Perfectly Flawed (34 page)

The door opens revealing a yawning Jamie in
sweats and a blue t-shirt. She smiles when she sees me. “He’s in
his room,” she tells me as she holds the door wide enough for me to
pass. I thank her and climb the stairs to the second floor,
hurrying my pace down the hall.

I can hear the music through the door. Five
Finger Death Punch,
The Way of the Fist
. How
appropriate.

I knock once, twice, three times… but he
doesn’t answer. I can picture him standing on the other side of the
door, his hand dragging through his hair as he wills whoever is
standing in my place to disappear. But it’s me. He can’t want me
gone. I can only imagine what his parents said to him. Hilary is
one thing, but I’ve never done anything wrong before.

I knock again before saying, “Open the door,
Zeph, it’s me.”

The moments that pass seem endless. I don’t
know what he’s thinking, I don’t know what he’s feeling, I just
want to be there for him, and wherever he is, that’s where I want
to be. For some reason, I feel that he needs me.

The door inches open. I can see a brown eye
look at me through the crack of the door. With confirmation, he
holds the door wider and I walk into his room noticing everything
familiar about it. The blue walls, the gray-and-blue striped
bedspread, messed up and rumpled. There are a few posters on his
walls, like the standard bands and sports teams—then there are the
random posters of famous paintings. He has more of those than
anything else.

I turn around, coming face to face with a
shirtless Zephyr. And, sweet baby Jesus, the boy has been working
out. There are abs I’ve never seen before chiseled into his
stomach, and I’ve seen him shirtless plenty of times. My hand
slightly lifts, ready to caress his stomach. It’s developed a mind
of its own.

But the main question is: When did my best
friend get so… ripped?

Holy hell
.

I really shouldn’t notice how his abs ripple
down beneath his basketball shorts, or the thing I’ve heard other
girls call the happy trail… and
holy balls
! I need to stop.
I need to stop now!

Pretending that I’m not flustered—or forcing
myself to ignore it—I plop onto his bed, as I normally do when in
his room, and feel the heat seep through my jeans. He was lying on
his bed before I walked in. Somehow, that makes this feel more
intimate. I can picture it. His long hair splayed around his head
mimicking a drawn sun, one arm behind his head, the other draped
along his taut stomach.
Gasp
. Maybe his legs were crossed at
the ankles; maybe he had one knee bent.

“What’re you doing here?” he asks, still
standing near the door with his hands tucked into the pockets of
his shorts.

I don’t know how to answer that question.
There are many things floating through my head, many things
shifting around in my mind, but the only thing that makes the most
sense is
safe.
To me,
safe
means Zephyr. That might
be weird to tell him, a little too personal, so I command myself to
say something different.

“Visiting my partner in crime,” I answer.
Partially the truth. That’s all that matters, yeah. “You’re allowed
visitors, right?” I force a smile hoping that he joins me. His lips
stay in a tight line. “I mean, the warden won’t throw me out, will
she?”

The song changes to
White Knuckles
. He
quickly turns it down.

Turning to me, he runs his hands thought his
hair. He looks tired, worn, defeated as he takes a seat on the
floor, leaning his back against the side of his bed. He drapes his
arm over his knee and my heart feels for him. I kick off my shoes
and join him on the floor, keep at least seven inches of distance
between us.

“Why’d you kick him, Jo?” he asks, his eyes
staring straight out his window to mine, like he’s waiting for me
to show up across the alley. How many times has he sat here and
just watched my window? Could it be as many times as I’ve watched
his?

Turning my attention away from him, I stare
at a painting leaning against the wall in front of us. It’s of a
girl with greenish-brown eyes and long, curling hair. She smiles
and shies away, as if she doesn’t want to be seen, or she doesn’t
want this moment captured. Her hand, I assume that beige-ish stick
thing is her arm, is holding back her long locks.

“You couldn’t be the only one in trouble,
Zeph,” I respond quietly. “Not this time.”

“You’ve never had so much as a pink slip for
late homework,” he tells me, reminding me of my former spotless
record.

He’s right; I was a goody two-shoes.

But he doesn’t really know the entire story.
He doesn’t know what Ryder tried; he doesn’t know how scared I was.
If he knew any of this, I’d probably be visiting Zephyr in
jail.

Never Enough
starts to play, one of my
favorite songs by the band.

“There’s a first time for everything,” I
repeat what Principal Grady said in his office. “Why’d you hit
him?” I ask, really wondering.

“Why do you think?” he answers swiftly. “I
wasn’t going to just sit by and let him say all that crap about
you.” His hair swept his bare shoulders as he lightly shook his
head. “And I’d do it again. No question about it.”

The girl in the painting is wearing a green
shirt. Not light green, but a deep dark forest green. It contrasts
with the pale beige of her skin, the miniscule freckles along her
nose showing more clearly.

“I can take care of myself, you know?” I tell
him.

“But you wouldn’t’ve done anything about it.”
He has a point. “I know you, Joey.” That he does, it shows
how
well he knows me. “Ryder would’ve won and you’d be the
joke. Again.” Zephyr shrugs. “I couldn’t let that happen.”

Still staring at the girl in the portrait, I
say, “Zephyr, this isn’t third grade, you can’t just beat up Ryder
like you did Bobby Logan.” Zephyr turns to me, a playful smile on
his lips as he raises his eyebrows suggestively. He starts
chuckling as he turns away, his eyes back on the window. “Okay,
obviously you
can
, but this was my fight.
That
’s why
I kicked him,” I tell him. “In the balls. Hard.” He deserved
it.

He sucks in a breath, the sound catching my
attention. “You really shouldn’t have done that,” he struggles to
say, wincing. “Now,
I
’m scared of you.”

“As well you should be,” I reply with a
playful nudge of my shoulder. Quietly, I say, “Can I ask you
something?”

“Shoot.”

I look to the floor, picking at his carpet.
“What happened to us?” A puzzled expression covers his face. “You
were avoiding me, you know, after the night you practically broke
into my house, and then that fight. What was that?”

He looks to me, expressionless, and I regret
my question.

Zephyr releases a sigh. “Because it was
obvious you were lying to me, keeping things from me,” he answers.
“After I
broke
into your house.” He rests his elbow on his
knee. “You weren’t letting me in.”

“I don’t let anyone in.”

“I know that, Jo,” he snaps at me. The sound
startles me. “I just thought that I was different, I thought that
maybe—”

“You
are
different,” I snap at him,
interrupting him.

“I know that now.”

A silence fills the air and we dive into it,
waiting.

I can’t wait forever, though.

“Why were you able to bury the hatchet so
easily?”

“Because I saw Ryder put his moves on you,”
he says through clenched teeth.

I snicker.

“Moves?” I narrow my eyes, turning my head to
look at him, looking away from the intriguing painting.

“Shut up, you know what I mean.” No, I don’t.
I
think
I don’t. He shakes his head lightly, before dragging
his hand through his hair. “I thought you might actually, I don’t
know, like the guy.”

Don’t worry, at some point, I had the same
fear
.

“That is
so
stupid,” I say, starting
to laugh. While I was worried I was developing actual
feelings
for the asshat, I knew, in the end, it was all a
figment of my imagination, just a product of his attention. If
anyone has real feelings for him, I’m amazed.

“I’m a stupid guy sometimes,” he whispers.
His eyes trail to the floor in front of him, a sadness covering his
face.

There’s something here he isn’t saying. Some
secret he isn’t telling. But he wants to say it. He wants to tell
me. It’s written on his face, he wants to tell me.

“I didn’t say that, Zephyr.”

“It’s true.” His voice changes. He sounds
surer. “I’m already struggling with that stupid AP class.”
Well,
if you weren’t skipping it to avoid me
… “This next week is just
going to push me further behind.”

I let out a breath. “I told you that I’d help
you with that.” My eyes travel back to the painting. “All you have
to do is just ask me. I’ll help any way that I can.” I lightly
punch him in the arm. Maybe taking this conversation to the playful
side will make this easier.

“You’ve been busy dealing with all that Ryder
crap.”

No excuse, buddy.

“Well,” I start. “I won’t make that mistake
again,” I tell him, my body repeating the feeling of him pressed
against me, him pushing against me. “I was so stupid—so stupid—and
so blind,” I whisper to myself, forgetting I’m in a room with a
friend. I’ve entered my own world, my own self-loathing world where
the darkness envelops me, stealing me under.

I turn my gaze, spotting my friend’s smirk.
“Yeah, you kind of were,” he confesses.

My mouth drops open. “Well, I wasn’t
expecting you to say
that
,” I sarcastically sputter.
“Thanks, best friend. BFFs forever, huh?” I roll my eyes, an added
bonus.

“I’m sorry,” he begins, a chuckle escaping
his lips. “But I’m agreeing with you, I even warned you.”
Ugh, I
know, dude.
“Don’t you remember that?”
If only I could tell
you what he really did to me
. “You know, Jo, for being so
smart, you can be stupid sometimes.” Zephyr turns his gaze to me,
lightly shaking his head, and I think his soft smile turns to anger
and disappointment. The last thing I ever wanted to do was
disappoint him. “You’re the dumbest smart person I know.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I
ask, my own anger bubbling up.

This isn’t going the way I planned. I figured
that we’d sit over here, talking about how much a douche Ryder
Harrison is, not getting into a fight of our own.

“How dense are you?” he spits out. “You must
be blind if you…”

“If I can’t what, Zephyr?”

“If you can’t see how I feel about you.”
Those words are like a strong punch to the gut. It shocks and
surprises me. “How I’ve felt about you since we were eleven years
old.”

“You’re kidding… right?” He has to be kidding
because that would mean… and he’s practically spelling it out… and
I
am
the dumbest smart person he knows.

“Why would I kid about that, Joey?” he asks.
True. “These are my feelings here, I wouldn’t lie or joke about
anything like that.” I think I’ve stopped breathing. “Not with
you.”

My heart skips a beat. No, it stops beating.
This can’t be happening; he can’t be saying these things—not to me.
We’re friends; we’ve always just
been friends
. But, what
about the flutter in my chest I get when I see him, the hope that
he’ll smile when he sees me, the look he gives me when we’re just
joking around. I love all these things; I need all these things
like life itself.

But this doesn’t make sense, not
completely.

“You’ve dated and had relationships,” I
remind him, remembering Alexia and Jasmine and Serena and girl
after girl that he’s bragged and kissed and flaunted in front of
me, acting like I was just one of the boys. It always hurt to see
him flashing around who he was dating, it hurt because… because it
wasn’t me. It was never me. “That isn’t exactly what you do when
you have feelings for someone else.” I tell him, thinking of all
the times when I thought that maybe, just maybe, Zephyr and I… I
don’t know—I wouldn’t let the thought bloom. I refused to let it
grow because I’m me, I’m broken, I’m the daughter of the psycho
murderer and he could always do better than me. “You try and be
with them, you try and convince them of your feelings whether they
feel the same for you or not, whether they love you back or
not.”

“How can I do that,” Zephyr quickly begins,
turning to face me, “when you act so disinterested in anyone,
especially me?” He’s still yelling. “When you act like I’m the
brother you lost. I’m not Noah, Joey.”

Why does everyone keep reminding me?

“I know you’re not Noah!” Why does everyone
think that I’m letting people replace my family? Why does everyone
think that I want
them
to replace my family? “Jamie is not
Ivy; Aunt Hil is not my mother. You don’t think I know these
things. It kills me, okay?” I let a sob escape because I can’t help
it. Everything is welling within me and I can’t keep it inside. His
arms circle around my shoulders, instantly pulling me to his chest.
“I’m broken, I’m ruined, and you’re telling me that—”

“I’ve loved you since I was old enough to
fully understand the meaning of the word,” he whispers to the top
of my head. His hand trails up and down my back, lightly patting in
between each movement. “And if you want me to try and convince you
of my feelings…” he trails off, pulling away, letting me look at
him, looking me directly in the eye. His arms are still circled
around me, warmth pouring from him into me. “If you want me to
battle your demons, I will fight until I can’t fight anymore,
because that’s what you do for the person you love.”

The person you love…

This is a moment that people say changes you,
changes your life. This is that defining moment. The moment when
you realize that the one thing you want, the one person you want,
you need, has been in your life longer than you ever knew. He’s
been right in front of your face waiting for you. If he were a
pole, you’d have broken your nose on impact.