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Authors: LaurenVDW

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The Perfection Paradox (3 page)

BOOK: The Perfection Paradox
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I’m home!”
he shouted at no one in particular as he bound over the threshold.
He found his mother on the patio, lounging in one of the
extravagant metal garden chairs.

A cigarette
dangled from her lipstick stained mouth. He hated seeing her
desperately scramble around in her handbag for a pack, let alone
watching her puff on it, content and calm, like a cat licking up a
bowl of fresh cream. It was the habit that bothered him most about
his mother; just above asking questions she already knew the
answers to and her ruthless PDA.

She was
gazing out over their neatly mown lawn when he ambled through the
intricate French doors. “I didn’t hear you come in,” she remarked.
She’d spent the afternoon playing tennis down at the club with her
friends. They’d have a whole summer’s worth of gossip to catch up
on so Hunter wasn’t surprised to see she was still dressed in her
all white tennis ensemble, she couldn’t have been home long. She
fidgeted with her pearl earring absent-mindedly.

When it
became clear she was going to say nothing more, Hunter turned on
his heel and started up the stairs to his room.

His bedroom
was his haven. A double bed was pushed against one wall, layers of
blue and white blankets sprawled across it. Next to his bed, a
wardrobe had been built into the wall. Several t-shirts and boxer
shorts dangled off the wardrobe door that had creaked open in the
breeze blowing through the open bay windows.

In one corner
was Hunter’s game console, wired up to a widescreen television. A
blue and white seersucker sofa had been placed in front of it. On
the vast desk pushed up against the far wall an overpriced laptop
was hooked up to three massive computer screens. The shelves above
the desk were littered with trophies and autographed
footballs.

He’d only
arrived back from the cabin the day before, but already his room
was back to its usual state of disarray.

Hunter
strolled into his bathroom, pulling off his t-shirt, which was
still drenched in cold sweat. He splashed some water over his hot
face and scrutinized his reflection in the mirror. His hair had
lightened and his skin had darkened from a summer spent in the sun.
As a child he’d been adorable, but now he was seventeen, and more
handsome than cute. His sepia eyes were lined with thick eyelashes,
his cheekbones protruded ever so slightly, hollowing his cheeks.
His teeth were white and straight, their pearly hue exaggerated by
the contrast with his tanned complexion. His hair stood up in all
directions, a sun streaked brown. Though it was messy and unkempt
it was what girls most often complimented him on.

Hunter had
spent the last two months at his family’s lake house; jet skiing
and partying with the other families who owned cabins
there.

But now he
was back, and the realization that it was senior year slowly
started to dawn on him.

He already
missed the lazy days at the lake with his friends, sneaking frosty
bottles of beer from the fridge when his father’s back was turned,
trying to get his mind off a certain blonde classmate by
surrounding himself with bikini clad girls with less morals than
clothes. He was varsity captain this year and the whole school was
counting on him.

Hunter’s
father had attended college on a football scholarship and went on
to play briefly in the NFL, before injuring himself and becoming a
top coach. Hunter’s older brother Hayden was currently at college
on a football scholarship as well, and the family would often drive
up and watch him play in the packed college stadium.

Hunter
himself had competed in every sport season at Rosewell High School
since he’d arrived there as a freshman. He loved competition, and
more than that, he loved winning. In his senior year he was
determined to ace the SATs, win a football scholarship, party with
his friends, be the coolest guy at school, and win the heart of the
girl all the boys wanted but none could get. Senior year would be
the year that cemented Hunter Campbell’s name in the history of
Rosewell High School, and he wouldn’t let
anyone
get in his way.

4.

Matt flicked
through the well-worn comic book in his pasty hands.


I’m not
giving you fifteen bucks for this…” he stated, like a businessman
refusing a preposterous financial proposal. He pushed his glasses
back up the bridge of his slippery nose, “What do you take me for
Roger?” He asked turning to address the individual he’d been
bargaining with.

Roger was
gangly and tall, his face covered in crater-like acne. There was no
definite way of telling where one eyebrow ended and the second
began, and the braces clipped to his corduroy trousers pulled them
up to an almost comical height. Roger wrung his hands nervously as
Matt mused over his final offer for the comic book, before putting
it down on the coffee table and mumbling that he’d think about
it.

He heard
Jerry and Miles tut from the corner of the room, where they were
sat in deckchairs, Jerry reading a pristine comic book with rubber
gloves pulled over his hands and Miles violently pressing random
buttons on his Gameboy Colour, his face slightly flustered as he
muttered something about the Pokémon League.

They were
surrounded by the clutter of the Browns basement, old tennis
rackets and gardening tools, the remnants of an inflatable swimming
pool that had snagged along some thorns a couple of summers before
and was now useless. Even the deck chairs Jerry and Miles sat in
had been down here for as long as Matt could remember, dust had
filled the air when his friends had taken them down from the hooks
on the wall and forced the rusty joints open. They still smelt damp
and each had a thin layer of green residue spread across the cloth,
but they served their purpose, and Jerry and Miles were grateful to
have them.

Roger was sat
on a crumbling cardboard box filled with old newspapers. Matt
couldn’t explain why or how they’d gotten here, but they were worth
keeping if only to serve as a seat for Roger, otherwise he’d start
complaining that Jerry or Miles had been hogging the deck chairs
for too long and that it was his turn.

Jerry and
Miles had taken Matt under their wing when he’d first arrived in
Rosewell, and their friendship had been an unspoken agreement ever
since. In many ways they were three identical souls… and
Roger.

Roger
collected antique postage stamps and treated the three boys to
fresh English tea every time they visited his house. The drawer in
his room contained over 120 different bowties, although he never
seemed to wear any of them. Roger was smart, but lacked social
skills even more than Matt, Jerry and Miles did, and for that
reason, he needed them, and for all his sporadic annoyances, the
three boys weren’t in a position to turn away friends.

It was
nearing the end of summer and Matt would miss spending his days
down in the basement on the frayed worn down sofa, reading comic
books and playing video games with his friends. His parents and
younger sister had embarked on a road trip to the coast, but Matt
wasn’t really into travelling, so he’d volunteered to housesit
while his family was gone.

Because of
this, that summer turned out to be one of the best he’d ever had.
Matt had total freedom, which meant staying up late playing
videogames and watching obscure movies until whatever time he
liked, eating pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and showering
weekly. But now his family was back, and he and his friends had
been banished to the cramped basement once more.

The strain of
returning to school was already exhibiting itself in his friends’
behaviour. The confidence and relaxation that had come with being
in a trusted sacred place was evaporating with each passing day.
Matt and all his friends knew that they would return to the same
incessant force of verbal and physical torment that they’d endured
last year and it was weighing on all their minds.

It had been
that way since his first day at Rosewell High School. Matt and all
his friends would be shadows of their former selves as soon as the
school year started up again.

He didn’t
know what he had done to deserve it, what terrible crime he had
unknowingly committed that justified him being hated and bullied so
aggressively. Hunter and his friends were the worst. He wasn’t a
human being in their eyes; he was a punching bag.

His parents
had complained to the school, but there was no controlling the
poison Hunter spread. There would always be times when the teachers
and staff wouldn’t be there to protect him. In the locker rooms
after gym class, walking down the hallway between lessons, in the
bathroom. He was never truly safe unless he was at home. So he’d
stopped antagonizing Hunter, had stopped answering back, and had
learnt to hope that one day Hunter would just forget he existed.
That one day he could go into school without being emasculated,
without every one of his insecurities being flaunted and projected
by Hunter and his friends. Matt hoped so desperately that this year
would allow him to breathe, to feel, to live, without being on the
receiving end of Hunter’s contempt.

Sometimes
when sleep failed him and he lay awake at night, Matt would think
of all the things he would say to Hunter if he were ever brave
enough to stand up to him. A million things had crossed his mind, a
thousand insults, a hundred curses, but when it came down to it,
the same question crossed his mind time and time again.

He wanted
Hunter to put himself in Matt’s shoes. He wanted Hunter to consider
things from Matt’s point of view. 

The same
question, the only question, “
Why
?”

What if it
was Hunter who had to be told every day how weedy and ugly he was,
how no girl would ever want to be with him, how he was an
embarrassment.

In front of
dozens of people, being shoved and pushed with no way to protect
yourself because it’s Hunter and his four friends against you on
your own.

Matt would
lie in bed, his sobs muffled by the pillow he pressed against his
tear-stained face. He was scared to go into school every day,
scared of what they were planning to do to him next. Angry that
they were ruining his life and all he was to them was a form of
amusement to bolster their own shallow egos.

He couldn’t
wait until college, when he could leave Rosewell and never look
back. He just hoped that college really was different, that people
were kind and friendly, and that no one made sport out of driving
you into the depths of misery.

Sometimes he
felt guilty, like he was betraying his friendship with Jerry, Miles
and Roger, but he knew deep down that they felt the same way he
did, that they clung to each other in the hopes of surviving just
long enough to make it to college, when every wrong would right
itself. Although they were friends, what had brought them together
and what would always keep them together was their fear of what
high school would be like without each other, without safety in
numbers, if you were doomed to face it all alone.

Maybe he
would’ve caved already if it hadn’t been for
her
, the girl of his dreams and the
sole flickering candle in the dark cavernous abyss that was his
life.

5.

Rosewell High
School was an impressive flagstone building that was neatly tucked
beyond a row of recently planted saplings. An expansive student
parking lot took up a stretch of land nearly as large as the school
itself. The school catered to over two thousand students, and the
main building extended as far as the eye could see in both
directions either side of the main entrance. It seemed to stretch
as far back from the sidewalk as it did along the street, long and
wide, a labyrinth of classrooms, lockers and stairwells to any new
student.

The school
was in a significantly better state than any of the other schools
Hannah had attended. Everything looked shiny new and clean. There
weren’t letters missing from any of the signs screwed into the
brick walls, and no one had scribbled obscene drawings on any of
the lockers or bathroom doors. The only room that showed any hint
of rebellion was the cafeteria.

In the
cafeteria, students ruled. Hannah knew it the moment she walked
in.

The cafeteria
was a low rectangular shaped room. Its floor was tattered linoleum,
squeaking loudly as students dragged their sneakers across
it.

There were no
windows; it was situated at the heart of the school so a set of
swinging double doors were built into each of its four walls,
leading to the respective wings of the freshman, sophomore, junior
and senior class, the four wings of Rosewell High
School.

The long
fluorescent bars blared gaudy light; the grills that protected them
had long since been dismantled and lost by some class clown. Only
naked bulbs remained, their harsh stream of light unforgiving on
many of the pimple-faced, dandruff-infested individuals that passed
under them.

The hallways
had been a buzz this morning as she’d bustled through them to her
morning classes. Students were excited to see each other, eager to
catch up, but stayed calm and collected, never
too
excited or
too
eager.

BOOK: The Perfection Paradox
7.6Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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