Waiting for Perfect (18 page)

SEBASTIAN

I stroll to English
slowly, trying to comprehend my cousin’s reaction in the car.
 
I was so sick of him insisting he’d
handle this without any help.
 
No
seventeen-year-old is capable of handling a three hundred thousand dollar
lawsuit without any help.
 
When I
finally screamed at him to call a damn lawyer, I was surprised he agreed with
me.
 
Maybe I finally got through to
him.

I know this lawsuit
has been eating at him.
 
When I got
home last night, he was already passed out.
 
He’d been blaring his music and drawing.
 
His sketchbook was laid out on his
stomach where he dropped it when he fell asleep.
 
I should ask him to show me his art sometime.
 
I can’t believe I’ve never asked him
before.
 
Drawing seems to consume
his life.
 
It must be important to
him.

I have a pop quiz
in English that I’m not ready for.
 
We’re supposed to be through Part I of
Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad, but I’ve only read half that,
quitting at the part where the guy comes upon an assembly of people gruesomely
dying by the shore.
 
Gross.
 
What kind of school makes its students
read this stuff?

After guessing my
way through the multiple-choice quiz, the bell rings, and I’m off to
History.
 
When I reach my
classroom, Troy McCall is standing in the hallway with his arms around Lexi.
 
I walk past them, and they both smile
at me, looking guilty about being caught.
 
I didn’t know they were an item.
 
I smile back and stride to my desk.

Second and third
periods pass quickly, and soon, it’s time for lunch.
 
As I pull the door open to the 900 Building to make my way to
the quad, I hear a soft whimpering coming from around the side of the
building.
 
It sounds like someone
is crying.
 
I usually don’t involve
myself in girl drama, so I almost shrug it off, but something makes me think it
might be Kendra, so I walk in the direction of the sobbing.

As I turn the
corner of the building, sure as shit, I see Kendra sitting on the ground with
her back against the wall.
 
Her
arms are wrapped around her knees, and her head is buried between them.

My heart breaks
when I see her, and I run the rest of the way until I’m sitting by her side.
 
I fling my arm around her shoulders, which
startles her, and she jumps in surprise.
 
Her head comes up.
 
When she
sees me, she rolls her eyes and instantly wipes away her tears.

“Oh God, Sebastian,”
she says, sounding embarrassed that I caught her in yet another vulnerable
moment.
 
“I’m fine.
 
I swear.
 
I just…” she trails off and hangs her head between her knees
again, resuming the raggedy breathing that tells me she’s crying.

My arm tightens
around her shoulders.
 
“Hey, it’s
okay.”
 
I rub her arm, trying to
soothe her.
 
“Did something happen?
 
Do you want to talk about it?”

She lets out a
sharp breath that sounds like a laugh and then raises her eyes to meet
mine.
 
With tears pooling in them,
they are an even brighter gold.
 
Her eye makeup is smudging a little under her bottom lashes.
 
“Just… stupid people,” she mutters.

I smile.
 
“That’s like half the school,
Kendra.
 
You’re not really
narrowing it down for me.”
 
Sarcasm
is sometimes my way of dealing with things, but my comment makes her smile, and
I love seeing that smile.

She lets out a small
giggle and uses the corner of her shirt to wipe the moisture from her eyes.
 
When she looks back at me, her mascara
is even more smeared, but I don’t care.
 
She still looks beautiful to me, and the fact that she’s sitting here
letting me hold her makes my insides melt.
 
The feeling is new to me.
 
I’m used to wanting to get laid.
 
This is different.
 
I feel the need to take her pain away.
 
I want to make her smile every day and never have to shed
another tear.

The feeling
overwhelms me, and I remove my arm immediately.
 
Okay, I’m kind of a chicken shit when dealing with feelings
– like, I don’t know what the hell to do with them.
 
All I know is that I want to take
Kendra away from this place and whoever hurt her.

“Do you want to get
out of here?” I ask, not really knowing what I’m saying, but going with it.

She looks around
and scrunches her eyebrows in.
 
She
says in a whisper, “What?
 
Like,
ditch?”

I laugh.
 
She makes it sound like we’re about to
commit armed robbery.
 
“Yeah.
 
Like, ditch.”
 
I get to my feet and reach out my hand to help her up.

She hesitates a
moment, staring at my hand like it might bite her if she touches it.
 
She sniffs and wipes away a final
tear.
 
Reaching out, she takes my
hand, and I lift her to her feet.
 
“Okay,” she says nervously.
 
“But how?”

I keep my hand
wrapped around hers, not ready to let it go.
 
I look around and realize there is nobody near us in the parking
lot.

I take her backpack
from her and sling it over my shoulders.
 
“We’re going to walk right out of here, Kendra.
 
Nobody is even around to see us.
 
This will be easy.”

She stares at me, incredulous.
 
“There are campus monitors
everywhere!
 
How do you propose we
just walk out of here?”

“I have an idea,” I
say.
 
I really don’t, but I just
want to make her feel better.
 
I’m
sure I’ll think of something.
 

I lead her by the
hand toward the far end of the senior parking lot.
 
Just the fact that we made it this far without being seen is
a miracle in itself.
 
The campus is
bordered by hills on all sides, and it’s almost always crawling with campus
monitors.
 
This will be difficult,
but I think we can do it.
 
I don’t
want to get her into trouble.
 
I
just want to take her away from here and make her happy again.

“Sebastian, where
are we going?”
 
Kendra squeezes my
hand, and it sends a jolt of electricity up my entire arm.

She’s trailing
behind, so I walk more quickly and pull her along.
 
“Come on, track star.
 
Get a move on!”
 
She jogs up
to my side, giggling.

When we get to the
back fence, I quickly scan the area for campus monitors and relax when I don’t
see any.
 
I release her hand.
 
I fold my hands together and stoop down,
so they form a little step about two feet off the ground to boost her up.

“Hop over,” I tell
her.

She places her
fists on her hips and shoots me a dirty look.
 
“Are you serious?
 
You want me to hop the fence?”
 
The look on her face is priceless.
 
She’s trying to look pissed, but I know there’s a wild side to her that loves
every minute of this.
 
That’s the
side of her that beat me on the treadmill that day at the gym.
 
That’s the part of her that kicked the
shit out of those heavy bags.
 
That’s the side that I want to see more of, the side that I’m guessing
not many people see.
 
That’s
my
Kendra.

I straighten up and
take a step closer to her.
 
I try
my best serious glare.
 
“Kendra
Voss, we are getting out of this place.
 
Now stop being such a princess and mount up.”

She smirks, and I
wonder if she’s thinking a dirty thought like I am, visualizing her mounting
me.
 
She mutters, “I can’t believe
I’m doing this.”

I stoop down again,
and she places her sandal in my rough palms.
 
When she has her hands on the fence for balance, I say,
“Okay, on three. Ready?”

She peers down at
me.
 
“I guess so.”

I start raising my
hands to get her ready.
 
“One.
 
Two.
 
Threeeee.”
 
I
lift my hands higher so that she can easily scale the six-foot fence.
 
She swings her leg around to the other
side and steps her small feet in the chain link for traction.

“You made it!” I
say, slightly in awe.

She climbs down the
rest of the way and drops to the ground with a thud.
 
“Don’t sound so surprised, Veneto.
 
I’m not a total princess.”

No, she’s not.
 
She’s actually one very impressive
woman.
 
Just the fact that she
trusted me enough to take this chance with me is awesome.
 
My adrenaline is pumping, and I don’t
know if it’s because I’m ditching school or because I’m ditching with Kendra
Voss.
 
I push aside my nerves and
hop the fence easily.

When I land on the
other side, she smiles at me.
 
“Now
what?”

I take her hand
again and start leading her up the side of the hill, dodging thick brush and
trying to watch for snakes.
 
We’re
not thirty feet away from the fence when I hear, “Hey, you two!
 
Stop, now!”

I don’t look
back.
 
I know enough not to look
back and show my face to the campus monitor yelling at me.
 
Instead, I tug Kendra’s hand harder
before she can turn and blow our cover.

“Come on!” I yell,
running faster up the hill to our freedom.

She gives a little
squeal and hurries alongside me.

“Don’t look
back!
 
Just stay with me.”
 
I interlace our fingers and pick up my
pace.

Finally, my wild
Kendra reveals herself.
 
She puts
her track-star legs to work and starts bolting up the side of the hill.
 
Now I’m the one trying to keep up.
 
Damn, this girl is always throwing me
off my game.
 
I like it.

The campus monitor
is still yelling from behind us, but I doubt he saw our faces or knows who we
are.
 
When we finally make it to
the street, we’re laughing and gasping for air.

“Holy shit!” I
say.
 
“That was close!”

“Oh my God,
Sebastian!
 
I can’t believe you
made me do that!”
 
She’s wearing a
huge smile, and it fills me with pride to know I can stop her tears and make
her smile like that.

“You were pretty
willing, darling.
 
I didn’t force you
to do anything you didn’t want to do.”
 
After I say it, I immediately feel like a shithead.
 
It reminds me of the night Ryan forced
himself on her.
 
I inwardly cringe,
immediately wishing I could take it back.
 
I don’t say anything.
 
I
just wait to see how she responds to make sure she’s not thinking the same
thing.

Her eyes drop to
the ground, and her smile quickly fades.
 
There’s grief in her eyes that wasn’t there a moment ago.
 
I just reminded her of one of the worst
moments of her life.
 
Dammit.
 
My ego deflates, knowing I can make her
sad again in a mere instant.

I step closer to
her as we walk and playfully bump her shoulder with mine.
 
“I’m sorry, Kendra.
 
I shouldn’t have said that.
 
I wasn’t thinking.”

She looks up toward
the sky, squinting against the sun.
 
After a silence that feels like an eternity, she reaches down for my
hand.
 
“It’s okay.
 
I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

Gripping her hand
in mine, I bring it up to my lips and kiss the back of it.
 
It’s soft and smooth and smells like
strawberries.
 
I breathe it in,
savoring her scent before releasing it.