Perfectly Flawed (23 page)

My eyes narrow, annoyed. “What’s that
supposed to mean?” I ask, tentatively. I wish some part of me were
strong enough to yell at him for this sudden cruelty, but I only
have questions. Lots and lots of questions.

He slams his locker shut, the sound
unexpected and jolting me back. My steps stammer as I try not to
look shocked. “My life doesn’t revolve around you, Joey,” He tells
me, loudly, catching the attention of several people walking past.
Several eyes shoot nervous and concerned glances are way; others
don’t care. We’re just another fixture to them.

“I never said—” I start, too scared to
continue. His eyes, the look on his face, it all terrifies me. He
can’t shove me away, not now. “I never said that it did, Zephyr, I
never said that your life had to revolve around mine.”

“No, you just imply it.” His hand runs
through his hair, pulling it away from his face. “I have better
things to do than to follow you around like your little lost puppy,
Joey.” His voice is like fingernails going down a chalkboard. The
sound sending my body into shock. “I’m not your lackey.”

My mouth opens but no words escape. I don’t
understand this. I want to ask him why he’s saying these things,
but the anger is building, growing inside me. The anger is flowing
through me, heating me, and I’m about ready to explode. I can’t
take anything else. Not right now.

Where the hell is this coming from? I want
to know.

“What—I—what?” I stammer, perplexed. My hands
clench into fists at my sides as I try to avoid looking at him, but
it’s no use, I can’t help but look at him—my best friend.

I thought.

“This is just something that I’ve needed to
say, Joey,” he tells me, the fight still in his voice. “For a
while.”

“You’ve never needed to say
anything
like this to me before,” I say quietly, my hands unclenching to
grip the strap on my backpack, my knuckles turning a bright white.
The urge to cry hits me like a bag of rocks, but I don’t want to
cry, I don’t want to give Zephyr the satisfaction of seeing me
vulnerable.

“Oh.” Zephyr leans closer, eyeing me. “Did I
hurt your feelings?” he asks, mockingly. “You look like you’re
going to cry now, are you?”

Who is this person?
This can’t be the
boy that went out of his way to make me feel accepted, this isn’t
the boy that would camp out in my living room, this is definitely
not the boy who would trade his Oreos with me for the horrible
oatmeal raisin cookies the school would give me. This isn’t my
Zephyr.

I don’t want to look at him, I don’t want him
to take my attention, but I do. Against my better judgment, I look
up to him. The look on his face is one that I’ve never seen before.
His face, I can only describe, has turned to hard angles, jagged
and abstract, different from the soft, smooth curves and graceful
lines that show him smiling and happy.

This Zephyr is angry and sneering at me.

This Zephyr I don’t know.

“Fuck you,” I tell him in a light whisper I
almost couldn’t release. Turning, I leave him where he stands, I
leave him and I don’t plan to return.

I didn’t ride home with Jamie that day or to
school the next day. It would’ve been too difficult, seeing Zephyr.
I basically avoid him at all costs—in the halls, at home—I even
considered switching seats in AP Euro but he beat me to it.

As I walked into the classroom, debating in
my head what to tell Mr. Cheney without attributing it to a typical
lover’s quarrel
, but Zephyr was sitting next to Greg Thyme,
avoiding me as I stood in the front of the room with my mouth agape
in shock.

Ryder was happy to be my ride to and from
school. He was just happy to be near me at all. He claimed that he
was my rock, that he was holding me up when it seemed that my world
was crumbling.

Whatever.

That’s when the hand holding started.

“What are you doing?” I ask him after his
hand slips into mine, his fingers intertwining with mine, lacing
together.

“What does it look like?” he asks, a playful
smile tugging at his lips while he walks me to my next class,
passing the gaping faces, one of them Zephyr’s at his locker.

His eyes fall to our hands clasped together,
and I take the moment to lean into Ryder—better to show Zephyr that
I’ve moved on. He turns back to Jackson, ignoring us all
together.

Quickly, I pull away from Zephyr, hoping that
he didn’t notice.

I look to our hands joined together,
temporarily locking him to my side. “I’d say we were about to play
Red Rover but I don’t see a challenging line of people ready to
charge us.” I make a show of looking for someone, anyone, ready to
play the childhood game I used to love.

“This this isn’t Red Rover.” He explains with
a slow chuckle, before leaving me at my class with a kiss on the
cheek.

That
is when he started kissing me on
the cheek.

After pressure from the girl I’m starting to
question my friendship with, Kennie, I eventually agreed with
Ryder’s invitation to Homecoming. I did it, mostly, for two
reasons: (1) I was genuinely terrified that I’d be forced into
another pop music medley in the lunchroom. A third time and Ryder
wouldn’t be walking out of that cafeteria without the help of
trained medical professionals. And (2) I knew how much it would
piss Zephyr off. Okay, the latter was the main reason why.

After I said yes to Ryder, Zephyr seemed to
know. He seemed to look at me
like
he knew, at least, that
was when he would show up to class and actually look at me. He
skipped AP Euro more often than not, only showing up to class on
the day of the weekly quizzes. Quizzes, I’m sure, that he failed
for not being in class during the week.

I remember, back in the start of class, I
told him I’d always help him whenever he needed it, but I refuse to
reach out my hand until he apologizes to me.

That’s the least he can do.

Damn!
Why do I still care about his
grade? Why do I still care about him?

***

Tired of my absence from her life, Jamie
called me and told me to get dressed and not to forget comfortable
shoes.
Okay…?
The only thing I could do in my sleep deprived
state, since it was seven in the morning on a Saturday when she
called, was just comply. Next thing I know, I’m sitting in her car
as she speeds toward Alderwood Mall to scour the popular stores for
a Homecoming dress. Since she knows I’m going to the dance—my date
has a bigger mouth than a pie eater going back for seconds—with a
date for the first time, like,
ever
, she wanted to take me
with her.

“What’s going on between you and my brother?”
she asks as she slides a few dresses along the rack, eyeing two,
checking the sizes, and scrunching up her nose when she notices
something she doesn’t like. It’s typical Jamie.

I’d been waiting for this question since she
started the car. Actually, since my phone rang and I saw her
picture pop up on my screen, but I really don’t want to talk about
Zephyr, not today.

So—like always—I’ll deflect.

“Is Aidan home?” I ask, my hands trailing
along a few dresses feeling the fabric slide along my fingertips. I
could never picture myself wearing any of these. The thought of me
just walking around in so much fluff and tulle is
laughable—hysterical even. So I just push away the thought and turn
back to my friend.

“Not that brother,” Jamie says, referencing
her older brother who lives on the East Coast at New York
University grad school to be… something. Something that I have yet
to decipher when he visits, there are a lot of big words that I
have no mental pictures for—that’s saying something—and I usually
tune him out when he starts talking about his classes. Jamie ducks
behind a rack, looking for something. “Zephyr,” she says,
distracted.

Like she really needs to clarify.

Just the sound of his name puts a sour taste
in my mouth.

“That’s something you need to ask him.” I
speak to the dress in front of me, tucking my hair behind ears,
feeling the curls tickle the back of my neck. “Because, to be
completely honest, I have no clue.”

“What kind of relationship do you think we
have; me and Zephyr?” Jamie asks as she lifts a hanger holding a
short hot pink dress with sequins, it’s a one-shouldered
monstrosity. We both laugh at it before she replaces it on the
rack. “You know he won’t talk to me.” She grabs a different dress
and holds it up to see how it looks against the dark tones of her
flawless skin. “He’s acting…
weird
.”

I shrug my shoulders even though she can’t
see me. She’s too busy looking in the nearest mirror, focusing on
her looks and fixing the smudged line beneath her right eye. “I
can’t explain that,” I mutter.

“What about this one?” she asks once she’s
taken her attention away from the mirror. Her manicured hands hold
yet another dress, a green floor length gown that looks too
sophisticated for a high school dance. She doesn’t want to hear
that though.

“That would look great on you,” I tell her.
It honestly would, she always looks beautiful in green. Jamie
should really wear the color more often.

“You really think so?” she asks, not caring
about my real opinion—although I’m telling the truth—I’m also
telling her what she wants to hear. “I think I’d look like a
tree.”

“Has he said anything?” I ask, moving back to
our original discussion, ignoring the gowns before me. “You know,
about me?” I press, not knowing what I hope the answer to be.

Well, I do know.

I want him to feel guilt for what he said to
me that day at his locker. I want him to long for the best friend
that he pushed away. I want him to want me—but why? Why would I
possibly want that from my best friend?

The thought of him near me is enough to make
my stomach flutter with butterflies—no, pterodactyls. I can feel
their wings flapping ferociously whenever I walk past him in the
halls, whenever I feel his eyes on me in class, whenever I’m able
to breathe the same air. I don’t feel anything like that around
Ryder. Thank God.

I take a deep breath to calm the feelings
raging.

“He hasn’t been speaking much,” she tells me,
distracted by the next dress she grabs, the one that matches the
color of her hair. “Which is weird. You know Zephyr; he usually has
something to say about
everything
.” That’s the former-best
friend I know, opinionated. “He misses you, though. I can tell that
much. He’s sad in the mornings when we should be with you.”

Zephyr?
Sad?

That’s an interesting thing to think
about.

“He knows where to find me if he wants to
apologize for being an ass.”
Again
, I don’t add. I mean, he
can apologize, metaphorically kiss my ass, worship at my feet, wash
the windows of my house; he can do anything he feels he needs to do
to make things right between us. Anything would be wonderful.

She doesn’t move but to tug her long hair
from over one shoulder to the other, her lined eyes widening when
she spots this long black, gold fringed fabric. “You have to try
this one,” Jamie announces, launching the black mass into my hands
from where she stands. “This would look
so
cute on you,” she
tells me as she pushes me toward the nearest dressing room, pretty
much fighting me.

I hold the dress out to get a better look at
it. It’s floor length, black, with a beaded gold trim, and one
shoulder. It would, it looks like, cover all of my scars. With
closer inspection, I see that it’s a Greek styled dress. Kind of
cool and I’d be comfortable wearing it, being that it doesn’t show
that much skin.

“Don’t you think that, out of the two of us,
the actual Greek person should wear this dress?” I ask her before
she shoves me into the room with so much force I careen toward the
wall. I’m surprised I didn’t make contact.

“But it’d look so much better on you,” Jamie
sing-songs through the door. “Ryder could get a matching tie and
cummerbund,” she adds.

“What the hell is a cummerbund?” I ask
through the door, still staring at the dress as it hangs along the
back of the door.

“My God, Joey, you’re the genius out of the
two of us and you don’t know?” I hear a giggle. “Don’t worry about
that.” I can picture Jamie waving a hand through the air,
dismissing the conversation. “Just try it on.”
And shut up about
it
.

So I do. I look at the dress hanging so
beautifully, I will say that, it’s really gorgeous—I just don’t
think I can pull it off, I don’t think it’ll look great
on
me
. I strip from my normal jeans and a t-shirt; both dark
colored, and slip into the dress. I spin in front of the mirror,
checking out the reflection, tying up my hair so I can see my back,
or see how much of my back is covered. The one thing thing that I
don’t like about it: I’d have to figure out what type of bra to
wear because of the one shoulder style, but other than that, I love
it. It doesn’t make me look too bad. The thought of wearing
something like this is almost enough to make me forget about my
problems with Zephyr. But the entire purpose of this shopping trip
with a friend is to get her opinion on everything.

I step from the room, smiling widely, holding
a portion of the gown so I don’t trip myself. The last thing I want
is to damage a dress this pretty. Jamie’s leaning against the far
wall, texting someone—most likely Marcus. Her eyes glance up
briefly before she does a double take, her smile blooming with
surprise and admiration.

“What do you think?” I ask, too nervous to
hear her answer. What if it looks horrible on me? I turn, showing
off the back.

What if she tells me I look like a cow? What
if she tells me I look much worse and I should just go home and
hide away forever with a paper bag over my head?