Perfectly Flawed (16 page)

I want to punch her. My hand eagerly itched
to punch her.

And that’s just from sight. She hasn’t really
said or done anything to me… yet.

“I’m here with Ryder,” I tell her, standing
my ground, crossing my arms and backing away from the wall I was
leaning against as I watched the party grow progressively dumber
and drunker.

The wall makes me look weak. I am
not
weak. Now now.

“Oh,” she begins quietly, her eyes searching
around the room—for Ryder, perhaps?—but they land back on me filled
to the lash with hatred. “I heard about that,” she tells me,
scowling at the thought that I could date her ex-boyfriend. “I
don’t see what he sees in you.”

Neither do I but I won’t say that out loud in
front of her.

“Is that jealousy I hear?” I ask. My hand
cups my ear and I lean closer, giving a sarcastic illusion. You
know the spiel. “Because, surely Alexia Cavanaugh—head cheerleader,
Homecoming Princess—can’t be jealous of little Joey
Archembault?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snaps at me,
waving her hand through the air, her way of dismissing me. She
takes one step closer to me and leans forward so her mouth is next
to my ear. As she breathes, I can feel her moist, sticky breath
against my ear. “If I wanted him, I’d still have him, honey,” she
whispers, I can hear the malice, the anger, seeping into the tone
of her voice. She is near seething.

The mere thought of me and Ryder is enough to
force her to threaten me.

Now, I’m sure you are wondering how this
little feud started. I’m still wondering the same thing myself nine
years later. On my first day of school here in Washington, the
teacher announced to my future class—before I even stepped through
the door—that I was fragile and in need of friends.
Thanks
teach.
Other than Zephyr, who was in a different third grade
class, I had no one. There was no little child on my side when I
stepped through the large door.

Alexia was in my third grade class and she
was the spawn of Satan. She would kick my chair away from me before
I sat down, she would tape signs on my back, she even stole my
glasses once. I had to get a new pair because no one could find
them. Jamie tried to handle her, tried to change her, to no avail.
Her hatred for me just stuck. I still don’t understand why she
hates me so much—she’s never had the courtesy to tell me.

“Uh huh,” I reply as I cross my arms and take
a large step forward. I try and intimidate her, stand a little
taller, look a little meaner. It would be so much easier if she
weren’t taller than me by at least four inches sans heels.

We stand like that for a full minute, maybe
two, just staring at each other, sizing the other up, before she
backs away, taking a long pull from the beer in her hand, the beer
that I didn’t see in her hand, the beer that could’ve been my hat
had this ended horribly. Thankfully, I won’t have a beer shower
tonight. Not yet.

“Nice to see you, dear,” she says with a
smile, taking a step back to disappear into the drunken crowd.

Rolling my eyes, I pull my HTC Sensation from
my pocket to send Zephyr a quick text. Mostly, it’s for my
entertainment—I’m bored.

Me:
If I ever agree to do this again, you
have my permission to slap some sense into me!

That should be enough to let him know how
horribly this date is going. Trust me, if I could be anywhere on
this planet—the opening of the Mariana Trench, the Sahara Desert,
the eye of a tornado—I’d be there.

Zephyr:
Do I need to inflict some
pain?

His instant reply makes me giggle. No one
notices.

Me:
Easy, Thor. It’s okay, you don’t need
to Hulk out.

Zephyr:
I’d rather be Thor. I have the
hair for Thor.

“There you are,” Ryder announces when he
walks up, two beers in hand. He acts as if I haven’t been standing
here, in the exact spot that he left me in twenty minutes ago. “I
brought you a beer.” After sliding my phone into my boot—I have no
pockets—I take the can from his hand, noticing the tab has already
been popped. Many a teacher and adult has said the same thing: Do
not trust any drink at a party someone has given you. That’s very
sound advice, but tonight, I don’t listen to it.

I take a drink, trying to numb myself from
this party, from these people that surround me. The long pull
places me in a slight haze, the buzz beginning almost instantly.
That should be a problem for me—perhaps he put something in my
drink?—it’s a problem for me and I ignore it, and the beer, placing
it on the nearest table, claiming later that I lost it.

Throughout the night, the party loses its
appeal—if it ever had any—and no part of it gets interesting. The
girls get sloppy drunk and start kissing anyone that accepts it, I
watch Kennie start kissing various girls on the cheek. One moves in
to the get a kiss on the lips. If she’s going to kiss people that
her boyfriend would approve of, it’d be the girls. The guys start
hitting on everything with a pulse, begging any girl to go with
them upstairs, I even saw a guy trying to make out with a lamp.

Insert
Anchorman
reference here.

I am getting more attention than I ever had,
ever wanted, before. Let me be honest, I’m not a fan. I prefer my
invisibility.

I get my own beer, just to be sure that it’s
safe for me to drink, and nurse it in the corner while Ryder’s
talking to other football players.

This is his crowd, not mine. This is where he
belongs while I belong in the back of the library. I’m ready to go
home. I was ready the moment we got here.

“Avoiding me?” Ryder asks, leaning against
the wall. He doesn’t look unstable, he looks fine, he looks like
the beers haven’t affected him at all. Has he been drinking at all
tonight?

“Nope,” I answer, tucking loose strands of
hair behind my ear. After an hour here, with the temperature rising
with every new additional drunk body trying to dry hump someone
else, I tied my hair back away from my face in a low loose bun.

“Then why stand in the corner?” he asks,
leaning against the wall next to me, close enough that his bare arm
touches mine. I can feel the heat from his skin, soft and warm,
against mine, but it does nothing for me. I feel no spark, no
longing. I just want him to stop touching me.

Someone runs by screaming
Whooee!
Whipping a piece of fabric over their head like a colorful
lasso.

What the hell was that
?

“I’m not the mingling type,” I tell him,
flatly.

A large football player—still wearing his
grass-stained jersey from the day before, go figure—barrels into
another one—one slightly smaller in every way—at full force,
knocking the other off balance. “Dude,” he yells even though the
smaller one—I think he’s a sophomore, he
looks
like a
sophomore—is close enough to hear the upperclassmen without the
ringing in his ears. “I’m so gone, totally
fucking
wasted,
man,” he tells him loudly, giving a hard pat on the back for good
measure.

The smaller football player, also wearing a
jersey but his is spotless, laughs and smiles. It looks like he’s
in awe of the larger dude, happy to be acknowledged by someone
older, someone I bet wouldn’t acknowledge him if sober.

A topless cheerleader wanders by, her hands
covering what little breasts she has. Her platinum blonde hair,
definitely in need of a touch up, is crazy about her head. “Have
you seen my top?” she asks someone next to her, no embarrassment on
her obviously drunk face. I’d be
so
embarrassed; I’d also
not be wandering around a group of horny high schoolers, my peers,
topless, hoping that someone was nice enough to procure my teeny
weenie bikini top.

Now that I think about it, I’m sure I know
where it is.

“I’d like to
say
that I avoid this
crowd,” Ryder begins, close enough to my ear that I can feel his
warm breath with every word he speaks, close enough that his hand
brushes little tendrils of hair from my neck. “But…” he trails off,
letting me finish his sentence.

“You’re here every weekend?” I guess aloud,
knowing I’m right about him. I turn my head to face Ryder, noticing
how close we are. He could kiss me if he tried—if he wanted to—I
wouldn’t recommend that he try, I wouldn’t really want the entire
school pissed at me for maiming the star quarterback when we’re on
a winning streak. But he’s close enough.

“No,” he says close to my ear. I can hear his
grin, cocky with a glint of smartass. “Not
every
weekend,”
he defends lightly, a little humor added to his voice. “Sometimes
Samantha throws the party at her uncle’s place in Martha Lake.” He
points to the topless girl with raccoon eyes still wandering
aimlessly in search of clothing. Three guys openly stare at her,
practically salivating. It’s obvious they hope she drops her
hands.

I’m pretty sure they’ve seen the show
before.

Pervs
.

Tired of the party, tired of the stupidity
surrounding me, I turn to Ryder and say, “I think I’m ready to head
home, now.” I set my half-empty beer on the table beside me, hoping
no one knocks it over. The carpet is too nice but I bet that a
spilled beer is the least of my worries. I feel a little bad that I
didn’t finish it—I didn’t want to, I’m not much of a drinker—but I
heard it’s bad to leave
wounded soldiers
lying about. “Are
you okay to drive?” I ask. I refuse to get into a car manned by a
driver under the influence. I’m not going out like a statistic.

Ryder balances on one foot, holding his arms
out to his sides, and touches one finger to his nose with no
struggle. “As you can see”—he continues to demonstrate his
balance—“I’m perfectly fine,” he tells me with his signature cocky
smile. The one that makes me want to wipe it away with my fist.
It’s just my reaction to
him
.

He walks me out to his car, leading me with
his hand on the small of my back, and opens the door for me, still
playing the gentleman. I slide onto the leather seat, trying to
smooth out the fabric of the tight skirt, and buckle my seatbelt
before he joins me in the car. As he walks around the front of the
car, one of his friends run up and stop him. They have a short
conversation, one complete with laughter that booms through the
windshield and a complicated handshake that confuses me. Ryder
motions to me in the car, maybe telling the friend I don’t know the
name of that he’s about to take me home—take me to my own house
while he goes to his—before he joins me in the car.

“Sorry.” An instant apology when he drops
into the car. “Brett just wanted to make sure that I was cool to
drive.” So the friend has a name and it’s Brett—as if I’ll need to
know
that
for long. “Don’t want to lose the quarterback in a
car accident, do we?” He forces his laugh thinking that he’s made a
joke.

Especially
, I want to add,
when the
quarterback is the only reason our school win games.

We ride in silence for most of the way to my
house. I’m too tired to engage in any stimulating conversation; to
make it sound like I want a second date would be stupid. The thrill
of home edges in and I can practically see my bed when I close my
eyes. Though, I feel that I need to say something, anything, just
to be
nice
.

“I had a nice time,” I lie, forcing a smile
on my lips even though I don’t want to look at him. That doesn’t
stop him from looking at me.

As first dates go, I believe this is the
worst that could’ve happened to me—although I’m certain there are
worse. It seemed like Ryder didn’t care much about me through the
night. The entire time it seemed like he was more into himself—his
football future, his friend’s party, him, him, him—than making me
feel comfortable or even hoping that I enjoy myself
in his
company
.

He didn’t even ask me a
single
question. It’s like he didn’t even want to get to know me at all.
What I’m saying? He doesn’t want to know me. Not as a person,
anyway.

“Me too,” he tells me as he checks his side
mirror before he switches lanes. “Can we do this again?” he
asks—wow! A question for me—his face splitting into a sly grin, one
that I also want to punch from his face.

The way that he’s looking at me. It’s as if
one smile will win me over.

Never going to happen.

“Do you want me to honestly answer that?” I
ask, my gaze fixed out his window as we pull onto my street.
Passing Zephyr’s house, I can see that all the lights are out, all
the windows dark, like they went to bed early. I know Zephyr’s
probably sitting in his dark room with the television on, maybe
listening to music, anything to pass the time before he sees my
window light up with my return.

“I think I just got it,” he murmurs with
disappointment as he pulls into my driveway. He looks to me,
smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. I wouldn’t exactly expect
it to; I just turned him down. Why does he think I’d agree to a
second date? After the date we had tonight, the crappy one, he
should be surprised if I want to speak to him again.

Spoiler alert: I don’t.

I leave his car, not looking back when he
backs out of the driveway and drives down my street. Looking
back—watching him leave—would mean something so much greater than
I’d want to convey. I walk through the front door and see Hilary
sitting on the couch, almost asleep, wearing her usual weekend
outfit, oversized sweatpants that she’s rolled over three times,
and a baggy purple University of Washington t-shirt. She piled, as
best she could, her orange hair on the top of her head in a messy
bun, most of it escaping the hair tie and falling around her face.
Her eyes connect with mine when she hears the door open and a lazy
smile, still large and toothy, splits her face as she wakes up.
She’s been waiting her entire life for me to return from a date
just so she can grill me.