Perfectly Flawed (12 page)

“A date.”

I snort in derision. Very ladylike, I might
add.

He can’t be serious.

“What is it?” Zephyr practically growls
through clenched teeth. Why’s he so angry all of a sudden?

“Shut it, would ya,” I snap at Zephyr,
shooting him a glare. “You’re not serious? You can’t be?” The more
that I argue with him, the more that it’ll become true.

“Like a heart attack,” answers Ryder in a
voice that
sounds
serious, but I can’t see him. I don’t know
what he looks like; I don’t know what he’s thinking. Again, I’m not
a mind reader.

“Well, I’m sorry to waste your time, Ryder,”
I begin, looking over to a seething Zephyr who can’t feign
indifference to save his life. “But there’s no way that I’m
agreeing to that.”

“Doing what?” Zephyr asks, annoyingly loud,
definitely trying to be heard on Ryder’s end.

I reach my arm out to smack him in the back
of the head but he backs away. My arm just swings through the air
fruitlessly, slicing through strands of his hair.

“Why not?” asks Ryder on the other line. He
sounds hurt, genuinely. I still don’t feel bad about it. There are
many things that I’d rather do than date him. Most of them are
quite painful but more enjoyable than an evening spent with
Ryder.

Let’s just be honest here. That’s always
good. “Because I don’t really like you,” I answer. “Not as a
person, not as a romantic interest. Not if you were made out of
money and sneezed gold coins.”

“Ouch,” Ryder exclaims loudly. I can still
hear the chuckling when he calms down, he isn’t hurt that bad. “You
don’t even know me, honey.”

Honey?

“You don’t even
know
me,” I retort
acerbically. “And don’t call me
honey
.”

“Sorry, I promise I will only call you by
your name—”

“That’s all I ask,” I snap angrily, cutting
him off before he can finish.

“And I’m trying to get to know you,
Joey
,” he tells me, mockingly. I roll my eyes, stifling the
urge to just hang up. It’s a very strong urge. “Can’t you tell by
now? The fact that I don’t know anything about you, well, that’s
something I’m trying to change.” He sounds like he’s begging—his
voice dripping with desperation—which is funny. I snicker.

Sweet baby Jesus, seriously, someone just gag
me with a spoon.

Be still my heart
.

“There really is nothing you can do to remedy
that—”

“What’s going
on
, Joey?” Zephyr
annoyingly whines like a five year old whose been denied a cookie
for dinner. I roll my eyes for the umpteenth friggin’ time this
evening.

“—so I suggest you stop.” I shoot Zephyr an
angry glance. “I’m hanging up now.” Before he can object, I click
the red dot on my screen, turn my phone to silent, and drop it
among the clutter, letting it get lost beneath the papers. I should
just block his number but that means that I would have to add his
number to my contact list and it doesn’t stop him from texting or
leaving voicemail messages.

Ugh!

With a sigh, I turn my attention back to my
notes, trying to forget the previous exchange I just had with
Ryder. Though, I know Zephyr isn’t going to let this go. No matter
how much I hope he will.

“Are you going to answer me?” Zephyr asks.
His arms are folded defiantly across his broad chest as he stares
me down from his side of the table.

“About Franz Ferdinand or Austria-Hungary in
general?” I reply, avoiding the obvious. In my hand, I hold up a
sheet from my notes. He doesn’t look amused.

I didn’t think he would.

“You know what I mean. Harrison.” Zephyr
leans forward, resting his forearms on the table, staring me
intently in the eyes. His eyes burn into mine, his usually dark
brown eyes growing darker as he examines me. “What did he
want?”

I roll my eyes openly in front of him when he
doesn’t back away. “I don’t know,” I mumble angrily. That isn’t
really true. So I say, “A date.” I shrug and look back to my notes
as if I’m not affected by it. I don’t want to be affected by it, I
want to move on. But I know this isn’t over. Far from it.

“Why?”

And there’s the dreaded follow up
question.

Can he not just let it go?

I turn my gaze to him, deadpan. “Because some
people in this world, believe it or not, think I’m attractive,
Zephyr.” That seemed to shock him, throw him back a bit.

He nervously runs his hands through his hair.
“I didn’t say that you’re not
attractive
, Joey, it’s just…”
Zephyr leans further away, shielding his eyes. Did he just blush?
He pauses, trying to chose his words carefully—knowing that I’ll
throw something at him if they’re the wrong choice—then he
continues with, “he dates the Alexia type. That shallow, vapid,
self-absorbed cheerleader with access to an AmEx and a Beamer.”

Need I remind Zephyr, my good buddy, that
he
also dates the Alexia type? Or just
the
Alexia.
For two years.

“Where are you going with this, Zeph?” I pop
the tab on my Mountain Dew, surprised that he didn’t shake it when
I wasn’t looking, causing the yellow liquid geysers me in the face,
and take a long drink from the cool can. It fizzles and tickles
down my throat, bubbling as it glides toward its destination.

“Girls with no depth, with no sense of what
they want or who they are,” he starts, trying to paint a picture of
the girls that I’ve been forced to see daily for the past eight or
so years. I could smack him, I know those girls
very
well.
“Harrison chooses them, not because they’re painted to simulate
beauty, but because they’re easy.” Tell me something I don’t know,
Sherlock. “He doesn’t need tricks to get them into his bed.” Zephyr
glances toward my phone; the little green light flashes in the
upper right corner, alerting me to a text message. “He’s up to
something; Harrison never chooses girls who can think for
themselves.”

“Thanks?” I draw out, muttering in question,
not entirely sure if he is complimenting me because I’m my own
person with a working brain or warning me from Ryder in general. I
think
the former. I reach for my HTC blinking at me, turning
on the screen.

Unknown Number:
Please!!! Just one
date?

Must be Ryder. Damn it.

Me:
No!

Unknown Number:
I won’t stop
trying.

And,
damn
, the boy meant it. The next
day at lunch, with Harley at home with food poisoning—swearing
never to touch another piece of sushi again. She’s been sending me
very descriptive texts on the hour, every hour, and now I think
I’ll
never go near sushi again myself—it’s just me and
Kennie at our usual table. She’s wearing her uniform, midriff
bearing and showcasing her long, tanned legs. I nearly scream at
her—
nearly
because I try my hardest to keep my voice
low—about giving my number to Ryder and she tells me that she did
no such thing.

“Kennie, just be honest with me,” I tell her
in the hall as we walk toward the cafeteria.

She looks me directly in the eyes, stopping
me where I stand, and tells me, “I would never, ever give out your
number without your permission, Joey.”

Well, I can’t argue with that.

Then how did he get my number?

And why would he tell me that Kennie gave it
to him?

Both very good questions.

For the rest of lunch, I use my tutor skills
to help Kennie with her Algebra II homework. She’s struggling with
the quadratic equation; it’s easy for me. I remember the stupid
song we learned in eighth grade math.
X equals negative b, plus
or minus the square root…

Somewhere in the large room, music starts to
play over the loudspeaker, and the voices quiet down as people seek
out the source. I recognize the song immediately, Snow Patrol’s
Just Say Yes
. It’s a good song but why in the world is it
playing during lunch?

“Isn’t it a bit early for people to start
asking others to Homecoming?” Kennie asks me, her eyes searching
the crowd for the lucky, unsuspecting girl.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that, Miss Spirit
Squad?” I reply, tapping my pen on the tabletop, hearing the
click
,
click
,
click
ing of plastic on plastic.
“Just ignore it, let’s finish this problem.”

We turn our attention back to her homework
right when the singing starts.

Okay, so
singing
is too nice of a word
for what we are hearing. The voice is loud and off key, scratchy
and high pitched. It reminds me of a cross between someone
strangling a cat and sending a chipmunk through a wood chipper.

What is worse, I still recognize the
horrible, horrible voice. I spoke to it on the phone last
night.

Is this what he meant when he said that he
wouldn’t stop trying?

Oh, sweet Jesus!

Ryder Harrison steps from the ASB office
holding a single red rose. Surrounding him are other senior
football players—all wearing their jerseys since it’s game day—all
of them holding two roses of various colors alternating from yellow
to pink to white, but he’s the only one holding red. They line up
to hand the flowers to me, my hands growing heavier from the weight
of the flowers. There are at least twenty dudes handing me
roses.

As nice and awkward as this gesture is, I
really don’t like roses, I think they’re cliché and overrated.

Ryder walks up to me, the de facto leader of
the group, finishing the last line of the first verse, handing me
the rose. He then holds out his now-free hand to me, the lyrics of
the song asking me to take it.

I can see Zephyr at his table on the other
side of the cafeteria, wearing his own varsity jersey, standing up
as he watches what is happening to me. With his arms folded across
his chest, his muscles peek out from beneath the sleeves. His face
doesn’t hold a happy expression; he looks pissed—enraged even.

As am I.

I look to other people in the cafeteria.
Jamie is seated one table away from Zephyr; Marcus’ arm around her
shoulders, as she smiles widely at me, giving me a thumbs up. Her
friends all smile sweetly, they probably think that I’m the
luckiest girl in the room because someone—Ryder, of all people—is
serenading me in front of the entire school. Or the entirety of
fifth period lunch.
Blech
. Other girls, apparently thinking
this is beautiful and romantic, swoon as Ryder butchers—I mean
sings to me. The girls that don’t like me scowl and wish that Ryder
would give this type of attention to them.

They can have it.

A few people can see this for what it is:
embarrassing. These people are laughing as hard as I would if this
were happening to someone else.

But it’s not. It’s happening to me. Right
here, right now, in front of witnesses with camera phones and
YouTube apps on those phones.

Crap, I’ll be a viral hit by dinner.

Thank you, Ryder. I really appreciate
this.

I want to tackle Ryder to the ground. I want
to tackle him so hard this his grandchildren’s grandchildren will
feel it and know
never
to do this sort of thing to anyone.
Ever. Instead, I snatch the microphone from his hands, instantly
clicking it off—he should never sing again. Not even to his
showerhead—and after slamming the microphone onto the lunch table
directly in front of Kennie with enough force that I hear the tiny
appliance crack, I drag Ryder through the back doors and into the
quad by the sleeve of his jersey.

“What the
hell
is wrong with you,
dude?” I yell, alerting the attention of everyone in the quad to
us. Most of the surrounding people are stoners so they immediately,
and thankfully, dismiss the outburst. “Are there a few wires in
that thick head of yours touching that shouldn’t be?”

“I told you last night that I wouldn’t stop
trying.” He smirks at me, winking. That’s just disgusting. “I can
keep this serenade thing going, you know, Joey. I have it all
planned out.” He lifts up his hand to start listing things off. “On
Monday, I was thinking Carly Rae Jepsen, then on Tuesday, some
Justin Bieber—because everyone loves the Biebs—and on Wednesday I’d
sing some Taylor Swift. On Thursday, I was thinking that new Selena
Gomez song, it’s perfect for our situation, but Friday—”

“STOP!” I yell. My hands lift up, ready to
strangle him if he doesn’t stop talking. This is something that I
really,
really
need to think about. Now, he’s basically
admitting to wanting to torture me with music—which is not a good
thing—if I refuse him. If I do agree to the date, it’s only one
night, a few hours of my life. Maybe I should just agree even if I
really don’t want to. What’s the harm, really? “I’ll go out with
you,” I relent quietly; admitting defeat, damn it.

“Seriously?” Ryder’s eyes widen. He looks
shocked. He looks like he didn’t expect me to cave so quickly.

“Yes, if it means that I never, ever, have to
hear you sing again.” I heave out a loud, rough, exaggerated sigh.
“I will. One date.” The sound of his shrill squealing is on
constant repeat in my brain. “No one should hear you sing. Ever
again.”

“That bad, huh?” Seething, knowing that I’ve
just been tricked into a date, well, practically tricked. More like
manhandled into a date with Ryder, I shoot him a look filled with
metaphorical daggers that should answer his question. “I guess we
won’t hit up a karaoke joint, then.”

***

Ryder wanted our first date—and only date, I
quickly added before he thought that this was anything more than a
onetime occurrence —to start directly after the football game. I
had to nip that thought in the bud. If he actually thought I was
the type of girl to attend football games and root for my school
with one of these overgrown pom poms, he doesn’t know me at
all—which, in all honesty, he’s already admitted that he doesn’t
know me at all, go figure. So our date is on Saturday—that’s
tonight. I’m not exactly excited about it but I don’t want to live
through a poorly executed episode of
Glee
, so it’s better
that I agree to a date now to save myself further embarrassment in
the future.