How To Be A Perfect Girl (24 page)

Fortunately Dylan’s
condition didn’t seem that bad; “I don’t know for sure. I think
once we clean it up he should be okay. Most of the blood is coming
from a cut
here
,”
she pointed to where Dylan’s aggressor had somehow managed to
separate the edge of his nostril from his face. “Do you have a rag
or something I could use to clean him up?” Val asked; she breathed
deeply to fight the wave of nausea that washed over her as she
looked at the blood seeping out from the cuts on Dylan’s
face.

“Yeah, I’ll go get one,” Aaliyah left to
grab a rag while the rest of the crowd dispersed; with the fight
over, they apparently no longer cared. Quite a few exited, leaving
the living room half-empty; a speaker in the corner filled the room
with pop music.

“Here,” Aaliyah plopped on the floor next to
Val and offered her two towels; one white and one maroon. “I got a
first aid kit too; it has all different sizes of bandages.”

“I think we’d better use the brown one,” Val
reasoned.

“Why?”

“His blood would stain the white one.”

“Oh, right,” Aaliyah looked about as sick as
Val felt.

“If you want, I’ll clean him up—you can go
see if anything got damaged in the fight.” Val placed a hand on
Dylan’s chest to support her while she leaned in with the maroon
towel. At first she dabbed his entire face, but as the welling
blood cleared she saw that her initial assumption had been correct;
most of the blood was coming from only one or two cuts. She popped
the first aid kit open and fit a bandage over Dylan’s nose; the
white pad reddened quickly. As Val put a large patch of gauze over
a thin, long cut on Dylan’s cheek, she felt him stir.

When Val finished with the last bandage,
Dylan laughed—although it sounded as much like a groan as a laugh,
“Of all the people to be patching me up, I never would have guessed
it was you.”

Val snorted, “Yeah, after you made fun of my
nose and were so mean to me—but it was the nice thing to do.”

Dylan sat up; he grimaced so widely the
bandage on his nose nearly fell off, “I guess you think I got what
was coming to me.”

Val nodded, “That thought certainly occurred
to me.”

“Well, maybe I did. I picked on the wrong
guy and he—he turned out to be completely psycho.” Dylan paused, a
look of genuine gratitude on his face, “Thank you, by the way.”

“Don’t mention it. I didn’t really do it for
you, anyway.”

“Then who’d you do it for?”

“Aaliyah. If we had to take you to the
hospital or something, that would have been really bad for her.”
Val left unsaid that it would still be bad for Aaliyah, if Dylan’s
parents asked what had happened to his face.

Dylan just nodded, “Either way, I still owe
you one. Hey, you think you could help me walk to my car?”

“Do you think you’re in a condition to
drive?”

“Sure,” Dylan smiled through his
bandage-mask, “It doesn’t take that much strength to drive.”

“Hold on,” Val frowned, “Isn’t illegal for
you to drive at night, if you have a learner’s license?”

“It is,” Dylan admitted, “But what’s life
without a little risk?”

“Safe,” Val giggled at her joke, “But okay,
I’ll help you.” She let him put an arm on top of her shoulders, and
together they hobbled to a white sedan. Dylan slid his key in and
Val helped him plop down in the seat.

“Hey,” Dylan said, as if something had just
occurred to him, “Do you want a ride home?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” Val bit her lip as she
considered whether riding with her erstwhile enemy would be safe.
“Let me just grab my purse—I’ll be back in a bit!”

“Okay, I’ll wait.”

Val retrieved her purse and said her
goodbyes to the few remaining partyers, including Aaliyah, who was
busy dabbing at a trickle of blood that had found its way onto the
hall carpet.

“Let’s go,” she said as she sat down in
Dylan’s passenger seat and buckled her seatbelt.

“Yup,” Dylan agreed. He turned the ignition
and backed out of the cul-de-sac where Aaliyah’s house was. They
hardly spoke as Dylan drove; Val because she wasn’t sure where she
stood with Dylan after acting as his caretaker, and Dylan because
he was preoccupied with his injuries, or so Val assumed.

Chapter 16

Val suppressed a yawn as Miss Stevens
explained something called the “substitution method”; it wasn’t
that she was tired, just that the whole subject was boring. Sunday
had been blissfully uneventful—after the events of Friday and
Saturday, Val had been happy to spend the whole day at home.

“Hey, Val, did you hear what happened to
Dylan at Aaliyah’s party?” Alex whispered, quietly enough that Miss
Stevens didn’t notice.

“Yeah,” Val tried to keep her voice as low
as Alex, “I actually saw it happen. Dylan was pretty beat up.”

Alex nodded, “That’s what I heard. Carrie,
you were there too, right?”

Their geeky friend looked up from her
notebook, “Just for a few minutes. It wasn’t my kind of party.”

“Oh, it was so fun though,” Alex grinned in
lieu of laughing, which would have drawn Miss Stevens’ attention,
“You know it’s a good party when there’s a fight at the end. I
prefer a catfight, but oh well.”

“Do a lot of parties end like that?” Val
asked.

“Well, I haven’t been to that many,” Alex
admitted, “There just weren’t that many in middle school. But what
I’ve learned about parties is they tend to come in one of two
flavors; crazy nights that everyone talks about afterwards, or
boring gatherings where everyone sits around until they can leave
without offending the host or hostess.”

“And this was the first one?” Val guessed;
she gritted her teeth as Miss Stevens turned from the whiteboard,
looking at their group.

“Oh yeah. I mean, I’m happy it was Dylan
getting beat up, instead of someone I actually care about.”

“Mr. Hitchens!” Miss Stevens glared at Alex
and Val, “Is there something you’d like to share?”

“Naw, I’m good,” Alex smiled.

“Then may I please return to my lesson?”

“Hmm, I suppose. Proceed, Miss Stevens.” Val
nearly gasped; Alex’s response was about the worst she could
imagine. Responding to her question seriously—and pretending he
thought she was really asking for his permission—was beyond Alex’s
usual level of insubordination.

Miss Stevens exhaled loudly; after a few
seconds she turned back to the whiteboard and resumed her lesson.
Alex tried to start their conversation up again, but Val refused to
let him; she restricted herself to non-vocal responses, and soon
enough Alex got tired of carrying on a whispered conversation with
himself.

Miss Stevens lectured right up to the bell;
“Oh darn,” she said in a tone that struck Val as not-quite-sincere,
“I guess I’ll have to assign your in-class work for the day as
homework. So here’s your in-class work, and your homework, both due
tomorrow.” The class groaned; Val noticed more than a few dirty
looks directed Alex’s way, no doubt assuming Miss Stevens was
punishing them for his behavior.

Geography was as boring as always; Mr.
Andrews mentioned something about a group project coming up, but
Val hardly remembered what he said. She took notes on the day’s
subject, even though it probably wouldn’t be on any tests or
quizzes. One boy—Val thought she remembered him from Homeroom—had
derailed Mr. Andrews from his planned lesson by asking about how
the Nepalese used the geography around them to their benefit, a
subject the teacher seized on; he spoke about it the entire
hour.

Val received a text from Scarlett on the way
to Homeroom, “You made it!” She knew it referred to soccer; the
news made her smile as she walked into Miss Hughes’ room.

“What are you so happy about?” Carrie asked,
noticing Val’s smile.

“I made the soccer team!” Val grinned
wider.

Carrie nodded, “Cool. Congrats.”

Aaliyah’s response was closer to Val’s,
“That’s wonderful! You really wanted that, right?”

“Oh yeah,” Val laughed, “You have no
idea.”

“Oh, I do,” Aaliyah embraced Val, “By the
way, thanks for helping Dylan get patched up and get home after my
party. I know he’s not your favorite person, but it was nice of you
to do.”

“You’re welcome.” Val glanced around the
room, “Speaking of the spawn of Satan, where is he?”

“Not here today,” Aaliyah said, “It makes
sense; I’d take a few days off, too, if that had happened to
me.”

“What exactly happened?” Carrie asked, “I
left before the fight.”

Val shrugged, “Dylan insulted the wrong
person, and from what I gathered the boy he was insulting was—a
little violent.”

“Yeah, that’s about it,” Aaliyah agreed,
“Serves him right too, the way he insults you. I bet you were happy
that he finally got what was coming to him.”

Val frowned, “You know
what? I’m really not—I guess I just don’t like seeing anyone hurt,
even if it
was
Dylan.”

“I get that,” Aaliyah sighed, “You should’ve
seen what the house was like by the time my parents came home.”

“Oh? Was it really dirty?”

“No, the opposite. It was so immaculate, my
mom asked if I spent the whole time cleaning—which I pretty much
did,” Aaliyah laughed, “I vacuumed the carpets and hallways four
times, and blotted that one spot Dylan bled on more than I care to
remember. It was a fun party, though, wasn’t it?”

“For sure,” Val smiled, “Although, next time
I wish you’d warn me before I almost get dragged into a strip poker
game. I was like legitimately freaking out for a minute or so
there.”

Aaliyah laughed, “Yeah, sorry about that. I
didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Well I mean, you saw how bad I was. I
would’ve lost all my clothes in a second.”

“That’s a good point. But on the other hand,
it’s not like you should be ashamed of your body.”

Carrie looked actively distressed by their
conversation, “I’m with Val on this. Playing games like that is
just—immature.”

“It may be immature, but sometimes being
immature can be fun,” Aaliyah argued, “It was just an innocent
game.”

Val was torn between the two; she wasn’t
sure she agreed with Carrie, but on the other hand the game on
Friday hadn’t seemed so innocent. “If I were to play strip poker or
a game like that,” she said, “I’d want to do it with guys I knew
really well, and trusted to—like not brag to their friends or
something.”

Aaliyah laughed, “Okay, next time we do it,
I’ll let you hand pick who we play with. Sound good?”

“Sounds good.”

The rest of the half-period rushed by; Val
was surprised that she had become such good friends with Aaliyah in
such a short time, although she reasoned that their personalities
were so similar that the friendship made sense.

Everyone seemed interested in what had
happened at Aaliyah’s party—even Keenan asked about it in
Italian—and as a result Val got tired of telling the story. In
Chemistry, Keenan tried to press Val for more details—like why
she’d allowed Dylan to drive her home, and what her parents had
said when she appeared home without getting a ride from Dad—but Val
repeated the same vague answers she’d given earlier.

After the end of school, Val took longer
than usual putting her things back in her bag; Mr. Phillips’ lesson
of the day had required a calculator, and Val was having trouble
getting hers to shut down. She finally decided to put it away
without turning it off, figuring it would shut down by itself when
the batteries ran out. Val looked up to find that the only other
people still in the room were Jenny and Mr. Phillips; Jenny
approached the teacher’s desk.

“Mr. Phillips,” Jenny said, “Can I change
seats?”

Val gulped, and headed for the exit; she was
almost certain that the reason Jenny wanted to move was because of
her.

“Why do you want to move, Miss Curtis?” Mr.
Phillips asked.

“I can’t see the board. There’s—glare.”

Val’s hand closed around the handle; she
tried to open the door quietly.

“There aren’t any windows in this room, Miss
Curtis. I don’t see how there could be glare. But, I suppose, if
you can’t see—“ Val left the room before he finished his sentence;
part of her wanted to stay to find out how the conversation would
go, but she felt it would be wrong to intrude any more than she had
to.

The conversation must have ended soon after
Val left; less than a minute after Val sat in her usual seat in the
cafeteria for Student Gov, Jenny joined her. She tried to sit with
the Trio, although the three girls were barely welcomed her.

Sophia quickly struck up a conversation, “So
Val, we have to start planning the Homecoming dance. Do you have
any ideas?”

Val nodded, “A few. I was thinking we should
have a theme—“

“Of course we should have a theme!” Jenny
interrupted, “What kind of dance doesn’t have a theme? Geeze Val,
you’re so brilliant.”

Val gritted her teeth and ignored the other
girl, “But it should be something that’s not usually done. I was
thinking like a ‘Luck of The Irish’ night or something, cause our
school color is green—“ she trailed off, unsure how her friends
would respond.

“I dunno,” Ella looked off into the
distance, “I can’t really see it.”

“Yeah,” Zoey agreed, “What would we do to
make it Irish?”

“Well we could all wear green, and like four
leaf clovers and—“

“Dumb,” Jenny interrupted again.

“I’m just trying to come up with ideas,” Val
huffed, “It’s not like I think this is the best idea ever. I’m just
trying to get the ball rolling.”

“I think it could work,” Grant came to Val’s
rescue, “Personally, I think wearing a green tux would be
cool.”

“Yeah,” Alex smiled,
“That
would
be
cool. And you could think of other things like that that would be
related, you know. Like get U2 to play a couple of
songs.”