Faking Perfect (6 page)

He exhaled, finally. “I don’t even have a heart.”

I’d thought so too, until that moment. His apparent lack of a heart was why I’d chosen him in the first place, back in September. For months, I’d studied him at school, watched him in action, witnessed him walking, making out, arguing with a different girl each week. I’d heard all the stories about him.
This guy is exactly what I need,
I’d thought.
Someone who obviously can’t handle a real, long-term relationship. Someone who never gets attached.
And I knew, even before I approached him that day in the vacant stairwell, that he’d be on board with my request to “help him study” before our first big math quiz. Knew he’d come over to my place that Wednesday afternoon, when my mother was at work. Knew he’d be okay with using my bedroom window so no one would see him enter my house. He was cool like that. Agreeable.

We didn’t even sleep together that day. It was enough just to have him in my room, this boy whose mere presence set off mini fireworks inside my stomach. He made me feel uneasy, unbalanced, alive. He made me feel wanted.

He’d wandered around my room like he owned it, poking at Trevor and eyeing the series of sketches I’d taped across the length of one wall. “In love with yourself?” he’d asked, tilting his head at the row of drawings . . . all of my face at different angles and stages of my life.

I’d put them in order because I liked to see the subsequent progression of my looks and of Nolan’s artistic skill. The older drawings were rough, childlike, the penciled features just barely recognizable as mine. The last one, done most recently, had showed an exact likeness of my face, right down to the precise spattering of freckles across my nose, unhidden by foundation.

“My friend Nolan drew them,” I’d explained.

“Is he in love with you?”

I rolled my eyes. “No. He draws all kinds of faces. Even male ones.”

“Is he gay?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”

“Are
you
gay?”

I let my eyes roam over his body, from his smirking lips right down to the zipper on his well-worn jeans. Then I looked directly into his teasing brown eyes. “What do
you
think?”

He laughed, surprised but clearly intrigued. We did study math that day, but we also made out for a while. Just testing the waters. After that, it was settled. I’d use him and he’d let me, and no one would ever know our secret. We’d have sex, but it wouldn’t mean anything because he was a total man-whore anyway. It wasn’t like he was
my
first either. No, that title went to Blake Woodward, who I’d dated the summer before tenth grade. I gave him my virginity and he dumped me a week later. Blake was one of the many reasons I’d decided to cultivate my good girl image and move on from troublemakers like him. Bad boys, exciting as they may be, would only break my heart.

But not Tyler. With him, I’d keep emotion out of it altogether. It wasn’t exactly a difficult task. He was cocky and rude and insensitive and exasperating. He’d screwed a good percentage of the female population of Oakfield High. He did drugs and smoked and drank too much and drove like a maniac. He was a total douchebag, just like Emily had warned me, and whenever I was with him I wondered how it was possible that he could disgust me and turn me on, all at the same time.

Like right now, for instance.

“It’s time to go, Tyler,” I told him again. The words scraped past my throat, slow and raspy.

“Not yet.” He took my almost-empty can from me, dropped his cigarette in it, and placed it on the nightstand. Then he held both my hands, urging me over onto his lap.

I went. Even after all these months, he still made me feel uneasy, unbalanced, and alive.

“We can’t keep doing this,” I said, settling my legs on either side of his hips and pressing into him.

He didn’t answer. His fingers tangled in my hair as he lowered his mouth to my neck, seeking out the sensitive spot under my ear. I clutched the back of his shirt, bunching it up in my fists and pulling until my palms met warm skin. He did the same to me, yanking my T-shirt up and over my head like it was on fire and I’d burn if he didn’t get it off me right this second. Then his hands were on my waist, lifting and twisting me until I was splayed out on my back on the bed. He hovered over me and I closed my eyes, skin tingling, impatient to find out where his lips would land next. I felt them brush against my stomach, feather-light and familiar.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled against my hipbone.

Was he was sorry because he’d said those words or sorry because he’d meant them? Right then, I didn’t really care.

Chapter Six

A
few days later, Nolan appeared at my locker as I loaded up my backpack after school. He pressed his shoulder against the locker next to mine. “Hey, Lex. Mom wanted me to invite you over for Sunday dinner.”

I smiled up at him. “Oh? Since when do I need an invitation?”

He shrugged and scratched at his chest. He was wearing a black T-shirt with the words
I never finish anyth
across the front in white letters. “Beats me. She told me before I left this morning to invite you. I just remembered five minutes ago.”

“Well, tell her thanks and I accept.” I turned back to my open locker. I’d eaten more meals at the Bruces’ table than at my own, but formal invitations were typically reserved for holidays and birthdays. As far as I knew, there were no special occasions happening at the end of March.

“She said to come over at around four and—what are you doing with
that
?”

I glanced down at the bottle of red poster paint in my hand. Quickly, I stuffed it into my backpack. “Nothing.”

Nolan crossed his arms and leaned over to peer into my locker where a box of markers and several more bottles of paint sat in plain sight on the top shelf. “Since when do you paint?” he asked with a snicker. He knew as well as I did that I could barely paint my nails without making a mess, let alone a decipherable picture. When we were little, my drawings and crayoned masterpieces looked like chicken scratch next to his. Even now, when I colored with Grace, I went outside the lines.

I moved my locker door until it blocked his view inside. “I, um . . . I’m helping one of my friends with some posters.”

“What kind of posters?”

I spotted Amber at the other end of the hallway, heading toward us. Relieved, I waved at her. Nolan looked in the direction of my gaze and I used the distraction to sweep the rest of the art supplies into my backpack.

“What’d I miss?” Amber said when she reached us. Her purple-streaked brown hair was twisted into tight knots on either side of her head.

“Lexi is making posters,” Nolan said in the same tone he might use for
Lexi is murdering kittens
.

“What kind of posters?” Amber asked.

“Hey, I’m sorry about your grandmother,” I told her. I hadn’t seen her since Nolan told me about her grandmother’s death. She’d been out of school for a few days.

“Thanks.” Her mouth quivered and I instantly regretted bringing it up. Grandparent-grandchild relationships were totally foreign to me. My mother’s parents had been dead for years and I didn’t remember my paternal grandparents. All I had of them was the quilt on my bed, made for me by my father’s mother and one of the only items from his side of the family that made the move with us across the country. That and my middle name.

Nolan reached over to squeeze Amber’s hand and she glanced up at him, her lips curling into a tiny smile. In spite of being total opposites—or maybe
because
of—they looked really cute together. While Nolan was over six feet tall and wore mostly black, Amber barely skimmed the five foot mark and everything about her was colorful. Her hair, her makeup, her clothes, the dozens of patterned bracelets she wore up each arm. She was a walking rainbow. Even the bands on her braces changed color every few weeks.

“So what kind of posters?” she asked again, smile back in place. “I didn’t know you painted.”

Nolan snorted and I gave him a quick jab to the shoulder. “I don’t. It’s just posters about food donations. Student council is collecting non-perishables for the food bank.”

“You’re not on student council,” Nolan pointed out.

I shut my locker and slung my backpack over my shoulder. “I know. Someone I know who
is
on the student council asked me if I wanted to help with the posters. That’s all.”

“Lex, you can’t even form intelligible letters with a ballpoint pen. Why would you agree to make an entire—”

“Ready, Lexi?”

All three of us spun around to see Ben standing a few feet away, his arms loaded with poster paper. My face started to burn and I hoped with everything in me that he hadn’t heard the last exchange.

“Ah,” Nolan said, all caught up to speed. He cleared his throat and I could tell he was trying not to laugh. My interest in poster-making suddenly made sense. That’s the problem with lifelong friends—they know you far too well.

I turned back to Ben. His eyes skimmed over Nolan like he blended into the lockers before coming to rest on me.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” I said, walking toward him. As I passed by Nolan, I shot him a withering glare.

Ignoring me, he lifted his chin at Ben in that ’
sup
gesture guys do and then he and Amber headed in the opposite direction, hand in hand.

“I got the supplies from the art room,” I said as Ben and I made our way to room 216, the ad hoc spot for the student council meeting.

“Great.” Ben sounded distracted and harried. He transferred the paper to his other arm and sighed. Practically running the school really stressed him out sometimes, no matter how capable he tried to appear. “I never would have asked you to do this if half the reps weren’t out sick with that flu.”

“It’s no problem.” However, it might become a problem when he saw my shoddy posters. I knew Ben liked things done a certain way, meaning
adequately
. “Um, why can’t you use the computer to make these posters?”

We reached room 216 and Ben held the door open for me. “Poster paint and markers are way cheaper than printer ink.”

I should have guessed. Our school board was notoriously stingy. I went into the room ahead of Ben, inhaling his soapy-clean scent as I passed. He always smelled like a cross between clothesline-dried bed sheets and fresh-cut grass. Like summer.

“So,” Ben said, plunking the paper onto a table with a swift bang. “We want the posters to say something like Oakfield Food Bank needs donations. Drop off your nonperishable items in the main office by April fifth. You can get creative too, if you want. Paint some soup cans or whatever.”

Seeing as how any soup can I painted would resemble a giant blob of nothing, it was best not to get too inventive.
Stick with the words,
I told myself. I could spell, most of the time. Nolan was right, though . . . my handwriting was barely legible.

Ben left me to my posters and went to join a large group of students gathered together in one corner of the room. From where I was, it sounded like they were deep in discussion about the upcoming talent show. The only other people making posters besides me were two freshman girls who were doing more giggling than working and one pimply sophomore guy whose poster already looked like cool graffiti art. Nolan would have loved it.

Speaking of Nolan, I could have used his artistic talents right then. My poster was starting to resemble a kindergartener’s art project. My letters didn’t seem to want to go straight. Still, every time I asked myself why I was sitting there, breathing in stuffy school air and cheap paint, I’d peek over at Ben. Because he was student council president, he spent most of the afternoon presiding over the group’s discussions. When he wasn’t presiding, he was working the room, speaking to individual people and conferring with Mr. Isaacs, the teacher advisor. I could totally picture Ben in politics someday, but he had even bigger dreams. He planned to major in economics in college so he could someday make a living helping people in impoverished countries. Like I’d said—perfect.

At one point, he came over to check on us. He put his hand on the back of my chair, leaning over my shoulder to inspect my progress. His summer scent surrounded me and I felt a fluttering in my chest. Being around Tyler did things to my stomach, but Ben affected my heart.

“Not bad,” Ben told me, and he sounded like he actually meant it. He was nothing if not diplomatic.

“Thanks,” I replied, frowning at my poster.
Bad
was the only part of his comment that applied.

He moved on to the pimply guy and I noticed the two freshman girls watching his every move, their hands fidgeting anxiously with their markers. I remembered being their age, ogling senior guys and thinking they looked
so old
, like men. When it came to Ben, I understood their nervousness. Not only was he good-looking in a wholesome, slightly nerdy kind of way, he also gave off an air of authority that made people want to please him. Even me.
Especially
me, as evidenced by the splotches of red marker on my hands.

An hour and several lopsided lines later, it was time to go home. Ben came over to thank me for my help and to ask me if I’d be available to finish the posters tomorrow at lunch.

“Sure,” I said . . . because he was Ben and I was a sucker for punishment.

“You’re a lifesaver, Lexi.”

I shrugged modestly. That was me, Lifesaver Lexi to the rescue.

A cute blond girl who I recognized as one of the eleventh grade council representatives walked up to us then and bumped her hip against Ben’s. He turned to her, smiling for possibly the first time all afternoon, and wrapped an arm around her waist. I struggled to keep my reaction from showing on my face.
Of course,
I thought.
Of course he has someone else already.
Kyla had been history for over a week, after all.

“Have you guys met?” Ben asked, glancing at me for a second and then returning his gaze to the beaming girl beside him. She was exactly his type.