Perfectly Flawed

by Nessa Morgan

  What, I wanted to sarcastically ask just to fuel the fire, no complaints about the violas? But that would only make things worse. From the sound of it, he was already headed toward a fight with the girl dumb enough to date him, Missy, our only bassist.

  “Max, it was a good practice,” I defend, zipping up my case and setting it beside my chair as I watch him take the stand, bending it back aggressively, to the back of the room where the storage room is.

  It was not the greatest practice that we could have, but it wasn’t bad, we’ve had worse.

  There were only two orchestras in the school, Concert and Chamber. Chamber is the better of the two, award winning, Concert was for those who wanted the extracurricular credit but didn’t really care about music or those that need to practice and perfect their skill more before Miss Pearl will move them up to Chamber. Basically orchestra doesn’t have its own set room. Chamber shares with the choirs and concert shares with the bands.

  “Amateurs,” Max whispers with exasperation while Missy stands near the door, waiting for him. “I’m surrounded by amateurs.”

  It’s times like these that I want to punch him.

  Scratch that, I want to punch him, kick him, shove him into a damn locker, all the time.

  I place my violin in the storage room and leave before Max can attack Missy’s playing during Fantasia. I head toward my locker, spotting Zephyr at his as he unloads his books from his backpack.

  I stop before I almost pass him, and lean against the neighboring locker. “Hey,” I start, not sure if he even wants to talk to me. I haven’t really said more than three words to him for a few weeks. I miss my best friend. “Long time, no see,” I say quietly, nervously tucking a curl behind my ear.

  His chocolate eyes focus on the books in his locker. Zephyr won’t look at me. “You saw me this morning,” he says speaking to something in his locker. While he’s right, I did see him this morning, I was too busy—I woke up late—trying to get everything together before I left for school

  Even when we got to school, he skipped out on AP Euro—again. He’s been doing that a lot lately.

  “Well, that wasn’t in AP Euro, so…” I trail off, diverting my attention from him to anything else in the hallway, whether that’s a freshman walking past with his nose in a book or the closing door of the teacher’s lounge.

  Zephyr releases a long, drawn out sigh, as if he’s a deflating balloon, as if he’d been avoiding this exact conversation for a while. He still won’t look at me. When did I become invisible to him? “Here we go,” he murmurs, grabbing one more book and shoving it into his checkered Dakine backpack. He still won’t look at me.

  My eyes narrow, annoyed. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, tentatively. I wish some part of me were strong enough to yell at him for this sudden cruelty, but I only have questions. Lots and lots of questions.

  He slams his locker shut, the sound unexpected and jolting me back. My steps stammer as I try not to look shocked. “My life doesn’t revolve around you, Joey,” He tells me, loudly, catching the attention of several people walking past. Several eyes shoot nervous and concerned glances are way; others don’t care. We’re just another fixture to them.

  “I never said—” I start, too scared to continue. His eyes, the look on his face, it all terrifies me. He can’t shove me away, not now. “I never said that it did, Zephyr, I never said that your life had to revolve around mine.”

  “No, you just imply it.” His hand runs through his hair, pulling it away from his face. “I have better things to do than to follow you around like your little lost puppy, Joey.” His voice is like fingernails going down a chalkboard. The sound sending my body into shock. “I’m not your lackey.”

  My mouth opens but no words escape. I don’t understand this. I want to ask him why he’s saying these things, but the anger is building, growing inside me. The anger is flowing through me, heating me, and I’m about ready to explode. I can’t take anything else. Not right now.

  Where the hell is this coming from? I want to know.

  “What—I—what?” I stammer, perplexed. My hands clench into fists at my sides as I try to avoid looking at him, but it’s no use, I can’t help but look at him—my best friend.

  I thought.

  “This is just something that I’ve needed to say, Joey,” he tells me, the fight still in his voice. “For a while.”

  “You’ve never needed to say anything like this to me before,” I say quietly, my hands unclenching to grip the strap on my backpack, my knuckles turning a bright white. The urge to cry hits me like a bag of rocks, but I don’t want to cry, I don’t want to give Zephyr the satisfaction of seeing me vulnerable.

  “Oh.” Zephyr leans closer, eyeing me. “Did I hurt your feelings?” he asks, mockingly. “You look like you’re going to cry now, are you?”

  Who is this person? This can’t be the boy that went out of his way to make me feel accepted, this isn’t the boy that would camp out in my living room, this is definitely not the boy who would trade his Oreos with me for the horrible oatmeal raisin cookies the school would give me. This isn’t my Zephyr.

  I don’t want to look at him, I don’t want him to take my attention, but I do. Against my better judgment, I look up to him. The look on his face is one that I’ve never seen before. His face, I can only describe, has turned to hard angles, jagged and abstract, different from the soft, smooth curves and graceful lines that show him smiling and happy.

  This Zephyr is angry and sneering at me.

  This Zephyr I don’t know.

  “Fuck you,” I tell him in a light whisper I almost couldn’t release. Turning, I leave him where he stands, I leave him and I don’t plan to return.

  I didn’t ride home with Jamie that day or to school the next day. It would’ve been too difficult, seeing Zephyr. I basically avoid him at all costs—in the halls, at home—I even considered switching seats in AP Euro but he beat me to it.

  As I walked into the classroom, debating in my head what to tell Mr. Cheney without attributing it to a typical lover’s quarrel, but Zephyr was sitting next to Greg Thyme, avoiding me as I stood in the front of the room with my mouth agape in shock.

  Ryder was happy to be my ride to and from school. He was just happy to be near me at all. He claimed that he was my rock, that he was holding me up when it seemed that my world was crumbling.

  Whatever.

  That’s when the hand holding started.

  “What are you doing?” I ask him after his hand slips into mine, his fingers intertwining with mine, lacing together.

  “What does it look like?” he asks, a playful smile tugging at his lips while he walks me to my next class, passing the gaping faces, one of them Zephyr’s at his locker.

  His eyes fall to our hands clasped together, and I take the moment to lean into Ryder—better to show Zephyr that I’ve moved on. He turns back to Jackson, ignoring us all together.

  Quickly, I pull away from Zephyr, hoping that he didn’t notice.

  I look to our hands joined together, temporarily locking him to my side. “I’d say we were about to play Red Rover but I don’t see a challenging line of people ready to charge us.” I make a show of looking for someone, anyone, ready to play the childhood game I used to love.

  “This this isn’t Red Rover.” He explains with a slow chuckle, before leaving me at my class with a kiss on the cheek.

  That is when he started kissing me on the cheek.

  After pressure from the girl I’m starting to question my friendship with, Kennie, I eventually agreed with Ryder’s invitation to Homecoming. I did it, mostly, for two reasons: (1) I was genuinely terrified that I’d be forced into another pop music medley in the lunchroom. A third time and Ryder wouldn’t be walking out of that cafeteria without the help of trained medical professionals. And (2) I knew how much it would piss Zephyr off. Okay, the latter was the main reason why.

  After I said yes to Ryder, Zephyr seemed to know. He seemed to look at me l
ike he knew, at least, that was when he would show up to class and actually look at me. He skipped AP Euro more often than not, only showing up to class on the day of the weekly quizzes. Quizzes, I’m sure, that he failed for not being in class during the week.

  I remember, back in the start of class, I told him I’d always help him whenever he needed it, but I refuse to reach out my hand until he apologizes to me.

  That’s the least he can do.

  Damn! Why do I still care about his grade? Why do I still care about him?

  ***

  Tired of my absence from her life, Jamie called me and told me to get dressed and not to forget comfortable shoes. Okay…? The only thing I could do in my sleep deprived state, since it was seven in the morning on a Saturday when she called, was just comply. Next thing I know, I’m sitting in her car as she speeds toward Alderwood Mall to scour the popular stores for a Homecoming dress. Since she knows I’m going to the dance—my date has a bigger mouth than a pie eater going back for seconds—with a date for the first time, like, ever, she wanted to take me with her.

  “What’s going on between you and my brother?” she asks as she slides a few dresses along the rack, eyeing two, checking the sizes, and scrunching up her nose when she notices something she doesn’t like. It’s typical Jamie.

  I’d been waiting for this question since she started the car. Actually, since my phone rang and I saw her picture pop up on my screen, but I really don’t want to talk about Zephyr, not today.

  So—like always—I’ll deflect.

  “Is Aidan home?” I ask, my hands trailing along a few dresses feeling the fabric slide along my fingertips. I could never picture myself wearing any of these. The thought of me just walking around in so much fluff and tulle is laughable—hysterical even. So I just push away the thought and turn back to my friend.

  “Not that brother,” Jamie says, referencing her older brother who lives on the East Coast at New York University grad school to be… something. Something that I have yet to decipher when he visits, there are a lot of big words that I have no mental pictures for—that’s saying something—and I usually tune him out when he starts talking about his classes. Jamie ducks behind a rack, looking for something. “Zephyr,” she says, distracted.

  Like she really needs to clarify.

  Just the sound of his name puts a sour taste in my mouth.

  “That’s something you need to ask him.” I speak to the dress in front of me, tucking my hair behind ears, feeling the curls tickle the back of my neck. “Because, to be completely honest, I have no clue.”

  “What kind of relationship do you think we have; me and Zephyr?” Jamie asks as she lifts a hanger holding a short hot pink dress with sequins, it’s a one-shouldered monstrosity. We both laugh at it before she replaces it on the rack. “You know he won’t talk to me.” She grabs a different dress and holds it up to see how it looks against the dark tones of her flawless skin. “He’s acting… weird.”

  I shrug my shoulders even though she can’t see me. She’s too busy looking in the nearest mirror, focusing on her looks and fixing the smudged line beneath her right eye. “I can’t explain that,” I mutter.

  “What about this one?” she asks once she’s taken her attention away from the mirror. Her manicured hands hold yet another dress, a green floor length gown that looks too sophisticated for a high school dance. She doesn’t want to hear that though.

  “That would look great on you,” I tell her. It honestly would, she always looks beautiful in green. Jamie should really wear the color more often.

  “You really think so?” she asks, not caring about my real opinion—although I’m telling the truth—I’m also telling her what she wants to hear. “I think I’d look like a tree.”

  “Has he said anything?” I ask, moving back to our original discussion, ignoring the gowns before me. “You know, about me?” I press, not knowing what I hope the answer to be.

  Well, I do know.

  I want him to feel guilt for what he said to me that day at his locker. I want him to long for the best friend that he pushed away. I want him to want me—but why? Why would I possibly want that from my best friend?

  The thought of him near me is enough to make my stomach flutter with butterflies—no, pterodactyls. I can feel their wings flapping ferociously whenever I walk past him in the halls, whenever I feel his eyes on me in class, whenever I’m able to breathe the same air. I don’t feel anything like that around Ryder. Thank God.

  I take a deep breath to calm the feelings raging.

  “He hasn’t been speaking much,” she tells me, distracted by the next dress she grabs, the one that matches the color of her hair. “Which is weird. You know Zephyr; he usually has something to say about everything.” That’s the former-best friend I know, opinionated. “He misses you, though. I can tell that much. He’s sad in the mornings when we should be with you.”

  Zephyr? Sad?

  That’s an interesting thing to think about.

  “He knows where to find me if he wants to apologize for being an ass.” Again, I don’t add. I mean, he can apologize, metaphorically kiss my ass, worship at my feet, wash the windows of my house; he can do anything he feels he needs to do to make things right between us. Anything would be wonderful.

  She doesn’t move but to tug her long hair from over one shoulder to the other, her lined eyes widening when she spots this long black, gold fringed fabric. “You have to try this one,” Jamie announces, launching the black mass into my hands from where she stands. “This would look so cute on you,” she tells me as she pushes me toward the nearest dressing room, pretty much fighting me.

  I hold the dress out to get a better look at it. It’s floor length, black, with a beaded gold trim, and one shoulder. It would, it looks like, cover all of my scars. With closer inspection, I see that it’s a Greek styled dress. Kind of cool and I’d be comfortable wearing it, being that it doesn’t show that much skin.

  “Don’t you think that, out of the two of us, the actual Greek person should wear this dress?” I ask her before she shoves me into the room with so much force I careen toward the wall. I’m surprised I didn’t make contact.

  “But it’d look so much better on you,” Jamie sing-songs through the door. “Ryder could get a matching tie and cummerbund,” she adds.

  “What the hell is a cummerbund?” I ask through the door, still staring at the dress as it hangs along the back of the door.

  “My God, Joey, you’re the genius out of the two of us and you don’t know?” I hear a giggle. “Don’t worry about that.” I can picture Jamie waving a hand through the air, dismissing the conversation. “Just try it on.” And shut up about it.

  So I do. I look at the dress hanging so beautifully, I will say that, it’s really gorgeous—I just don’t think I can pull it off, I don’t think it’ll look great on me. I strip from my normal jeans and a t-shirt; both dark colored, and slip into the dress. I spin in front of the mirror, checking out the reflection, tying up my hair so I can see my back, or see how much of my back is covered. The one thing thing that I don’t like about it: I’d have to figure out what type of bra to wear because of the one shoulder style, but other than that, I love it. It doesn’t make me look too bad. The thought of wearing something like this is almost enough to make me forget about my problems with Zephyr. But the entire purpose of this shopping trip with a friend is to get her opinion on everything.

  I step from the room, smiling widely, holding a portion of the gown so I don’t trip myself. The last thing I want is to damage a dress this pretty. Jamie’s leaning against the far wall, texting someone—most likely Marcus. Her eyes glance up briefly before she does a double take, her smile blooming with surprise and admiration.

  “What do you think?” I ask, too nervous to hear her answer. What if it looks horrible on me? I turn, showing off the back.

  What if she tells me I look like a cow? What if she tells me I look much worse and I should just go home and hide away fo
rever with a paper bag over my head?

  “I think there’s some Greek in your bloodline you’re not aware of,” she tells me, lifting her phone to snap a picture. “I’ll be offended if you don’t buy that.”

  “I guess that’s your subtle way of saying you like it?” I mumble to myself, not meaning it as a question, as I head back into the change room.

  I purchase the dress; I couldn’t really pass it up. Jamie’s right, I look great in the thing. I also buy a pair of black and gold sandals to go with it, nothing with heels because I don’t want to face plant when I walk. Jamie buys the green dress, it makes her mahogany eyes pop, and we head home after a brief stop for lunch in the food court where she scopes out cute guys. Just because I’m on a diet doesn’t mean I can’t look at the menu, she tells me when I mention Marcus—the love of her life.

  The next weekend, just when I think all things Homecoming related are behind me, Kennie kidnaps both Harley and me for the sole purpose of dress shopping. It’s just another day where I’m forced into the mall, practically against my will. At least I have a friend to suffer with me.

  “Harley,” Kennie starts from the nearest dress rack. Now, she looks like she belongs here. You know, the mall type, with her tight pink sweater, perfect fitting jeans that make the passing guys follow her with their mouths dropped, and tongues wagging while Harley and I wear band t-shirts and dark jeans with holes at the knees, somehow matching each other. It’s amazing Harley and I still do that when we don’t plan for it. “Are you going?”

  “I don’t know,” Harley begins quietly, her eyes glancing over a red dress. “Who would I go with?” she asks, so quietly, I’m trying to determine if I can hear sadness in her voice or if I’m imagining it.

  “Ask someone,” Kennie offers matter-of-factly, blinded to our friends true feelings. But I finally feel like I understand Harley as her hooded gaze wanders from dress to dress, shoe to shoe. “Or go with a friend,” is her other option.