie and Zephyr, spend
time with me in the morning before school because I’m usually home
alone. I don’t mind it. My aunt is a heart surgeon in Seattle and,
for some reason that only makes sense to her, she loves to operate
at night. Hilary tells me that she thinks better at night, works
better at night. She is very nocturnal, like an owl. So when she
is
here, which is, sadly, rare, she’s normally asleep or
close to it, operating in a zombie-like state. It’s been like that
since we moved her, though, back then, she was a full time student
and working while I was spending nights at the Kalivas home, taking
the top bunk in Jamie’s room and making it mine. She still reserves
it for me when I don’t want to be alone at night. But I haven’t
taken her offer in a few months. Even if I did, I’d probably just
take over Aidan’s room. He moved to New York after he graduated
college two years ago. I wouldn’t mind leaving something pink and
girly for him to come home to.

Their parents took pity on me when I first
stepped onto the driveway. It was pity on the orphaned child; I
knew it then, at the tender age of eight. They forced their
children to befriend me. I didn’t mind. Not then, anyway. I don’t
really mind now. They don’t treat me like an abomination. They
refuse to act as if I’m a plague, like I’m some contagious disease
that’s going to kill someone’s entire family.
Murder isn’t
contagious, people
. Somehow, after all of the stuff that
they’ve heard about me, they stuck around.

The front door opens for a third time I
wasn’t expecting. More heavy objects—emphasis on the plural—hit the
hardwood floor of the entryway before my aunt walks into the
kitchen with her tired, bloodshot eyes set on the vintage
coffeemaker she desperately needs to update. Even though I hate
coffee, I’m hoping for a Keurig.

“Mornin’,” she mumbles like an afterthought,
exhaustion obvious in her voice as she sighs. Her eyelids are
dropping, her tiny body is sagging and drooping awkwardly to the
left, and she looks ready to fall asleep wherever she stands.

Good morning, indeed.

“Hey, Aunt Hil,” I say into my orange juice,
calling her the nickname she despises. It was a happy accident when
I was eight and it just stuck. Zephyr and Jamie repeat my greeting,
much to her chagrin. We’ve called her that for years, now; she
can’t stop us, no matter how hard she tries. As teenagers, we are,
like most, very stubborn.

She starts a pot of coffee with fumbling
fingers that briefly make me mentally question her quality of work
as a surgeon. She leaves us our nickname for her, not snapping at
us like she used to do, then turns to lean against the counter on
the opposite side of Jamie. Hilary drags her hands through her
orange hair and turns her attention to me, lifting her gaze from
the empty mug she holds in her hands, one of those Seattle mugs for
tourists. “Don’t forget your appointment this afternoon,” Hilary
reminds me.