Perfectly Flawed (5 page)

“I normally wouldn’t expose you to such petty
things, my dearest Harley,” Kennie begins, immediately
understanding what Harley means. She forces a thick British accent,
mimicking her mother perfectly. Even though she was born in London,
she doesn’t have an accent. She was (un)lucky enough to be raised
in the United States and lose her accent. We joke that she would be
so
much cooler,
so
much hotter, with an accent.
Kennie pops a piece of muffin into her mouth and chews. I hated to
admit that I wanted her to continue and spill the beans—she had me
slightly intrigued now. Provided this piece of gossip had
absolutely nothing, and I mean
nothing
, to do with me. “But
this,” she continues after she swallows, “has to do with our lovely
Joey.”

Damn it… I spoke too soon.

“PASS!” I blurt, too loudly I might add. I
didn’t exactly mean to yell the words, but it happened. Kennie’s
lined ice blue eyes, which used to freeze me when she turned her
gaze to me, lock on me. As do a few people at surrounding tables.
They’re trying to see what
set the loon off
this time. I
refuse to give them a show, especially if there is a new story
going around about me.

My hand creeps to the chain around my neck,
tugging the locket from under my shirt and clutching it in my hand.
It’s my own way to calm down when I don’t want to mentally count. I
never do. The warm metal bites into my hand and I close my eyes to
remember the faces inside, how happy they look, smiling at me, when
I open the locket. But I don’t this time; I just remember what’s
inside.

“But—”

I quickly cut her off before she can say
anymore. “Kennie, you’ve heard what they say about me.” I suddenly
feel shy and vulnerable, feeling the need to crawl into a shell,
tug a blanket over my head, and wait for the clouds and rain to
pass. What the hell could people be talking about now? I haven’t
done anything since the start of school, I haven’t done anything
since I moved here but people still love to tell their tales,
despite the truth of the matter at hand.

“I know, but—”

“Now, Kennie,” I start, trying to explain to
her the best that I can, “I can’t understand why you listen to it.”
I glance to Harley as she finishes her sandwich, her eyes glued to
the wreck in front of her. If only she had popcorn. My eyes then
start to search around the cafeteria. No one’s looking at me, no
one is openly pointing and laughing at me with knowledge of some
new lie that paints me in a worse light, nor is there anyone doing
either of those things covertly. It must be old news then,
something that everyone has heard time and time again. “It’s bull,
whatever it is.” Nervously, I tuck my hair behind my ears.

“Do you honestly think that I’d repeat
anything I heard that was, like,
bad
about you?” she asks.
The pain of her question, the pain of that thought, crosses her
face, her smile disappearing. A Kennie not smiling is a Kennie you
want to avoid. I still have to think about it, or at least, I have
to debate the pros and cons of gaining this knowledge.

Pro: I could hear what people are saying
now
.

Con: I could hear the new nightmare spreading
about me.

As if it could compete with anything from
before. All the crap spread about me—all the stupid whispers and
murmurs when I’d walk into a classroom—nothing can compete with
that. That feeling that they all know something about you, they all
know you but they don’t
know you
. What they know is the
you
fabricated by lies and retellings.

I’m not entirely sure how to answer Kennie’s
question. The look on her face tells me that I have nothing to
worry about, that I can trust her, that she would never hurt me.
However, if I’m honest, my gut says no, but…

Well, you know what they say about curiosity
and the cat.

Kennie leans forward slightly. “I heard
someone has a thing for you,” she whispers to me, quietly so only
Harley and me can hear her. “Like, bad.”

“Who?” Harley asks, a look of disgust quickly
crossing her face. She leans back, looking back and forth between
us.

For once, I feel like slapping her.

“Thanks,” I bark, somewhat sarcastically,
mostly hurt about what Harley might be thinking to put that
expression on her face.

Her eyes connect with mine before she says,
“I didn’t mean it like that, Joey.” She’s defending herself. “It’s
just a bit weird, you know?”

“Thanks, Harley!” I repeat, louder, with
exasperation and over-exaggerated hand gestures slicing through the
air aggressively.

Kennie looks from me to Harley like we are
about to fight and she doesn’t want to get caught in the middle of
it. It tells me that she’ll jump back and flee as fast as her
stilettos will carry her when appropriate. But she continues with,
“Wanna know who?” Dangling the little piece of information like
bait in front of a lone trout, but I don’t want to take it. I don’t
want to be the fish dangling and thrashing from the hook hoping to
be tossed back only to be taken home and served for dinner. It
could be a trick.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

This time I decide to play the game hoping
that it doesn’t bite me in the ass.

“Who?” I ask, not wanting to be curious but I
can’t help it. I am human after all.

Kennie looks around; like this is the biggest
secret she could reveal. “Ryder Harrison.”

Harley and I share a long look with each
other that communicates a lot between us in a few seconds. Ryder
Harrison is the quarterback of the football team, the star pitcher
of the baseball team, and a senior. He is the epitome of ‘All
American’ and knows how to charm a girl with his perfect smile,
ocean blue eyes, and blonde hair he’s styled perfectly to look like
he doesn’t care about his looks. Roll that up in a decorated
letterman’s jacket and most girls twirl their hair, bat their eyes,
and giggle annoyingly loud because that’s their ritualistic mating
call.

I’m not most girls.

With this look between us, Harley and I burst
into a fit of hysterical laughter, a loud, uncomfortable laughter
that feels so good. I’d assume that Kennie’s looking at us like
we’ve gone off our rockers, that I’ve finally cracked, become
contagious, and infected Harley. But I’m laughing so hard that I
can’t open my eyes.

“What?” Kennie asks after at least five
minutes, when our laughter starts to die down.

“Thanks, Kennie,” I tell her, my hand
pressing against my aching stomach. “I haven’t laughed
that
hard in my life, I don’t think.” My hands reach up to my face,
pressing against my cheeks—my damp cheeks covered in salty
moisture.

I laughed so hard I cried.

“What’s
so
funny?” Kennie continuously
asks, looking from me back to Harley, her eyebrows knit together in
curiosity. She’s been left out of the joke; she knows that. “Come
on, you know,” she pleads.

Ryder Harrison,” Harley answers between her
dwindling bursts of giggles.

“What about him?” Kennie still doesn’t
understand.

“The star quarterback,” I sputter. I take a
deep breath, trying to get air into my lungs. “Has a
thing
for
me
?” The shock is obvious, both with the mien of my face
and the tone of my voice. I do my best to tuck a curl behind my ear
that’s fallen away, abandoning my neglected apple. “Ryder Harrison,
the same guy that dated Alexia Cavanaugh? Do you know how crazy
that sounds?”

Kennie’s face drops, disappointment and shame
evident on her face; she looks hurt that I am laughing about this.
It’s freaking funny, though. “It didn’t sound crazy to me.” Her
voice is small and quiet, as if I’ve shamed her, as if she needs to
hide before being embarrassed.

“Because, Kennie,” I start, looking to her.
“And, I’m sorry for saying this, but you live in a perfect world.”
It’s true; her world is rainbows, lollipops, and unicorns. It’s a
bright place where nothing bad happens. People in her world frolic
and prance through the trees and blooming flowers, venture to get
healthy fruit smoothies, and save the lives of the forgotten,
bringing them from the darkness by showing the world someone could
only dream. I live in reality; a place filled with death and
heartbreak, some place where I can’t get what I want and I doubt I
ever will.

You see, I know my place on the high school
food chain—the hierarchy, if you will—and I stay there, I live
there happily, thankfully. I don’t want to climb the ladder to the
top; I don’t see the need in it. I much prefer the bottom, happily
dwelling with the bottom feeders. It’s where I belong.

I learned long ago that if I don’t mess with
them, those at the top, they don’t mess with me. And we all go
skipping on our merry ways.

As she looks at me, Kennie tries to argue
that her world isn’t perfect. I have to hide a giggle. With her
argument, memories flood my mind of defaced lockers, damaged
schoolbooks that I had to pay to replace, hours spent locked in
random broom closets around the school. While it was only once,
sometimes twice, that these things happened, and a few years back,
it’s still fresh in my mind, the agonizing worry that with
everything that I do and everyone I meet, things can just go back
to how they were. It’s still a concern of mine—the thought, the
pain, still lurking that any of that could happen to me again.

“Let’s just drop this,” I offer, taking
another bite of my apple, but I really want to toss it into the
trash. I’ve already lost my appetite.

Kennie agrees, quickly turning to Harley to
talk about their upcoming science class, and instantly, our
conversation is forgotten. The beauty of distracted minds. I start
to stare off into the surrounding crowd. The usual people avoid my
gaze; I don’t care. It’s not like I’m actually staring at them.
Maybe they think I’m plotting? It’s really random and paranoid to
think, but I’m not. I’m just thinking. My thoughts are random and
bouncing around my brain like spastic, hyperactive ping-pong
balls.

Some part of me—some microscopic part of
me—takes a moment and toys with the bizarre idea of Ryder Harrison
and what that could mean to me, or for me if you will, if what
Kennie heard and said
was
true. It can’t be. Why now? Who
could possible tolerate the idea of the quarterback taking a liking
to me? We’re apples and oranges. I’m black hoodies; he’s a
decorated letterman’s jacket. I’m Slipknot, he’s Justin
Bieber—these things just don’t mix.

And I strongly doubt (and pray for the
Bieber/Slipknot sake) they ever will.

Lunch ends and I go through the rest of my
classes pretending Kennie never said what she did. It’s easy
because I don’t believe any it. It’s bull to me. American Sign
Language is easy and we sign about lunch items; specifically what
we ate for lunch.
For lunch, I ate an apple
, I sign to my
partner. In AP English, we are assigned
Beowulf
; I tackle a
good chunk of it before the end of class, thanks to a speed-reading
technique I was once so bored, I mastered. After that, I’m in
Chamber Orchestra tuning my violin,
Brandenburg Concerto 3
spread along my stand.

After all of the excitement, I meet Jamie at
her car and we wait for Zephyr while talking about classes and the
usual things. Luckily, she doesn’t mention anything about her
classmate—that means she hasn’t heard anything. I strongly doubt
she could keep anything about Ryder Harrison and me to herself,
even if nothing has, or ever will, happen.

Somehow, during our friendship, we’ve grown
apart. It was expected, really. Jamie is one of those girls that
glide around school on a perfect fluffy cloud with her boyfriend
attached to her arm and a trail of minions, oops, I mean friends,
following closely behind.

Instantly, the conversation lulls and we’re
in silence, quickly running out of things to talk about. It’s a
comfortable silence, and we’re used to it, there’s only so much I
can tolerate talking about Marcus and his hair. Or his muscles. Or
his
blinding
smile.

Zephyr joins us, briefly heading home before
he has to drive back for football practice. I walk through the
front door and run up the stairs to dump my bag and books on my bed
before I head to therapy. I grab the keys from the ugly ceramic
bowl by the front door, call up to my aunt in her room just to let
her know that I’ve blown through the house, and head out.

***

The windows don’t glint in the late afternoon
sun when I pull into the sparsely filled parking lot. It’s rarely
crowded when I arrive so parking is never crazy.
No pun
intended
. Usually my car’s the only vehicle in the lot. Today
it has the company of an aged Ford truck past its prime and more
rusted than its original navy blue, a new yellow Mercedes, and a
1970s era Volkswagen Beetle that has seen
way
better days.
My car, or my aunt’s car, is an SUV from the early 2000s. I have no
idea the make, model, or year, and I don’t really care. I never
cared. I’m not a car girl. I don’t know the first thing about them.
All that matters to me is that I have a license—
check!
—and
access to a working vehicle that can get me from Point A to Point
B. Today, Point B happens to be the local psychiatric center.

Goody, goody gum drops.

I let Vivian, the middle-aged receptionist
that needs to touch up her graying roots if she wants everyone to
believe that she is a natural redhead, know I’m here. She smiles at
me—her wrinkling face crinkling more with her polite toothy
grin—and I return it just to be polite in return. Like always. It’s
not long before I am sitting in Dr. Jett’s office, in the plush
brown recliner across from her, focusing on various knickknacks and
things placed around her room. Scenic landscape on the wall across
from me, neat and organized desk in the corner of the room covered
with family photographs, paperwork, and business cards, an Apple
laptop with a black screen sitting open on the desk, a box of
tissues on the table that separates me from Dr. Jett; I stare at
these things every session every month. Watching everything evolve
with time throughout my years as her patient. Especially the doctor
herself.