The Perfection Paradox (23 page)

Hunter bound
up to her, she could smell the beer on his breath, it mixed with
the delicious smell of Hunter and she somehow found her bottom lip
starting to tremble, but before she could shed a single dramatic
tear, he threw his arms around her and pulled her up against his
hard toned body.

Emily had no
idea what was going on, they hadn’t spoken in weeks, and now this?
This wasn’t back to normal, this was
better
than normal.

She smiled
gleefully at Amanda and Sarah, who both forced smiles, but
scrutinized Hunter smoulderingly with cold distrustful
eyes.

Something
about Hunter seemed different that night.

He was
looser, less focused on Kennedy, less choked by the leash she had
unknowingly trapped him in.

He was also
drunk, much
much
drunker than she had ever seen him before.

 
She
didn’t dare leave his side, in case he changed his mind.

He poured her
a beer sloppily from the keg on the floor and then a second. Within
an hour of her arriving he was kissing her neck messily, leaving
trails of drool on the collar of her dress. Emily didn’t mind
though, it was the thought that counted after all.

A part of her
was telling herself she should wait until he was sober, that this
wasn’t the way it was all meant to play out, but drunk people
expressed emotions they were too afraid to exhibit soberly
right?

Hunter loved
her; he was just too scared to tell her.
This
was his way of telling her, and
if she said no now, he’d be even more afraid and he’d probably
never confess his love. So she let him kiss her neck and roughly
work his way to her mouth.

Something
indescribable about him felt right when everyone else felt wrong.
This was whom she was born to be with; he was the one that made her
feel safe. As much as she’d tried to deny it to herself, tell
herself this wasn’t what she wanted, it absolutely was.

She felt like
she could never be happier than she was now, in this perfect
moment, with him.

The next
morning Emily had awoken smiling.

She’d
showered smiling.

Ate breakfast
smiling and taken the school bus smiling.

Everything
seemed right in the world. It was like she was finally herself,
finally the
best
version of Emily. The version with Hunter.

She still
couldn’t believe it. She had stolen Hunter back from the evil
prying hands of Kennedy Blakewood.

He had
chosen
her
; he
had kissed
her
,
when Kennedy had been mere feet away.
God,
it felt good
.

It felt good
right up until the moment she saw Hunter stroll down the corridor
with Ryan and Taylor.

The moment
their eyes met and he grimaced before looking away, suddenly overly
interested in something Ryan was explaining.

He’d been
desperate to avoid her, even Emily could see that.

And just like
that, their ephemeral relationship was over.

It hurt so
much.

It was like
being stabbed in the heart.

Emily’s
stomach had lurched like she was in free fall, and the whole
beautiful perfect world she’d created that morning came crashing
down around her.

She truly was
the poor substitute Hunter had resigned himself to, the consolation
prize.

A provisional
kiss with an ersatz girl.

The rest of
the day was a haze.

Emily stared
into the distance, through teachers, students, friends, as if they
didn’t exist.

She felt
numb.

On the brink
of tears, forever.

Every minute
that went by felt like hours. It was all torture.

Finally, the
bell rang and Emily floated to her locker.

The hallways
were bustling with students eager to get out of school.

It was a
Friday, and for Emily at least, it had been a long week.

She unlocked
and opened her locker wearily, tossing in the books she didn't need
and pulling out the ones she had assignments or homework
for.

A general
murmur erupted behind her, passing down the hallway like wildfire,
stirring her classmates. Emily turned instinctively to follow their
stares.

The doors at
the main entrance to the school had just swung open, and a tall,
very glamorous blonde woman strutted down the hallway. Diamonds and
precious stones dripped from her fingers, neck and ears. A very
expensive looking leather handbag dangled from her arm, and her
embellished stilettos rung out through the corridor as
she walked.

Three young
men followed behind her, chatting casually to each other and
smiling and laughing. Emily's jaw dropped a little as
she recognized the trio. They were Kennedy's older
brothers.  The most handsome, chiselled, charming men she had
ever seen.

She'd admired
them from afar when they were still in high school, but she'd
barely seen them since they graduated.

They were all
blatantly related to Kennedy. Tanned, blonde, blue eyed, with a
silhouette that was synonymous with perfection. Broad
athletic shoulders, tall, toned arms; they were completely unaware
of every girl in the hallway gawping at them.

"There she
is!" Kennedy's mother shouted excitedly.

Kennedy
turned from her locker. She must've been the only girl who hadn't
immediately sunken into a state of hypnosis at the arrival of the
three young men.

"What are you
guys doing here?" she exclaimed excitedly, hugging each of her
brothers, "Why aren't you guys at college?"

Kennedy's
mother squeezed her daughter in tight hug.

"I called
them this morning, telling them to take the first flight
home."

Kennedy
looked from one face to the other, "Why? What's happened? Is
everything alright?"

Her mother
grinned delightedly.

"Your
university letters arrived this morning..." she stated, trying to
subdue her excitement.

Not one of
the five beautiful family members was aware that essentially the
whole hallway of students was listening in on their
conversation.

"Oh darling,
I'm so proud of you!"

Kennedy
looked confused, "you opened them?" she asked worriedly.

"Well I
couldn't wait for you to get home, I was too nervous! I'm glad I
did now! Accepted to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth,
Stanford, Oxford, every college you applied to!” her mother
exclaimed, blissfully unaware of the hundreds of ears straining to
overhear their conversation.

“
Come on,
we're going to celebrate!"

She took her
daughter's school bag off of her and shut her locker, before
weaving her arm through Kennedy's and leading her back towards the
door they'd come through.

Emily
suddenly felt glaringly inadequate, watching super smart and
successful Kennedy disappear into the sunset with her fabulously
awesome family.

She felt
exposed and naked, like everyone could see every ugly flaw she
possessed. She slammed her locker shut and headed to the car
park.

When she got
home her mother was sat at the kitchen table. Five envelopes were
laid out perfectly on the table.

"Did you open
them?" Emily demanded.

Her mother
shook her head violently, "I knew you would want to do it
yourself"

Emily swung
her bag off her shoulder and took a seat in an empty
chair.

She felt
sick.

She knew deep
down this wasn't going to go well, she'd always known even when she
was applying, but seeing it now on paper was the last thing she
wanted after watching the Blakewoods publicly rejoice at Kennedy's
success. 

She tore open
the first envelope, "
rejected
" she said out loud in a
monotonous tone.

"Rejected
again
" she said after ripping open the second envelope.

She pulled
open the third envelope.

"I got in…"
she said.

Her
mother squealed with excitement, "oh congratulations
sweetie! You're going to college! All your hard work has paid
off!"

Emily rolled
her eyes, "Don't get too excited mom, it's not exactly a college I
should be proud of getting into..."

Her mother
interrupted her.

"College is
college Em,” she reasoned, “As long as you finish with a degree it
doesn't matter where you go…"

Emily could
feel herself getting pissed off now.

"Yeah that's
easy for you to say, but it kind of 
does
 matter, you think I'll get
a great job with a degree from a college that no one's even heard
of?"

Her mother
pursed her lips patiently.

"Now Emily,
some high school students don't even go to college,
a lot
don't go in
fact. I bet most of the students in your grade got into
universities that are pretty much the same calibre as this
one!"

Emily felt
her self-control snap.

"Mom, do you
know Kennedy Blakewood? Well Kennedy Blakewood got into EVERY
College she applied to”

Her mother’s
mouth gaped open, on the verge of arguing back, but Emily
interrupted her.

“
Now I know
what you're going to say, she must've applied to colleges that are
easy to get into... well guess what mom, she only applied to Ivy
Leagues, Stanford and Oxford” She threw the acceptance letter down
on the table with a disgusted flick, “So excuse me if I'm not
jumping for joy at getting into the world's crappiest
college."

Her mother
was mulling things over in her head, but like so many other times,
Emily just needed someone to listen. Listen to her moan and
complain and bitch about Kennedy. About everything she had and how
easily she’d gotten it, about how unfair it all was.

She needed
someone to stop trying to argue back, to stop defending Miss
Perfect. She needed someone to let her be bitter and jealous and
angry.

But her
mother didn’t understand that.

She didn’t
understand that Emily wasn’t looking for a solution, she just
wanted to brood over the problem, and so she tried to rationalize.
She tried to fix it.

“
Well maybe
Kennedy could help you out, tutor you…”

“
I don’t need
Kennedy’s pity!” “I don’t know why you’re acting so bitterly about
this. Everyone’s capabilities are different Em. Kennedy is
obviously
very
talented. You should admire her for what she’s
achieved…”

Emily face
turned a bright shade of crimson.

“
That’s the
thing I don’t get about talent, people are criticized for not being
talented enough, apparently it means they don’t deserve success,
but surely they deserve it even more, because to get to where they
wanted to be they must’ve had to work ten times as hard as someone
exceptionally talented. The talentless dreamers slave away, working
their asses off to achieve even a fraction of the success that
comes so easily to those with talent.”

Emily’s voice
was soft and constant, like she was speaking to herself and had
forgotten her mother was even there.

“
It seems
weird to put people on a pedestal based on talent, on pure luck,
but not those who have made the conscious decision to give their
all whether they’re good at it or not, because they love what they
do that much.”

Her diatribe
was met with an uncomfortable silence from her mother, Emily
ignored the silence and continued, “Talent is God-given. Talent is
luck, talent is a gamble, and being talented is no more admirable
than being born with a pretty face or nice hair” she finished with
a sigh.

Her mother
pressed her lips together tightly, containing her rebuttal as
deftly as possible.

Emily picked
up the last envelope, glaring down at the name of the school. Very
slowly and very calmly she ripped it up in front of her mother's
eyes. "I don't even care whether I got into that one or not". She
threw the shredded pieces of paper onto the kitchen table before
thundering up the stairs to her bedroom, the injustice of life
consuming her momentarily.

It seemed so
unfair that Emily’s most far-fetched desires, her out of reach
dreams, were Kennedy’s mundane reality.

She built a
den for herself in her bed and sat watching her favourite reality
TV show, nestled desultorily in amongst the blankets and
pillows.

She must’ve
been there about two hours when there was a knock at her bedroom
door.

Emily rolled
her eyes, if her mother thought she’d be interested in anything she
had to say she had another thing coming.