Perfectly Flawed

by Nessa Morgan

  She must have.

  I’m lost in the thought when the front door creaks open with a loud whine—it was unlocked?—and Zephyr walks into the kitchen wearing red basketball shorts and a grey t-shirt with the school mascot on the back with his jersey number beneath it. His hair is a straggly mess around his head, matted down on one side, completely frizzy and wild on the other, like this was his first destination once he got out of from bed.

  “I smell pancakes,” he mumbles as he heads straight for the plate in my hands, determination set in his eyes, like every other time he sees food.

  Hilary snaps to attention, her eyes darting between Zephyr and me, before settling on Zephyr as he stands in the doorway to the kitchen. “Now that was creepy,” she says, watching as Zephyr tries to take the plate from my hands.

  I’m prepared to bite him if he gets too close. I start snarling and growling like a hungry dog—don’t ask, I’m still waking up, here. He takes the hint and backs away from me, his arms up in weak surrender.

  He smiles at me, knowing me and my love for breakfast foods, and he starts laughing as I protectively hover over the plate.

  I have issues.

  “Where’s Jamie?” I ask, still hoarding the plate away from the human garbage disposal. He could trick me and snatch it away, something he’s done before. Hilary, knowing how much Zephyr can eat, starts preparing more batter by cutting more bananas and setting them aside with the bag of chocolate chips, she grabs the large bowl from the sink and rinses it out, all to listen to whatever we have to say, I know.

  She wants me to speak more about that damned date.

  “Asleep,” he answers half-heartedly, holding back a yawn, as he searches the cabinets above the refrigerator for syrup. “Your window’s open and the mouthwatering aroma was too strong for me to ignore,” he tells us, still on his maple syrup search.

  “Really?” Hilary sarcastically asks from the stove. “I’m pretty sure the thought of food was enough to drag you out of bed, Zephyr.”

  “Just the thought of your delicious cooking, Hilary,” Zephyr says with an faux-innocent smile as he wraps an arm around her shoulders in a side hug.

  She raises an orange eyebrow in skepticism. “Does your family feed you?” Hilary finally asks after a few moments of quiet, mostly to the chocolate chip speckled pancakes in her pan.

  “More often than you think,” he answers, leaning against the counter as his eyes watch her hand flip and lift the breakfast cooking in front of her.

  “Well, you know where the plates are, kid,” she tells him, pointing the spatula at his head. “Start handing them out. And make sure Joey takes one, she’s eating with her hands again.”

  They both look to me as I munch on a pancake, training my eyes anywhere but on them.

  Zephyr grabs three plates from the cupboard closest to the sink, bringing them to the table and setting them at different seats. He grabs the silverware as I continue to snack on pancakes, too eager for syrup and utensils. One quick look at me, a pancake dangling from my mouth, and he starts laughing like it’s the funniest thing that he’s ever seen. Hilary looks over to see what’s so funny and she snickers from the sight of me.

  Settling down and setting the silverware where it needs to go, Zephyr takes his seat, the one next to me. “How was the date with Golden Boy?” he asks, grabbing five pancakes, half of what remains on the plate, and covering them in maple syrup. Knowing him as well as I do, I know that he doesn’t have any real interest. I can tell by his eyes, but he did ask, so I’ll tell him.

  “Don’t get me started on it,” I mutter, placing three pancakes on my own plate, foregoing the fork, deciding to still eat them with my hands. “We ended up at Jennifer Long’s house for some stupid party.”

  “Oh, yeah, that party,” he says, as if it were an afterthought. As if he’s remembering where he put his keys or what the math homework was from last Tuesday. “I didn’t go.”

  “Well, duh, I knew that,” I tell him, poking him in the arm with the end of my fork. “I would have left a hell of a lot sooner than I did if you were there.”

  Hilary clears her through with a very audible ahem, stealing our attention. She’s staring at me with her hand on her hip—the woman just went sassy. I can picture her tapping her foot in annoyance. “Was there drinking?” she asks. We didn’t make it hard, but I forgot that Hilary was in the room listening to me talk about a high school party where there were, no doubt, underage drinkers, me as one of them. Her parental instincts were kicking in.

  But I didn’t treat this situation like you normally would when conversing with a concerned parent/guardian. I treated it like I would anything else.

  “No, not at all, in fact, we just sat around playing board games and using a sharing stick to talk about our hopes and dreams.” It wasn’t too early for me to get hit in the back of the head for my deadpan speech of pure sarcasm.

  “Josephine Elizabeth,” Hilary barks out as Zephyr chuckles behind his hand.

  Thanks, Best Friend. Way to make it better.

  I steal a glance at Zephyr, noticing his playful smile, and take a bite. “Do you want honesty,” I ask with my mouth filled with pancake.

  As she asked, I told her about the alcohol, how I had one beer—technically—and Ryder was good to drive. She was happy and proud that I didn’t get into a car with a drunk driver. I was happy that she didn’t go overboard and decide to call Ryder’s parents to let them know that their son had subjected me to alcohol, that he was a bad influence turning her honor roll niece into a delinquent.

  Okay, maybe I’m imagining that last part, but the sentiment is still the same.

  While Hilary has never seemed like the tattle type, who knows what she could do now that I was, quote, unquote, dating. I mean, I’ve never given her a reason to have a long discussion with someone’s parents about the trouble me and their child got into. I’ve never been in trouble; I’m a good kid.

  Zephyr sprawled along my unmade bed, kicking off his shoes, as he got comfortable with the pink of my sheets. After breakfast, we decided to laze around and spend the rest of our Sunday morning uneventfully. Like every other Sunday. “What are you going to do today?” he asks, his hand reaching for the remote on my bedside table.

  Is he going to force me to watch sports in my own room?

  “I don’t know,” I answer, following it up with a wide yawn—politely covered with my hand. I watch him flick through sports channel after sports channel from the worn recliner in the corner of my room. Yes, he’s going to force me to watch sports in my own room. He’s too comfortable in my room, too used to the femininity that surrounds him. I remember when he would play with me when we were kids, he’d try and boy it up as best he could, but his attempts were all failures. He wasn’t used to hanging around with a girl all the time; he wasn’t used to all the pink plastered everywhere. Now, while I’m not so girly anymore, I’m still very into pink and purple and pastels and it’s very obvious. Though, I spoke too soon, he lands on a football game I didn’t know was playing. “Nap, maybe.”

  He turns his attention to me, ignoring the game, and drags his hand through his long brown locks. The intensity of his gaze makes my stomach flutter, something that has never happened when any guy—let alone Zephyr—looked at me. I try to shake it away. “Last night took a lot out of you, huh?” he asks quietly. There is something about his gaze, something about his eyes that I love. The feeling of them gliding over me when he speaks to me, how they never turn away, like I’m all that he can think about, all he can see. There is importance in his stare, something no one else has really made me feel.

  “You could say that,” I answer sheepishly, leaning back in my chair and covering my bare legs with my pink-and-gray No-Sew throw blanket. He turns his attention back to my television set, I continue to stare at him.

  “Joey.” Hilary’s snaps me back to reality as she pokes her head through my open door, spotting me in the chair and Zephyr on my bed. She smiles at the sight and s
eems relieved. “Someone is here to see you.” She steps back, disappearing into the hall and Ryder walks into my room, filling the doorway where my aunt once stood with his six-feet height.

  “Harrison?” Zephyr sits up, throwing his legs over the side of my bed. The expression on his face switches from happy to furious in the time it takes for me to blink.

  Is it just me or is that weird?

  Right, just me.

  Well, to be honest, it’s not as weird as my body’s reaction to Zephyr’s eyes, so that’s something.

  “Morning, Kalivas,” Ryder says curtly to the boy on my bed, his ocean blue eyes set on me. For a Sunday, where people usually attend church in nice clothes, Ryder, it appeared, was not the exception. He was wearing neatly pressed khaki pants, a dark blue button down shirt, tucked in at the waist, and a shiny pair of brown loafers.

  “What are you doing here?” I blurt rudely.

  “Joey!” Hilary’s voice calls from the hall. She’s still standing near my door, eavesdropping.

  I roll my eyes. “I’m fine, Ryder,” I say politely for her benefit. “What are you doing here on such a holy day?” I rework the question, crossing my arms across my chest, covering the Powerpuff Girls design of the t-shirt I grabbed this morning in a hurry. At least I’m wearing a bra.

  “I don’t know why I try,” I hear my aunt mutter in the hall.

  “Curiosity killed the cat, Hilary,” I say loud enough for her to hear and get the message.

  A few seconds later and I can hear her slippers flopping as she stomps away, loudly for my benefit, toward the stairs, soon retreating into the living room.

  “I wanted to see if you wanted to see a movie or something,” Ryder finally answers, his eyes trailing down my body, taking in my pajama shorts and, thankfully, baggy t-shirt. His eyes linger on my bare legs. I quickly cover them with my blanket.

  “You could have called,” Zephyr snaps from my bed. He leans forward, far enough that it appears he’s about to leap from my bed and attack Ryder where he stands. Somehow, that thought alone makes me smile. The look on his face isn’t a happy one and I assume he’s plotting murder in his mind. “Or texted.”

  Ryder turns his attention to Zephyr, my best friend, and his look seems to challenge.

  What is it with these weird people?

  And why do I know so many of them?

  “That would’ve saved you gas,” I say, trying to lighten the mood and cut the growing tension in the room. “I don’t want to see a movie or something,” I tell him, looking to Zephyr in time to see his expression soften.

  Ryder takes a few steps closer to me, not close enough for him to touch me but close enough that I can smell his thick cologne. “If I said please?” he asks quietly, sparing no glance toward Zephyr as he sits witness to this spectacle.

  “I’d still say no, Ryder.” I tell him with a nod. I paste a smile on my face. “Nice to see you, though,” I tell him, hoping that he takes the subtle hint and lie. “Have a good Sunday.”

  Ryder takes a step back. “I’ll see you at school, then?” he asks, a sliver of hope in his blue eyes. I that he’s hoping that I’ll change my mind and escape with him to wherever he wants to go.

  “We’ll pass in the halls,” I tell him, letting him know that’s how I want to see him in the future, as a fleeting passerby.

  With that, his hope extinguished, he exits my room and I listen to his steps as he thumps down the stairs to the living room. I hear the front door close behind him.

  “That was weird,” Zephyr mutters, leaning back on my bed to get comfortable again.

  “Tell me about it,” I reply, snuggling into my chair, my gaze fixed on Zephyr as he lounges against my pillows.

  I did get that nap I wanted. During whatever football game Zephyr was subjecting me to, I fell asleep in my chair. I didn’t even need to kick Zephyr out of my bed. As I rethink that sentence in my mind, I feel a little awkward talking about a guy in my bed, but then I move on to the guy in my bed. Sweet baby Jesus! My brain is turning against me, here. I’m not supposed to think of my best friend in my bed.

  I awake to more blankets covering me than there were to begin with, my television was off and the light was off, my room encased in shadows. Zephyr had gone back to his house, his own room, to do whatever it is he does during the weekend.

  Once I was awake and not boiling beneath my comforter—yes, the boy tugged my large, fluffy comforter from my bed—I set to finishing my calculus assignment. I practiced my violin and tinkered on my piano. Hilary’s weekend of freedom ended and she left me alone to work on her usual shift, leaving me to fend for myself for dinner. That’s something that I’ve grown used to in my teenage years.

  That meant a deep-dish pepperoni and pineapple pizza.

  Yum!

  I get to bed at an early hour, waking up early in the morning from the normal dark nightmare. No one’s face haunted my dreams, thank God, but I did get the feeling of drowning and suffocation again. The usual. I wash the sweat from my skin and start my week like normal.

  In school, I shove my books into my locker and struggle to hold my backpack up as I unload one heavy textbook after another.

  “Hey, Joey,” I hear the familiar condescending voice behind me. I turn, facing Alexia Cavanaugh in her skintight jeans and cleavage-bearing top that reveals so much I’m surprised that she hasn’t been sent home to change. Her designer handbag—I think Chanel—is dangling from her arm as if she were at the mall searching for the perfect pair of shoes rather than the reality of being at school trying to receive an education.

  I look to her, briefly acknowledging her existence. “Goodbye, Alexia.” I slam my locker shut and struggle to zip up my backpack before slinging it over my shoulders. In my mind, I hope that I hit her in the head with my bag. The she’d know what intelligence feels like.

  “I really don’t get what he sees in you,” she states as she follows me. Is she talking about Ryder? I have exhausted all topics of Ryder Harrison this week. “Or anyone else for that matter,” she continues as she flips her hair over her shoulder. Typical bitch move.

  I can’t help myself, despite the warning in my head blinking DO NOT INITIATE! DO NOT INITIATE!

  “What are you yapping about?” I ask, going against my better judgment and indulging her by continuing this pointless conversation. I swear I can feel my brain cells dying away the longer I’m in her presence.

  “You don’t know?” she asks, surprise fills her voice. Something crosses her face but it quickly vanishes before I can identify it.

  I really don’t have time for this or for her so I start walking faster toward my classroom. Maybe I can lose her in a crowd.

  “How could I possibly know what you’re talking about?” I nearly yell at her.

  “Well,” she starts quietly. “It’s kind of obvious if you pay attention,” she tells me with a drawn out sigh. “But if you haven’t seen it, I’m not going to spell it out for you.”

  “Then, I guess, this little exchange between us was pointless,” I politely tell her, nearing my class. I nearly sprint inside the room right then.

  “Not entirely,” she says cryptically.

  I roll my eyes, completely pissed that I’m wasting my time with her. “Still, I’m not getting the brain cells I just lost back,” I tell her, stopping in the open doorway to my class. I spin around, facing her. “Look, I told Ryder that I didn’t want a second date, okay.” Her left eyebrow arcs at my words. “He might still take you back or whatever.”

  Turning, I leave her standing in the hall. She’d never be caught in an AP class, even if it were just to openly mock and laugh at me for whatever it is I don’t know, so she left when the first warning bell rang, joining her followers I assume.

  Zephyr smiles at me from his seat, his notebook open in front of him, a fresh page with the date written at the top right hand corner. He has learned something from me, that’s good. His pen is pinned behind his ear, hidden beneath his hair. Class is uneventful, as
it usually is, just Mr. Cheney talking about the outcomes of World War I. I took notes like I’m supposed to but I wasn’t listening, not really.

  ***

  I went through the rest of my morning classes like normal, ran the normally obnoxious mile in gym. Because Harley was absent, Zephyr and I raced for part of the run. Okay, for the entire run. I almost beat him… had one of his friends not cut me off. I know he made that happen, the cheater. We were in the gym, the first two to finish with the mile, laughing our asses off while the coaches looked at us with confused and worried expressions. They never expect us to actually enjoy the run, and we rarely do, but sometimes you’ve got to make the things you hate, the things you despise, a little fun.

  Soon it was lunch and I was at our usual table sitting in front of Harley and next to Kennie—both of them glaring at me.

  “You didn’t call me,” Harley starts, annoyance and disappointment in her voice that I didn’t immediately tell her about my date with Ryder. To be honest, I didn’t really want to relive it.

  “Or me,” Kennie chimes from the seat next to me. I can smell her perfume, floral and thick. It suits her. She looks pristine and perfect, no indication of that party at all. Though, it was two days ago, she’s had plenty of time to recover and rehydrate.

  “I assumed the both of you were too busy puking your guts out.” I start peeling the banana I snagged from the lunch line while the cafeteria lady wasn’t paying attention. I realize that I’ve broken one of the big rules of Girl Code. I’ve never been big on the Code.

  “Beside the point,” Harley starts. She unloads her lunch from the typical brown paper bag. It’s mostly saltine crackers and nothing too heavy to upset her stomach. “How was it?” she asks, actual interest in her eyes. I know she doesn’t want to hear if it was a good date. She just wants basic details.

  I ignore the question, deciding to let them squirm seems like the better thing to do. “Why weren’t you in gym?” I ask Harley instead.

  “Doctor’s appointment,” she answers, swiftly. “Now spill all the gory details about the date from hell.” How does she always know what’s going through my mind? “I can’t imagine Ryder as interesting.”