The Perfection Paradox (17 page)

Kennedy
smiled in delight, a hint of devilish mischief glinted in her
aquamarine eyes as Brooke joked.

Matt felt
something stir deep down inside. He squeezed his legs together
uncomfortably, glancing about at no one in particular, blushing
wildly.

Brooke’s
locker was supposed to be several hallways down from Kennedy’s as
they were organized according to surname, but Brooke had thrown a
strop and her father, some big-time lawyer, had gotten involved and
eventually the school had conceded and allowed Princess Brooke her
locker next to Kennedy’s.

Matt’s eyes
wandered down the hallway to where Hunter Campbell was ferociously
throwing binders into his navy blue backpack, glancing over at
Kennedy and Brooke every now and then, his eyes brimming with
frustration and resentment.

Matt made a
mental note to be especially wary of Hunter that afternoon; he
looked like all he wanted was to give some nerd a good
pummelling.

Kennedy swung
her locker open and the envelope emblazoned with exaggerative
hearts wafted to the floor. She took a step back and scooped it up
curiously, reading the calligraphy Matt had spent hours
perfecting.

Her gaze fell
on the number seven he’d drawn, surrounded by red
hearts.

The light
seemed to seep from her eyes and the rosy colour of her cheeks
drained until she seemed almost wan.

She glanced
around her, anxious, an edge of panic barely concealed on her
pretty face.

She lifted
the fold of the envelope slowly. Even from his hiding spot on the
other side of the hallway, Matt could see her hand shake ever so
slightly.

She tugged
the card out, pulling it open, her eyes moving back and forth as
she read his message.

Her bottom
lip started to tremble and she snapped it shut.

She looked
around again, a paranoid expression Matt had never seen on her
before darkened and drained her usually bright face. It was queer
to see her looking so full of despair.

It wasn’t how
Kennedy Blakewood was supposed to look.

Her arms
seemed to be shaking now and her eyes shone with tears.

She glanced
around, turning anxiously, looking from face to face
fearfully.

They all
stared at her, as usual.

They
were
always
staring at her, but it seemed to Matt she’d never stared back
long enough to notice it before.

22.

Emily felt
her phone vibrate in her front pocket. She pulled out her phone and
opened the text message she'd just received.

"
She said no."

Emily felt
her stomach flip nervously, maybe now Hunter would ask
her
to prom.
"
Where are you
?"
she texted back hurriedly, before rushing to dump her belongings in
her locker quickly before he replied.

As she shoved
her European history binder between a politics textbook and her
agenda, she felt her phone tremble again, "
bench outside the library
".

Emily slammed
her locker door shut and jolted down the hall. 

She found
Hunter, slouched disappointedly and staring into the
distance.

"What
happened?" She asked, edging on to the bench next to
him.

"I feel like
such an idiot... I got her a rose and attached a note to it asking
her to prom. She said she wanted to just go with
friends…"

Emily shook
her head, "what a
bitch
..." she denigrated, watching Hunter's face
intently.

He frowned,
"She's not a bitch... at least she was honest about it instead of
stringing me along I guess...”

He was
fiddling with his fingers in a very un-Hunter-ish manner,
nervously, self-consciously.

“
I just never
know where I stand with her. With everyone else I feel so
confident, so sure of myself, with everyone else I always get what
I want, but with her I never know what to say or do, it just feels
like I'm constantly failing some sort of test she's set up for me.
Every time I talk to her there's so much pressure to be smart and
charming and witty and funny."

"Maybe you
should just forget about her Hunter, I mean if it's making you this
upset, and she's so hard to get, maybe you should move
on."

Hunter shook
his head, "I can't do that…"

Emily sighed
heavily, "
Why not
?"

"There’s just
something about her, it makes me do things I would never usually do
for a girl. She’s something different to me, I can’t explain
it.”

He
half-smiled to himself, lost in a daydream, but then looked down at
his hands again and his smile faltered instantly. She’d never seen
him look so forlorn.

“
Any other
girl is nothing to me compared to her. She's everything I want in a
girl. She's not a one-time thing; she's not someone I'd get bored
of. She's someone I know I'd always want to be with, and the fact
she's so hard to get makes me want her
even more…
”

Some of the
colour had returned to his cheeks.

“
It makes me
want to keep trying, because when I finally have her, I'll know
she's the best any guy could ever want, and I know that she belongs
to me and no one else."

"Hunter..."
Emily began, but he spoke over her.

"I just need
to figure out how to get her. It's already a lot better than it
was, we talk a lot more than we used to, she's even started
replying to some of my texts... not many of them, but it's better
than nothing right?" he asked eagerly.

This sort of
behaviour was so out of character for him Emily noted
worriedly.

"Hunter
you're being ridiculous. You're just being competitive”

Emily placed
a hand on his forearm. Her stomach wriggled at the feel of his warm
skin under her fingers.

“
You don't
even want her, you don't
know
her, I don't think a single person in this
school
genuinely
knows her, yet every guy is in love with the
idea
of who she is. She
can never live up to what every one has made her out to be.” Emily
tried to explain as neutrally as she could, “You would be with her,
and you'd realize that all this time you've put her on a pedestal.
She was the girl no one could ever get close to, and you want to
get close to her for that reason. You want to win. If no one else
wanted her, if none of your friends had been rejected by her, you
wouldn't want her the way you do. You’re telling yourself that she
is exactly the right girl for you, that you two are meant to be
together, but that whole belief is a lie, a lie based on your
infatuation with her."

"Emily just
stay out of it, you don't understand.” He snapped.

He seemed to
think over her words for several seconds before
continuing.

“
I don't get
how you can claim that I don't know her, that she's
boring
or whatever it is
you're suggesting... I might not know her that well yet, but I know
her a lot better than you do.” He snarled.

Emily thought
he was done but he continued viciously,

“
Have you
ever even spoken to her? All you do is talk
ABOUT
her. You spend all your time
trying to make everyone else hate her the way you do, but everyone
can see through it Emily, everyone knows you're just
jealous
. Jealous of her
looks and her grades and her house and her family, jealous of the
fact she'll be at Harvard or Yale next year and everyone knows it,
but no one knows or cares about the community college you'll end up
at."

Emily felt
hot tears burn her eyes.

She swung her
bag up onto her shoulder and stormed off.

She had
expected Hunter to at least come after her, to try and apologize,
but as she reached for the glass door leading back into the school
its reflection showed him gazing into the distance, his back to
her, already back to pondering over Kennedy. 

She just
didn’t get it.

Emily had
tried
everything
.

She’d been
direct then cool.

She’d been
smart then stupid.

She’d been
confident then shy.

Nothing
she moulded herself into
seemed to be what he wanted.

She had
nothing more to give.

He deserved
more than some self-important blonde bimbo who barely seemed to
notice he existed.

Why didn’t he
see how much she loved him or how right they were for each other?
She didn’t understand what Kennedy could possibly have that she
hadn’t tried to mimic. Kennedy was the cold perfect mannequin Emily
would never understand.

Emily stood
under the shower that night, dazed with confusion.

She turned
the knob and let the cold-water stream over her.

Soap squirted
effortlessly from its plastic container into her hand and she let
it lather in the water pouring from the shower nozzle.

She rubbed
her hands across her chest, washing, before moving down to her
sagging stomach and bloated arms.

As the water
rinsed away the soapy lather, Emily’s skin still looked patched and
contaminated.

Dirty.

Hunter didn’t
like girls like her. Used, deflowered, infected.

She
scrubbed.

Still the
dark blemishes remained. Why wouldn’t they wash away?

Emily
scrubbed harder. Faster.

Her nails
scratched her skin, long red marks streaking across her
body.

The more she
looked, the more stains she saw.

The harder
she scrubbed, the dirtier she felt.

Beads of
blood bubbled on her arms, the stream of water washing them away,
only for new scarlet domes to flow up through the skin. Soon rivers
were gushing down her arms, twisting, crisscrossing, like crimson
serpents.

Her arms
burnt, raw and ravaged.

It was
starting to sting. Soap seeped into the crevices of angry broken
flesh and made Emily grunt in pain.

Any hopes of
relief were soon destroyed. She didn’t feel better, she felt worse.
Dirtier. Weak.

She always
got lost in the moment, hating herself, punishing herself for
never
ever
being
good enough, but afterwards she always faced the same disillusioned
feeling of worthlessness. It screamed in her head.

Weak. Ugly.
Pathetic. Insignificant.

Insignificant.

Insignificant
.

She stared
ahead, barely feeling the icy water cascade down her
back.

She sat down
on the floor of her shower and curled her knees up towards her
chest, naked and exhausted. Tired of making deals with the devil
inside her head.

She felt so
empty,
so hollow
.

Nothing
mattered to her and she mattered to no one. She just wanted it to
stop.

She couldn’t
stand another day of being her, of trying so hard but getting
nowhere.

She couldn’t
stand another day of not mattering, of living in the perfect world
of Kennedy Blakewood where she only served as the lesser
comparison, a girl who only existed to emphasize Kennedy’s
perfection. To show how clever Kennedy was, how easily success came
to her, how beautiful she was.

Kennedy would
instantly dwarf any achievement Emily could ever hope to attain.
Emily was tortured, forced to watch Kennedy achieve everything she
had ever wanted. Forced to listen to people adore Kennedy the way
Emily would
never
be adored.

She was
worthless. Any boy she’d ever wanted, pursued, loved, would always
want the ubiquitous Kennedy more than her.

Emily would
always be the loyal friend, the plain girl who had to listen to the
boy she loved yearn for someone else, someone who would never love
him the way she did. There was nothing worse than loving someone
who would never love you back, nothing worse than wanting something
you knew you could never have.

For years she
had waited, trying to make herself seen, believing there was
something there, something Hunter would eventually recognize too.
There had been times when she’d liked other boys, not as much as
Hunter and in a different way to Hunter, but she never liked them
enough to move on from the dream of being
his
. Her love would never die, it
could be hidden, it could be weakened and subdued to a dark corner
of her heart where no one could find it, but it would never
die.

And Kennedy
would always be there, and she would
always
be better than
Emily.