Perfectly Flawed (38 page)

“As long as it has nothing to do with a
party,” I begin. “I’d love to.”

He turns to me. “A party never crossed my
mind.” Lightly, he brushes his lips across my cheek, his hair
tickling the bare skin of my shoulders. I was stupid enough to walk
out of the school in a tank top without my jacket. Zephyr’s trying
to keep me warm… it’s working. Yep, it’s working. “I was thinking
dinner, you and me, a nice, cozy restaurant—”

“Not Lily’s,” I beg, nearly gagging when the
memory of that fettuccini comes back to me.
Blech
.

He shakes his head, leading me to Jamie’s
car. She went home with Marcus after school, leaving the keys with
Zephyr.

He opens the door for me. “I have something
so much better planned, something I know you’ll like,” He tells me
with a quick kiss on the lips. “And I plan to do a lot of
that
.” He kisses me again. “You know, now that I can.”

Smiling, I’m sure I blush.

He parks the car in his driveway but walks
across the lawn to walk me to my door. He says he’s never sure I
make it home safely; I say he just wants in my house. I’m never
wrong.

Zephyr’s exactly what I always pictured in a
boyfriend. He’s kind, considerate, and un-freaking-believably
smoking hot. Okay, that’s a little much, but he’s still what I
pictured a boyfriend to be. And did I mention he doesn’t serenade
me in the cafeteria? That’s always a plus.

“I was thinking…” I say, trailing off as he
follows me into the house, dropping his checkered backpack next to
mine. “I could go to your game tonight.” I plaster a wide, toothy
grin on my face. The idea of sitting through football isn’t the
pull here; it’s the idea of seeing Zephyr play. I wasn’t paying
attention the last time out of spite.

“Only if you want to,” he tells me, a raise
to his eyebrows. He grips my hand, touching me as much as he can. I
can tell, in his eyes, he wants me to go to his game.

I walk him over to the couch, forcing him to
sit down. I sit on his lap, wrapping my arms around his shoulders,
resting my head against his arm. “Why wouldn’t I want to see my guy
in action?” I whisper-ask near his ear.

A visible tremor runs through his body as my
breath tickles his ear. He tries to cover it up with a snort,
ruining the moment. “Because you hate football,” he reasons.

True.

Leaning away, I laugh with him. “Beside the
point, I like you,” I tell him, reaching my hands up to massage his
shoulders. “And if I remember correctly, you wear some pretty tight
pants that show off the goods.”

“I knew it,” Zephyr exclaims. “You only want
me for my body.”

“Well, if we’re being honest…” I trail
off.

That sends him into hysterics and he falls
back onto the couch, dragging me down with him until I’m lying on
top of him. I take the opportunity to kiss him, nipping at his
bottom lip with my teeth. I pull away, staring into his eyes,
feeling his hand move up my body.

Zephyr looks up at me for a moment, narrowing
his eyes, before he sits up. “You look tired,” he tells me. “Have
you been sleeping at all?” His thumbs brush against my cheeks.

I stifle a yawn—that doesn’t help—while
lightly hitting him in the arm. “I’ve been spending my nights
tutoring you,” I remind him. We spend the nights camped out in my
living room, surrounded by books and paper, spending most of our
time sitting on the couch in a tangled heap, kissing until two or
three in the morning. There’s no point in trying to sleep after
that. “You should know the answer to that,” I say, brightly
flushing.

He gets a faraway look in his eyes, a slow
smile spreading along his lips. “Yeah, we don’t really get much
studying done until the wee hours of the morning.” He looks to me
apologetically, his look a recreation of his puppy dog eyes.
Though, he knows I can never resist the puppy dog eyes.

“I think I might just take a nap before the
game.” I thread my arms around his neck. “When do you leave?” I ask
quietly, leaning my head on his shoulder. He leans back and traces
circles on my back with his fingertips.

“In two and half hours,” he tells me, his
chest vibrating with every word. “Want me to take you?”

I nod into his shoulder. “You might have to
wake me up.” My bed sounds so alluring right now; I want nothing
more than to borough beneath my blankets and create an impenetrable
cocoon. “I’m planning a nap right now.”

“Then I’ll leave,” he tells me, sitting up
and gently pushing me onto the couch. “Because the thought of you
in a bed is too tempting to pass up and I might cave,” he says,
standing up and moving away from the couch, turning back to look at
me.

“Get out of here,” I tell him, following him
to the door and giving him a light kiss on the cheek. He catches my
lips, pulling me closer, pulling me deeper, and I could just melt.
He pulls away, leaving me breathless, his cocky smile blooming.
“I’ll leave my window open.”

“I know you will.” With that, and a kiss to
my forehead, he leaves. I lock the door behind him, walk through
the rest of the house to make sure everything’s locked and secure,
then head up to my room, kicking off my shoes as I go. I remember
he has a key when I walk into my room, peeling my long-sleeved tee
over my head and tugging down the gray fabric of my white camisole.
I drop my shoes near the closet and aim toward the bed, climbing
beneath the cool sheets.

I’m out like a light before my head even hits
the pillow.

A light sound, almost like a cry, wakes me.
My eyes open and I’m staring up at clothes—a lot of clothes; pink
shirts, pink dresses, tiny, pleated skirts, khaki shorts. They look
familiar but I can’t place them in my memory. I’ve seen them
somewhere before, I know that, maybe in a store or some place I’ve
been.

Other than that, everything is dark around
me. Though, there’s a blue patterned hue streaming through the
venetian blinds in the window.

Wait, I didn’t close my blinds. And my window
isn’t behind me.

My hands reach up, gripping the slats in a… a
door?

Why is there a door above my head?

I move my other hand out, hitting something
small and leathery, like a shoe, only tiny. Lifting it, I see the
white strap and the Disney Princess face—Jasmine. It’s a shoe, a
little girl’s white sandal. On a hunch, I hit the heel against my
knee and it lights up pink and purple, illuminating the little
space.

I’m in a closet. A closet filled with clothes
and toys.

Staring at the sandal in my hand, I remember
that I used to have a pair of these. I cried when Hilary donated
them to Goodwill along with my favorite pink dress when I was nine
because I outgrew them. I loved that dress; it was pretty. It was
covered in white, purple, and blue flowers with a lace hem. Just
like the dress hanging above my head.

Wait.

What the hell?

“Josie?” a deep male voice, familiar and
frightening, whispers in the room behind my head, his voice has a
slight tremble, a vibrato I can’t figure out. “Josie, baby girl,”
he continues, a softness in his voice I can tell is forced, “Where
are you?”

I tilt my head back, looking through the thin
slats in the door, peering at the man who doesn’t know where Josie
is.
Am I Josie?
Something in his hand glints red and silver
in the light sneaking through the venetian blinds. The hazy light
also illuminates the pink walls, the white rumpled bedspread, and
the wicker kids’ furniture.

Where am I?

I open my mouth, setting the sandal back down
gently so I don’t hit the heel, letting, “Daddy?” slip from my lips
quietly. He can’t hear me. My voice is tiny, one you’d picture for
a small child, maybe six or seven years old.

“God
DAMN IT
!” He yells, hitting his
fist against the wall by the door, shaking the ground my body lies
on, and scaring the little girl I am. With fear, I crawl into a
ball and try to forget where I am, forget who I am and who he is,
forget that I’m scared. “Where are you, Josie?” he tries again,
sounding nicer. “Come out for Daddy, baby girl.”

I don’t want to, Daddy. You scare me.

He drops to the ground, hard enough to shake
the floor again, and peers under the bed, flinging back the blanket
that hangs down, almost ripping it from the bed. Shaking his head,
he stands up, using one trembling leg at a time. He looks to the
closet, the door I’m hiding behind, and slowly walks over. His
steps are loud and booming through the hollow wood beneath my ear.
His hand grasps the doorknob, twisting until it slowly creaks
open.

The sound is loud. It shouldn’t be so loud,
but it is. It hurts, it hurts so much, I can’t move.

I can’t stop.

“Wake up,” I hear. “Wake up,” he says again,
the voice this time shaking me, moving me. The voice is close,
dragging me away from… somewhere, somewhere dark and cold. I gasp,
taking in a deep breath, welcoming the air into my fragile lungs.
“Are you okay?” Zephyr asks once I’ve calmed down enough to
breathe. My throat hurts, just like my hands. “You’re soaked,” he
tells me as his hand moves across my damp forehead, pushing my hair
away from my face.

My hands reluctantly release something—the
comforter I was gripping—and they seek the feeling of his shoulder,
grasping and clenching something warm, him and his shirt, just for
the feel of something real and safe and pure.

Something that won’t hurt me.

“Zephyr,” I gasp out. I seek him, all of him,
as he kneels by my bed.

He’s real
, I tell myself.
He’s real
and he’s here to protect me, not to hurt me. He could never hurt
me. He loves me.

“I’m here,” he tells me, leaning closer to
me, his weight shifting the bed. His hands frame my face, his
thumbs smoothing the tears from my cheeks.

When did I start crying?

“Zephyr?” I ask again, but I don’t mean it as
a question, I just want to hear him say something back.

“I’m right here,” he tells me, his hand
moving down my neck, caressing the bare skin of my shoulders. “I’m
right here.”

It’s not enough.

“Say my name,” I beg, whispering. I need to
hear him say my name.

“What?” he asks, confused by my request.
“Why?”

“Just say it,” I beg harder, nearly sobbing.
“Please.”

Just say my name, that’s all I want. I need
to hear you say my name.

“Joey.” His voice is smooth and soft, like
velvet. It could glide around me and lift me from the ground like a
leaf caught in the window, placing me on a cloud to take me
away.

He sounds nothing like the man looking for
Josie.

“Oh, my God,” I blubber out, letting more
tears flow down my cheeks.

“What, Joey?” His hands move to my hair,
through my hair. “What is it?”

I’m not sure how to say it or even how to
begin. I don’t know how to tell him what happened inside my head
while I slept. I’m not even sure myself. Can I tell him where I
went? Where my dream decided to take me this time? How much does he
know about what happened to me? How much does he want to know about
my past, about before we ever met, before he was my friend? Before
we came to be what we are now.

I can just tell it how it is. Nothing more,
nothing less. That’s always good.

“I…” I start, terrified of my own truth. “I
remembered something.”

“What did you remember, Joey,” he asks,
soothingly. He leans forward to rest his forehead against mine.

I ignore his question. He doesn’t need to
know the scary details, not right now. “Don’t leave me alone,” I
beg, my hands reaching up his neck, threading through his hair,
feeling the softness of him. I need him. I need him to stay with
me. “Please don’t leave me alone.”
Not right now
.

Zephyr nods. He kicks off his shoes and
climbs over me, lying on my bed, against the wall. “I’m not going
anywhere, I promise,” he tells me with a kiss to the forehead as he
pulls me closer. I rest my head on his chest, letting his arms pull
me as close as we can get. “I’m not going anywhere,” he whispers
into my hair. “I’ll stay right here until you kick me out.”

He smoothes down my hair, letting me cry into
his shirt while he whispers things to me that I can’t understand
between my sobs. Soon, they taper out and we’re left in a thick
silence. I briefly try to process what I saw, what was happening to
me in my head. I can’t help but wonder if he dragged the little
girl—or me, I should say—from the closet.

I can’t tell Zephyr what I saw. I can’t tell
him when I don’t even know myself.

I can say I was the little girl. Of that, I’m
certain.

Is the reason why I’m alive today because I
was sleeping, hiding myself away, in my closet? But what about all
the scars covering my body, the stab wounds, how could I have
received those if I was hiding?

And the one thing I want to know, did he find
me, like in my dream? Did he end up ripping me from my safe
place?

I don’t know.

I don’t want to know.

***

Sooner than I realize, Zephyr taps me on the
shoulder, waking me up—I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep, but it
was so calming sleeping with Zephyr here. I hope this doesn’t
become a habit, I’m not sure what my aunt would do if she saw this.
It’s time for him to leave for his game if he wants to be on time.
The ride to the stadium is quiet, I’m still waking up and I don’t
have anything to say, I also don’t want to ruin his focus. He likes
to keep his head in the game.

He parks the car and we both start walking
toward the locker rooms. With a sly look to me, he throws an arm
over my shoulder, tugging me closer to him and kissing my cheek. So
much for him keeping his head in the game.

It’s as if what happened earlier was a dream
itself, like he didn’t have to rescue me from a nightmare… again.
If only my life were that simple.