No Such Thing as Perfect (4 page)

“I missed you, too. We have the whole weekend, though. Just us.”

Kristen already made arrangements to stay with another girl on our floor, whose roommate went home to get a few things she’d forgotten, so Derek and I have some privacy. I was a virgin before Derek and I began dating, but over the past year, he’s been my first kiss, my first boyfriend, and my first everything.

He leans across the table. “I don’t know about you, but I could
definitely
skip the movie.” We’re supposed to see a movie with everyone, but being close to Derek, thinking about spending time together, messes with my head. I don’t like to break plans.

“I promised, though,” I argue.

“They won’t care. Come on, Lily. We only get to see each other for a few days and then I won’t be able to come up until next month.”

“Next month?” He’d been vague when I’d asked, talking only about how much he was enjoying rugby practice and what my brother’s been up to and asking about my classes. I should’ve known he was putting off telling me something.

“Yeah, but I don’t want to focus on that,” he says, stopping the discussion before it can begin. “So why don’t we skip the movie? I’m sure your friends won’t mind. You’ll be able to spend plenty of time with them after this weekend and I know I’ve been thinking about nothing but being alone since you left.”

We’d spent the day before we left for school locked in his room all afternoon, but I wanted to talk to him tonight. I wanted advice and I wanted to introduce him to people. I wanted to make him a part of what I’m trying to start here, but he’s right and it’s not worth arguing.

“Sure, I’ll text them,” I agree. I turn off my phone after I do, because I don’t want to deal with the questions. There’s no point in trying to explain; it’s just a movie.

Derek goes back to talking, this time about a party he’d been to the night before. “Jon was a mess. You should’ve seen it,” he says and takes a bite of his burger. I continue to stir my milkshake. When Derek finishes his fries, he grabs mine from my plate. I wasn’t eating them anyway. “There were girls all over him, though, so he thought it was a success.”

“What about you?” I ask.

“What do you mean?”

“Do girls hang all over you, too?”

He pours ketchup all over my fries. They’re more splattered tomato than food now, but it doesn’t stop him from eating them. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

“Well, yeah, of course, but I behave. Don’t worry.”

“I won’t,” I lie. “I trust you.”

“You better,” he says and he finishes the last few fries before throwing money on the table. “Let’s go. I am dying to be alone with you. It’s all I’ve thought about for days.”

T
elling Derek how I felt didn’t go how I’d expected. I’d never really had a plan for it, assuming it would never amount to much. Since I had realized it myself, he was always seeing someone. Although Rebecca ended up being over quickly, it established a pattern. He would end up hooking up with someone at a party or something, date them for a while, and it would end. Sometimes it ended before he hooked up with someone else, and other times it didn’t. He earned something of a reputation, but it didn’t stop girls from trying and it didn’t change the boy I knew. Every so often we would be sitting in my house and Jon would be doing something or Derek would help my mom with the groceries or I would just look up and I would notice that the act faded for a moment. In those glimpses, short as they were, I saw the Derek I imagined and the one I loved. But that still didn’t mean I had any intention of telling him.

I’d just turned 18 and Jon had brought Derek home for the weekend for my birthday party. Because it was me, my party was me, Abby, my parents, and the guys out at Olive Garden, but I had a hard time focusing because Derek was there and he kept looking at me. I would look up from my fettuccine Alfredo to find his rich brown eyes trained on me. At one point, I nearly choked on the forkful of pasta I’d been eating because he smiled and it was the kind of smile I remembered. He saw me and it might have been the first time in four years.

Later that night, after we’d had cake and everyone had gone to bed, I sat in my room rereading the card Derek had given me. It didn’t say much and it was the kind of card you give your nephew when he turns three - it had a monkey on it and said “I’m going bananas wanting to wish you a happy birthday” – but he’d written, “I still remember that afternoon when we went camping.” I didn’t know what to make of it and I wanted to call Abby and ask her, but she’d had to go home early because she was going to her cousin’s wedding and I was sitting up alone after midnight trying to make it make sense.

When he knocked, I didn’t even think before inviting him in. I wasn’t thinking about him being in my room or my parents finding us. I just wanted to understand what he was trying to tell me. During dinner, he had been telling my mom about Jodie, a girl he was dating at school, and I wondered if he even knew how much every word hurt me.

“Hey,” he said, shutting the door behind him.

“Hi.” I held up his card. “Thanks for your card. I was just... reading it. I mean, I remember that day, too. I just didn’t think-”

I had always imagined my first kiss. In all my fantasies of it, it was with Derek, but I thought it would be romantic and I thought I’d be ready. When he came towards me, though, I froze. I didn’t move as he lifted me out of my chair and kissed me, his tongue moving inside of my mouth, and it was nothing like I’d expected. He was demanding and I wasn’t sure it was what I’d wanted or hoped for, but he smelled like he always did – a mix of soap and boy – and I wanted to stay close to him and I wanted whatever made him look at me over dinner to continue.

“What are you doing?” I asked when he stopped kissing me and smiled again.

“When did you get so damn sexy?” he asked me, his hands lifting my t-shirt and gripping my waist.

“Derek, I’ve never... I mean, I haven’t even kissed anyone before. Well, I mean, I hadn’t...”

I didn’t have the words. My parents were sleeping in the next room and I knew what happened when girls let boys into their rooms and I could hear my mother warning me about screwing up my plans and I knew she’d tell me I was acting like a slut and I should have more self-respect, but I had spent four years dreaming about Derek and I didn’t know how to say no.

“Shhh. I’ll be gentle, Lily. Come here,” he said and he led me to my bed.

It had been tough to watch him for years, knowing that he had girlfriends and thinking about what he did with them. I used to be jealous every time he would be at my house, talking about a date he went on. I heard the things he said, and I heard the stories at school. I knew they were probably true, but despite it, I couldn’t help that I wanted him to do it with me, too. But when he was there and it was something that was actually happening, I didn’t know what I wanted.

“No, wait,” I told him.

He sat up, but he didn’t let go of me and I was distracted by his hands. All of the thoughts and voices of everyone I knew were screaming inside my head. Abby telling me to go for it, that this was all I’d wanted for years. My mother lecturing me on what good girls do and don’t do. My brother and the way I used to hear him and Derek talk about girls when they didn’t know I could hear them. I didn’t want to be like those girls, but I didn’t want him to stop, either. I wanted the answer to be like school. I didn’t want to guess what was right or okay.

“What about Jodie?” I asked. “Aren’t you seeing Jodie?”

“How do you feel, Lily? What do you want? You’ve always wanted this, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but if you knew... why now?”

He kissed me again and this time I didn’t stop him when he lifted my shirt higher. “I don’t know, but when I saw you at dinner, I realized what an idiot I’d been. You’ve been right there in front of me for how long? And I just missed it. I want to make up for all that lost time. Don’t you?”

I did and he said the right things and he whispered that he loved me and that he would protect me and that it was okay to feel like this and to want this and I gave Derek everything because I thought it was what I always wanted and he promised that I was different from all the other girls.

T
he glow-in-the-dark stars look pathetic in the darkness. There are only about twelve and they don’t look like the night sky; instead they look like they got lost in the black and can’t find their way back to light.

Derek’s snoring, having fallen asleep quickly, but I can’t stop thinking. My mind is doing that thing it does when I overanalyze and make problems where there aren’t any and I want to turn it off. I want to be happy with my boyfriend’s arm draped over my body. I want the closeness to feel like it should.

Maybe I read too many books. I guess I always thought being in love would feel comfortable. It’s not that Derek doesn’t try, but sometimes I’m so afraid. If he pauses too long when I ask him if something looks okay or if his upper lip twitches like it does sometimes when I do something wrong, I can’t escape the doubt. Worry is like an endless ocean and my arms are just too tired to keep swimming.

I slip out from under his arm and head to the bathroom. I don’t really have to go, but lying in the dark room isn’t putting my mind at ease and so I pace the hall. The lights flicker, poor illumination because they’re an afterthought; dorm halls aren’t somewhere people spend their time. I consider going to find Kristen, or texting Abby even though I know she’s in some foreign city and it will cost too much and she’s probably doing amazing things. I even consider calling my parents to admit something is broken in me. But I can already hear the arguments.
I’m fine. Everything is fine.

“Scottie dogs? What a fashion statement.”

Jack’s coming out of the elevator, carrying a guitar case. I almost start to cry knowing someone is seeing me like this.

“Sorry. I was just...” I look around. I wasn’t
just
anything. I’m standing in the dim hallway by the elevator in the middle of the night wearing my pajamas.

“Yeah, I was just..., too,” he says. “Want some coffee? I hear the lounge is lovely at this hour. There’s all the Styrofoam a lady could desire.”

“I-” I’m about to tell him I have a boyfriend, that I can’t just drink coffee with him, but that’s dumb. What’s wrong with coffee? Derek’s asleep, I’m restless, and it’s just coffee. It certainly beats standing around by the elevator trying not to cry. “Sure. Coffee sounds good.”

“Awesome. Let me just drop this off and grab some, okay?” He gestures to his guitar case and I follow him. He’s just down the hall – in the guys’ wing – and I make mental note of his room number. I don’t know why I do, but it’s etched on my brain before I realize what I’m doing. 401. Jack in 401.

“Did your roommate go home for the weekend?” I ask. He opens the door, tosses his case into a dark room, rummages loudly and knocks something over, and closes it again, coffee in hand.

“I don’t have a roommate.”

“Oh. I didn’t know there were singles here.”

He stops and looks at his door, then down at his shoes. “It’s... a long story. Anyway, coffee?” When he looks up, there’s a distinct change in his expression. It’s pain wrapped in fear of acknowledging it; I know the look well.

In the lounge, he makes coffee, but the machine is old and the water is from the fountain in the hall, so the coffee just tastes like heat. There is no flavor or pleasure in drinking it, except it’s warm and it’s quiet in the lounge. Jack is picking the Styrofoam cup apart as he drains it. I don’t know why it feels like normal. I thought I knew normal, but suddenly this feels like what it should have been all along.

“So you’re not a freshman?” I ask.

“Junior.”

“Your major?”

“Game Design. And you’re English.”

“How’d you know?”

He’s finished turning the cup into pieces and he swaps the pile between his palms, looking at me the entire time. His eyes have danced through every human emotion in the few short interactions we’ve had. I didn’t know anyone had the kind of depth I see in them.

“Lucky guess. Plus you’ve read
Sense and Sensibility
several times, which seems like an English major thing to do,” he says.

“Yet you know the character names,” I point out.

“Yeah, but I’m not...” He shakes his head. I don’t know what the sentence was supposed to end with, but he’s not continuing. “Besides, you came out of Joliet Hall, which is Humanities. I suppose you could just be taking a lit class, but it seemed a decent guess.”

“Well, you’re right. I’m predictable,” I say.

“I don’t doubt that, Elinor,” he replies, but it’s not judgmental. There’s sadness in the way he says it. Regret.
Regret? Stop putting your own issues on him
, I tell myself. “So what brings you here?”

“To Bristol?”

Jack stands and throws out the Styrofoam. Each piece falls into the trash can like a heartbroken snowflake, slowly at first and then finally accepting its fate and taking the last few inches as inevitable. I watch them fall from his hands, his fingers outstretched and shaking. The ink on his arms is striking against the paleness of his skin.

“To sitting in a lounge with me in the middle of the night,” he says. “You’re predictable, as you said yourself.” He turns back towards me. “So what’s out of place?”

“Who said anything was?” I ask.

“I think I’ve misunderstood,” he says. “I didn’t mean to assume. I just thought there was something familiar in the way you were pacing.”

“How so?”

He shrugs. “I’ve spent many nights pacing, too. And a lot more feeling like it was never going to make sense. I shouldn’t have guessed that something was missing, just because it usually is for me.”

My own Styrofoam cup, now empty, pays the price. How can he see so directly into the weakest parts of me? How does he know that the pieces don’t fit? I picture my mother standing here, whispering in my ear that I’m slipping, that I’m pathetic, that I need to straighten out. I see my life and all my plans ahead of me and I feel them becoming faint outlines and I have to crush the cup to hold onto something solid.