No Such Thing as Perfect

by Daltry, Sarah

  “She’s not the first, you know,” Abby continued. “I heard he’s not a virgin already. Jaylinn told me that she heard from Tara that Derek hooked up with Heather Yost earlier in the fall.”

  I remembered hearing about it when it had happened. I’d been home, reading and eating cereal, and Jon and Derek came back from a party smelling like weed and beer. My parents had been out of town for the night for my father’s job and Jon was in charge of me while they were gone, although it was me who ended up mopping up his vomit. Before he puked, though, I could hear him and Derek in the hallway, talking about Heather, and I didn’t want to think about the things they were saying. It had only been a few months since we’d gone camping, but the boy I knew didn’t talk like that.

  “I know. But it’s not my problem. What is my problem is the medieval nation-state of Russia, so unless Jaylinn or Tara has some interesting gossip about that, I need to focus.”

  It was a lie, of course, but what could I do? Aside from impaling myself on one of the great tsar’s stakes and mourning the loss of something that was never going to happen, I mean. I almost made it through the day not letting it bother me – much – until I got to gym class. It was the only class I had with Rebecca and really the only reason I knew she existed. Earlier in the year, she’d “accidentally” bent over during volleyball when she forgot she wasn’t wearing underwear. And then giggled when Wendy Nordstrom told her to “put away her vagina.” It had been the biggest story that week, until someone else did something dumb. I don’t really remember. It was easier to keep track of military coups than what girl did what with whom in my school.

  When I saw her, I wanted to be mad. I wanted to be able to say she was ugly, that I wasn’t jealous, that she was boring and that Derek would lose interest quickly, but she was standing on the track, which we were walking because our gym teacher had gotten bored with teaching us sports we couldn’t play, and her hair was literally glowing. She had a damn halo, I swear, and I wanted to hate her. I wanted her beautiful golden locks to fall out of her head, but I couldn’t really be angry at her. It wasn’t her fault she was pretty. It wasn’t her fault Derek liked her and she liked him. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to be happy.

  “Oh, my God. Lily!” She ran across the track towards me as if we’d ever spoken before. “You’re Jon Drummond’s sister, right?”

  “Yup. Lily Drummond. Jon Drummond. Easy to make that connection,” I said.

  She didn’t laugh; instead, she actually said the words, “ha ha ha.” Followed by “you’re so funny and cute.”

  “Okay.” I wasn’t trying to be cute. I was trying not to determine the likelihood of a time machine and the value of trade for someone like Rebecca in medieval Siberia.

  “Can you believe they’re making us walk this track?” she asked. “It’s like a gazillion miles long, right?”

  “A quarter.”

  “What?”

  I sighed. “It’s a quarter of a mile. That’s why we walk it four times when we’re timing a mile,” I tried to explain. We’d been walking the track for more than a month – every single day. Every day, we had to time a mile. That was the entire assessment. We were even supposed to be keeping logs, so we could eventually do mathematic calculations that had yet to be revealed to us. “You know… the logs? We keep logs?”

  “Huh? Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about trees.” I couldn’t even form a reply before she said, “Anyway, I’m having a party this weekend. Can you tell your brother?”

  “Sure.”

  “Great. Thanks,” she said, before heading back to her friends who were still standing in a circle waiting for her. She sashayed. I’d seen the word in books, but I’d never experienced it. Thanks to Rebecca Ellison, I will always know what it is to sashay.

  7.

  I make it through the week otherwise unscathed. All my work is done, I seem to be maybe becoming friends with Kristen, and Derek’s on his way up to campus. I’ve been pacing for the better part of an hour.

  “You need to relax,” Kristen says. “What could go wrong?”

  For people who don’t need things in their places, it’s easy to relax. If something goes awry, it can always be fixed later. For people like me, though, everything can always go wrong. When I can’t control it, I panic. It’s the only thing I know how to do.

  “What if something’s happened?” I ask for the third time. He was supposed to be here an hour ago.

  “Nothing happened. He hit traffic, I bet.”

  “But why didn’t he call?”

  “Because he’s an idiot. Now sit down and stop pacing. You’re making me nervous.”

  There’s a scuff on the toe of my shoes, so I do sit down. I scrub at it, but it won’t come out; my attempts end up making it worse, so now the entire toe is dirty. “I look like hell,” I tell Kristen.

  “You look fine – just like you have for the last few hours when you’ve asked. How long have you been dating again?”

  “Ten months.”

  “Ten months, and you think he’s going to show up having not seen you in a week and realize he must have been crazy?” she asks.

  “It’s just… he’s the only boyfriend I’ve ever had.”

  “So?”

  How do I tell her about Rebecca Ellison, about Heather Yost, about Jill Pevarski, about Gina Frey, about all the girls Derek’s dated? How do I explain that nothing ever seemed to happen, that one day he was with them and then one day he wasn’t? How do I make her see that I’ve only wanted him and he fits into the puzzle and that I don’t have a backup plan?

  “Never mind. Can I borrow your shoes? The black ones you wore yesterday?”

  Kristen shakes her head and jumps down off her bed. “Lily, none of it matters. If Derek doesn’t want you, you’re good enough without him.”

  Good enough is not good enough, I think. No one wants good enough. I don’t say anything, though, but I take the shoes and change them. There’s no sign of the scuff. Nothing is out of place, nothing out of order.

  ****

  Derek’s talking about traffic, but everything is fine now. He’s here. The local diner was the only place I could think of to go for dinner that wasn’t the cafeteria, but Derek seems perfectly okay with it as he douses his fries in ketchup.

  “So how was the first week anyway?” he asks.

  I stir my milkshake. I ordered it thinking I would have the appetite for it, but after one sip, I don’t feel like eating or drinking. My nerves are frayed, which will pass, but a milkshake is dreadful right now. “It was all right. I missed you.”

  “I missed you, too. We have the whole weekend, though. Just us.”

  Kristen already made arrangements to stay with another girl on our floor, whose roommate went home to get a few things she’d forgotten, so Derek and I have some privacy. I was a virgin before Derek and I began dating, but over the past year, he’s been my first kiss, my first boyfriend, and my first everything.

  He leans across the table. “I don’t know about you, but I could definitely skip the movie.” We’re supposed to see a movie with everyone, but being close to Derek, thinking about spending time together, messes with my head. I don’t like to break plans.

  “I promised, though,” I argue.

  “They won’t care. Come on, Lily. We only get to see each other for a few days and then I won’t be able to come up until next month.”

  “Next month?” He’d been vague when I’d asked, talking only about how much he was enjoying rugby practice and what my brother’s been up to and asking about my classes. I should’ve known he was putting off telling me something.

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to focus on that,” he says, stopping the discussion before it can begin. “So why don’t we skip the movie? I’m sure your friends won’t mind. You’ll be able to spend plenty of time with them after this weekend and I know I’ve been thinking about nothing but being alone since you left.”

  We’d spent the day before we left for school loc
ked in his room all afternoon, but I wanted to talk to him tonight. I wanted advice and I wanted to introduce him to people. I wanted to make him a part of what I’m trying to start here, but he’s right and it’s not worth arguing.

  “Sure, I’ll text them,” I agree. I turn off my phone after I do, because I don’t want to deal with the questions. There’s no point in trying to explain; it’s just a movie.

  Derek goes back to talking, this time about a party he’d been to the night before. “Jon was a mess. You should’ve seen it,” he says and takes a bite of his burger. I continue to stir my milkshake. When Derek finishes his fries, he grabs mine from my plate. I wasn’t eating them anyway. “There were girls all over him, though, so he thought it was a success.”

  “What about you?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do girls hang all over you, too?”

  He pours ketchup all over my fries. They’re more splattered tomato than food now, but it doesn’t stop him from eating them. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

  “Well, yeah, of course, but I behave. Don’t worry.”

  “I won’t,” I lie. “I trust you.”

  “You better,” he says and he finishes the last few fries before throwing money on the table. “Let’s go. I am dying to be alone with you. It’s all I’ve thought about for days.”

  8.

  Telling Derek how I felt didn’t go how I’d expected. I’d never really had a plan for it, assuming it would never amount to much. Since I had realized it myself, he was always seeing someone. Although Rebecca ended up being over quickly, it established a pattern. He would end up hooking up with someone at a party or something, date them for a while, and it would end. Sometimes it ended before he hooked up with someone else, and other times it didn’t. He earned something of a reputation, but it didn’t stop girls from trying and it didn’t change the boy I knew. Every so often we would be sitting in my house and Jon would be doing something or Derek would help my mom with the groceries or I would just look up and I would notice that the act faded for a moment. In those glimpses, short as they were, I saw the Derek I imagined and the one I loved. But that still didn’t mean I had any intention of telling him.

  I’d just turned 18 and Jon had brought Derek home for the weekend for my birthday party. Because it was me, my party was me, Abby, my parents, and the guys out at Olive Garden, but I had a hard time focusing because Derek was there and he kept looking at me. I would look up from my fettuccine Alfredo to find his rich brown eyes trained on me. At one point, I nearly choked on the forkful of pasta I’d been eating because he smiled and it was the kind of smile I remembered. He saw me and it might have been the first time in four years.

  Later that night, after we’d had cake and everyone had gone to bed, I sat in my room rereading the card Derek had given me. It didn’t say much and it was the kind of card you give your nephew when he turns three - it had a monkey on it and said “I’m going bananas wanting to wish you a happy birthday” – but he’d written, “I still remember that afternoon when we went camping.” I didn’t know what to make of it and I wanted to call Abby and ask her, but she’d had to go home early because she was going to her cousin’s wedding and I was sitting up alone after midnight trying to make it make sense.

  When he knocked, I didn’t even think before inviting him in. I wasn’t thinking about him being in my room or my parents finding us. I just wanted to understand what he was trying to tell me. During dinner, he had been telling my mom about Jodie, a girl he was dating at school, and I wondered if he even knew how much every word hurt me.

  “Hey,” he said, shutting the door behind him.

  “Hi.” I held up his card. “Thanks for your card. I was just… reading it. I mean, I remember that day, too. I just didn’t think-”

  I had always imagined my first kiss. In all my fantasies of it, it was with Derek, but I thought it would be romantic and I thought I’d be ready. When he came towards me, though, I froze. I didn’t move as he lifted me out of my chair and kissed me, his tongue moving inside of my mouth, and it was nothing like I’d expected. He was demanding and I wasn’t sure it was what I’d wanted or hoped for, but he smelled like he always did – a mix of soap and boy – and I wanted to stay close to him and I wanted whatever made him look at me over dinner to continue.

  “What are you doing?” I asked when he stopped kissing me and smiled again.

  “When did you get so damn sexy?” he asked me, his hands lifting my t-shirt and gripping my waist.

  “Derek, I’ve never… I mean, I haven’t even kissed anyone before. Well, I mean, I hadn’t…”

  I didn’t have the words. My parents were sleeping in the next room and I knew what happened when girls let boys into their rooms and I could hear my mother warning me about screwing up my plans and I knew she’d tell me I was acting like a slut and I should have more self-respect, but I had spent four years dreaming about Derek and I didn’t know how to say no.

  “Shhh. I’ll be gentle, Lily. Come here,” he said and he led me to my bed.

  It had been tough to watch him for years, knowing that he had girlfriends and thinking about what he did with them. I used to be jealous every time he would be at my house, talking about a date he went on. I heard the things he said, and I heard the stories at school. I knew they were probably true, but despite it, I couldn’t help that I wanted him to do it with me, too. But when he was there and it was something that was actually happening, I didn’t know what I wanted.

  “No, wait,” I told him.

  He sat up, but he didn’t let go of me and I was distracted by his hands. All of the thoughts and voices of everyone I knew were screaming inside my head. Abby telling me to go for it, that this was all I’d wanted for years. My mother lecturing me on what good girls do and don’t do. My brother and the way I used to hear him and Derek talk about girls when they didn’t know I could hear them. I didn’t want to be like those girls, but I didn’t want him to stop, either. I wanted the answer to be like school. I didn’t want to guess what was right or okay.

  “What about Jodie?” I asked. “Aren’t you seeing Jodie?”

  “How do you feel, Lily? What do you want? You’ve always wanted this, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, but if you knew… why now?”

  He kissed me again and this time I didn’t stop him when he lifted my shirt higher. “I don’t know, but when I saw you at dinner, I realized what an idiot I’d been. You’ve been right there in front of me for how long? And I just missed it. I want to make up for all that lost time. Don’t you?”

  I did and he said the right things and he whispered that he loved me and that he would protect me and that it was okay to feel like this and to want this and I gave Derek everything because I thought it was what I always wanted and he promised that I was different from all the other girls.

  9.

  The glow-in-the-dark stars look pathetic in the darkness. There are only about twelve and they don’t look like the night sky; instead they look like they got lost in the black and can’t find their way back to light.

  Derek’s snoring, having fallen asleep quickly, but I can’t stop thinking. My mind is doing that thing it does when I overanalyze and make problems where there aren’t any and I want to turn it off. I want to be happy with my boyfriend’s arm draped over my body. I want the closeness to feel like it should.

  Maybe I read too many books. I guess I always thought being in love would feel comfortable. It’s not that Derek doesn’t try, but sometimes I’m so afraid. If he pauses too long when I ask him if something looks okay or if his upper lip twitches like it does sometimes when I do something wrong, I can’t escape the doubt. Worry is like an endless ocean and my arms are just too tired to keep swimming.

  I slip out from under his arm and head to the bathroom. I don’t really have to go, but lying in the dark room isn’t putting my mind at ease and so I pace the hall. The lights flicker, poor illumination because they’re an afterthought;
dorm halls aren’t somewhere people spend their time. I consider going to find Kristen, or texting Abby even though I know she’s in some foreign city and it will cost too much and she’s probably doing amazing things. I even consider calling my parents to admit something is broken in me. But I can already hear the arguments. I’m fine. Everything is fine.

  “Scottie dogs? What a fashion statement.”

  Jack’s coming out of the elevator, carrying a guitar case. I almost start to cry knowing someone is seeing me like this.

  “Sorry. I was just…” I look around. I wasn’t just anything. I’m standing in the dim hallway by the elevator in the middle of the night wearing my pajamas.

  “Yeah, I was just…, too,” he says. “Want some coffee? I hear the lounge is lovely at this hour. There’s all the Styrofoam a lady could desire.”

  “I-” I’m about to tell him I have a boyfriend, that I can’t just drink coffee with him, but that’s dumb. What’s wrong with coffee? Derek’s asleep, I’m restless, and it’s just coffee. It certainly beats standing around by the elevator trying not to cry. “Sure. Coffee sounds good.”

  “Awesome. Let me just drop this off and grab some, okay?” He gestures to his guitar case and I follow him. He’s just down the hall – in the guys’ wing – and I make mental note of his room number. I don’t know why I do, but it’s etched on my brain before I realize what I’m doing. 401. Jack in 401.

  “Did your roommate go home for the weekend?” I ask. He opens the door, tosses his case into a dark room, rummages loudly and knocks something over, and closes it again, coffee in hand.

  “I don’t have a roommate.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know there were singles here.”

  He stops and looks at his door, then down at his shoes. “It’s… a long story. Anyway, coffee?” When he looks up, there’s a distinct change in his expression. It’s pain wrapped in fear of acknowledging it; I know the look well.

  In the lounge, he makes coffee, but the machine is old and the water is from the fountain in the hall, so the coffee just tastes like heat. There is no flavor or pleasure in drinking it, except it’s warm and it’s quiet in the lounge. Jack is picking the Styrofoam cup apart as he drains it. I don’t know why it feels like normal. I thought I knew normal, but suddenly this feels like what it should have been all along.