Perfectly Flawed (18 page)

“Harrison?” Zephyr sits up, throwing his legs
over the side of my bed. The expression on his face switches from
happy to furious in the time it takes for me to blink.

Is it just me or is that weird?

Right, just me.

Well, to be honest, it’s not as weird as my
body’s reaction to Zephyr’s eyes, so that’s something.

“Morning, Kalivas,” Ryder says curtly to the
boy on my bed, his ocean blue eyes set on me. For a Sunday, where
people usually attend church in nice clothes, Ryder, it appeared,
was not the exception. He was wearing neatly pressed khaki pants, a
dark blue button down shirt, tucked in at the waist, and a shiny
pair of brown loafers.

“What are you doing here?” I blurt
rudely.

“Joey!” Hilary’s voice calls from the hall.
She’s still standing near my door, eavesdropping.

I roll my eyes. “I’m fine, Ryder,” I say
politely for her benefit. “What are you doing here on such a holy
day?” I rework the question, crossing my arms across my chest,
covering the
Powerpuff Girls
design of the t-shirt I grabbed
this morning in a hurry. At least I’m wearing a bra.

“I don’t know why I try,” I hear my aunt
mutter in the hall.

“Curiosity killed the cat, Hilary,” I say
loud enough for her to hear and get the message.

A few seconds later and I can hear her
slippers flopping as she stomps away, loudly for my benefit, toward
the stairs, soon retreating into the living room.

“I wanted to see if you wanted to see a movie
or something,” Ryder finally answers, his eyes trailing down my
body, taking in my pajama shorts and, thankfully, baggy t-shirt.
His eyes linger on my bare legs. I quickly cover them with my
blanket.

“You could have called,” Zephyr snaps from my
bed. He leans forward, far enough that it appears he’s about to
leap from my bed and attack Ryder where he stands. Somehow, that
thought alone makes me smile. The look on his face isn’t a happy
one and I assume he’s plotting murder in his mind. “Or texted.”

Ryder turns his attention to Zephyr, my best
friend, and his look seems to challenge.

What is it with these weird people?

And why do I know so many of them?

“That would’ve saved you gas,” I say, trying
to lighten the mood and cut the growing tension in the room. “I
don’t want to see a movie
or something
,” I tell him, looking
to Zephyr in time to see his expression soften.

Ryder takes a few steps closer to me, not
close enough for him to touch me but close enough that I can smell
his thick cologne. “If I said
please
?” he asks quietly,
sparing no glance toward Zephyr as he sits witness to this
spectacle.

“I’d still say no, Ryder.” I tell him with a
nod. I paste a smile on my face. “Nice to see you, though,” I tell
him, hoping that he takes the subtle hint and lie. “Have a good
Sunday.”

Ryder takes a step back. “I’ll see you at
school, then?” he asks, a sliver of hope in his blue eyes. I that
he’s hoping that I’ll change my mind and escape with him to
wherever he wants to go.

“We’ll pass in the halls,” I tell him,
letting him know that’s how I want to see him in the future, as a
fleeting passerby.

With that, his hope extinguished, he exits my
room and I listen to his steps as he thumps down the stairs to the
living room. I hear the front door close behind him.

“That was weird,” Zephyr mutters, leaning
back on my bed to get comfortable again.

“Tell me about it,” I reply, snuggling into
my chair, my gaze fixed on Zephyr as he lounges against my
pillows.

I did get that nap I wanted. During whatever
football game Zephyr was subjecting me to, I fell asleep in my
chair. I didn’t even need to kick Zephyr out of my bed. As I
rethink that sentence in my mind, I feel a little awkward talking
about a guy in my bed, but then I move on
to
the guy in my
bed.
Sweet baby Jesus!
My brain is turning against me, here.
I’m not supposed to think of my best friend in my bed.

I awake to more blankets covering me than
there were to begin with, my television was off and the light was
off, my room encased in shadows. Zephyr had gone back to his house,
his own room, to do whatever it is he does during the weekend.

Once I was awake and not boiling beneath my
comforter—yes, the boy tugged my large, fluffy comforter from my
bed—I set to finishing my calculus assignment. I practiced my
violin and tinkered on my piano. Hilary’s weekend of freedom ended
and she left me alone to work on her usual shift, leaving me to
fend for myself for dinner. That’s something that I’ve grown used
to in my teenage years.

That meant a deep-dish pepperoni and
pineapple pizza.

Yum!

I get to bed at an early hour, waking up
early in the morning from the normal dark nightmare. No one’s face
haunted my dreams, thank God, but I did get the feeling of drowning
and suffocation again. The usual. I wash the sweat from my skin and
start my week like normal.

In school, I shove my books into my locker
and struggle to hold my backpack up as I unload one heavy textbook
after another.

“Hey, Joey,” I hear the familiar
condescending voice behind me. I turn, facing Alexia Cavanaugh in
her skintight jeans and cleavage-bearing top that reveals so much
I’m surprised that she hasn’t been sent home to change. Her
designer handbag—I think Chanel—is dangling from her arm as if she
were at the mall searching for the perfect pair of shoes rather
than the reality of being at school trying to receive an
education.

I look to her, briefly acknowledging her
existence. “Goodbye, Alexia.” I slam my locker shut and struggle to
zip up my backpack before slinging it over my shoulders. In my
mind, I hope that I hit her in the head with my bag. The she’d know
what intelligence feels like.

“I really don’t get what he sees in you,” she
states as she follows me. Is she talking about Ryder? I have
exhausted all topics of Ryder Harrison this week. “Or anyone else
for that matter,” she continues as she flips her hair over her
shoulder. Typical bitch move.

I can’t help myself, despite the warning in
my head blinking
DO NOT INITIATE! DO NOT INITIATE!

“What are you yapping about?” I ask, going
against my better judgment and indulging her by continuing this
pointless conversation. I swear I can feel my brain cells dying
away the longer I’m in her presence.

“You don’t know?” she asks, surprise fills
her voice. Something crosses her face but it quickly vanishes
before I can identify it.

I really don’t have time for this or for her
so I start walking faster toward my classroom. Maybe I can lose her
in a crowd.

“How could I possibly know what you’re
talking about?” I nearly yell at her.

“Well,” she starts quietly. “It’s kind of
obvious if you pay attention,” she tells me with a drawn out sigh.
“But if you haven’t seen it, I’m not going to spell it out for
you.”

“Then, I guess, this little exchange between
us was pointless,” I politely tell her, nearing my class. I nearly
sprint inside the room right then.

“Not entirely,” she says cryptically.

I roll my eyes, completely pissed that I’m
wasting my time with her. “Still, I’m not getting the brain cells I
just lost back,” I tell her, stopping in the open doorway to my
class. I spin around, facing her. “Look, I told Ryder that I didn’t
want a second date, okay.” Her left eyebrow arcs at my words. “He
might still take you back or whatever.”

Turning, I leave her standing in the hall.
She’d never be caught in an AP class, even if it were just to
openly mock and laugh at me for whatever it is I don’t know, so she
left when the first warning bell rang, joining her followers I
assume.

Zephyr smiles at me from his seat, his
notebook open in front of him, a fresh page with the date written
at the top right hand corner. He
has
learned something from
me, that’s good. His pen is pinned behind his ear, hidden beneath
his hair. Class is uneventful, as it usually is, just Mr. Cheney
talking about the outcomes of World War I. I took notes like I’m
supposed to but I wasn’t listening, not really.

***

I went through the rest of my morning classes
like normal, ran the normally obnoxious mile in gym. Because Harley
was absent, Zephyr and I raced for part of the run. Okay, for the
entire run. I almost beat him… had one of his friends not cut me
off.
I know he made that happen, the cheater.
We were in the
gym, the first two to finish with the mile, laughing our asses off
while the coaches looked at us with confused and worried
expressions. They never expect us to actually
enjoy
the run,
and we rarely do, but sometimes you’ve got to make the things you
hate, the things you despise, a little fun.

Soon it was lunch and I was at our usual
table sitting in front of Harley and next to Kennie—both of them
glaring at me.

“You didn’t call me,” Harley starts,
annoyance and disappointment in her voice that I didn’t immediately
tell her about my date with Ryder. To be honest, I didn’t really
want to relive it.

“Or me,” Kennie chimes from the seat next to
me. I can smell her perfume, floral and thick. It suits her. She
looks pristine and perfect, no indication of that party at all.
Though, it was two days ago, she’s had plenty of time to recover
and rehydrate.

“I assumed the both of you were too busy
puking your guts out.” I start peeling the banana I snagged from
the lunch line while the cafeteria lady wasn’t paying attention. I
realize that I’ve broken one of the big rules of Girl Code. I’ve
never been big on the Code.

“Beside the point,” Harley starts. She
unloads her lunch from the typical brown paper bag. It’s mostly
saltine crackers and nothing too heavy to upset her stomach. “How
was it?” she asks, actual interest in her eyes. I know she doesn’t
want to hear if it was a good date. She just wants basic
details.

I ignore the question, deciding to let them
squirm seems like the better thing to do. “Why weren’t you in gym?”
I ask Harley instead.

“Doctor’s appointment,” she answers, swiftly.
“Now spill all the gory details about the date from hell.”
How
does she always know what’s going through my mind?
“I can’t
imagine Ryder as interesting.”

“Not really a date from hell, Harley,” I
start before taking another bite from the banana. “More like a date
with an annoying football player that threatened to serenade me if
I turned him down.”

“Well—” Kennie starts before suddenly being
cut off by a loud whistle-like sound, something similar to a
panflute but more faint, accompanied by a clap sound. No, not a
clap, an engineered drum sound. It’s music. More music.

“Please tell me that I’ve developed a brain
tumor and am imagining the music I’m hearing.” I look to Harley,
really hoping that she says that she doesn’t hear anything.
Please be a brain tumor, please be a brain tumor, please be a
brain tumor.

“Then I should head to neurology with you,”
she tells me with a grim, apologetic smile.

Damn! Not what I wanted her to
say
.

“It’s Justin Bieber!” Kennie exclaims with
happiness and excitement, her manicured hands clapping together
like a seal learning a new trick.

I tug my glasses from my face and my hands
collide with my forehead, the edge of my palms pressing into my
eyes. I can feel a headache beginning to pound. “Not this again,” I
mutter under my breath.

Silently, I pray that someone else is the
focus of this, not me. I mean, come on, I have to be extremely
conceited—a self-centered ego-maniac—to think this music is
strictly for my benefit. Like the song says, ‘
You’re so vain; I
bet you think this song is about you
.’

“He has back up dancers,” Kennie says loudly.
She starts laughing. My head jerks up and I replace my glasses to
my eyes, the entire world coming back into focus, searching for the
offending person.

I swear, he’s about to join my
nightmares.

I turn around in my seat, and sure enough,
Ryder is surrounded by four of his friends, all wearing bedazzled
harem pants that sparkle vibrantly in the fluorescent lighting and,
I kid you not, a Member’s Only jacket. They styled their hair to
resemble Justin Bieber as best as they could—that stupid swept back
look, except for the dude rocking the old Bieber-flip. Well, those
with hair long enough.

“I am
so
out of here,” I whisper,
hoping to escape before it gets worse. I grab my backpack and
banana peel, launching it into the nearest garbage can; before I’m
surrounded by gyrating wanna-Biebers who make the art of dance seem
like a disease. They encircle me before I can make an escape. Damn,
I’m trapped.

That’s when the words start, and lucky for my
ears, and the rest of humanity, Ryder is lip-syncing. But that
doesn’t lighten the embarrassment coursing through me in a blaze of
flushed cheeks and sweaty palms. I hate that I can feel my cheeks
heat as I flush bright cherry-red, my eyes widen as he makes his
way through the song, throwing a handful of colorful monopoly money
in the air when the lyrics call for him ‘
having money in his
hands that he really wants to blow
.’

In my head, I’m hoping that lightning strikes
and takes him out in the most gruesome, painful way it can. Or me.
I really have no preference who gets maimed, here. Maybe someone
will tackle him, like Chad Michael Murray’s character in the remake
of
Freaky Friday
, but I don’t know anyone who would do that
for me. He’s surrounded by horrible dancers, Harley and Kennie are
laughing hysterically like this is the funniest thing they’ve ever
seen—it probably is—and Zephyr’s trying to hold in his laughter on
the other side of the room while still looking pissed off.