Better Than Perfect

by Melissa Kantor

  “How about if we find someone named Anna Karenina?” We both laughed, and then there was a silence into which my mom asked, “What happened today?”

  “I just feel like I can’t breathe,” I wailed. “I don’t want to take Latin anymore. And I don’t want to keep worrying about the future. And I don’t think I want to go to Harvard next year.” Admitting that scared me as much as almost anything that had happened to me all year. “And I know I’m disappointing you and Dad and everyone, but I feel like if I keep doing what I’m doing, I’m just going to be unhappy forever.” The picture of my future unfurling ahead of me as a series of hurdles I had to jump came back to me, and I sat there and sobbed.

  My mom rocked me gently back and forth. “Oh, honey,” she said. “Oh, honey.” It felt good to have her rock me like that. I felt myself relaxing into the rhythm of it, my body sliding forward and back in a movement it seemed to remember from when I was a baby.

  She didn’t say anything else. It wasn’t like my mom not to offer a solution to a problem and not to tell me everything was going to be okay, but she didn’t tell me what she thought I should do or not do. Instead, we just sat like that for a long time, her rocking me back and forth and calling me honey.

  It wasn’t perfect. But it was really nice.

  30

  I still had keys, but I didn’t use them. It felt wrong somehow. Instead, I rang the bell.

  I didn’t live here anymore.

  Jason answered. He was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing at the exam. It seemed impossible that it was still the same day I’d left him in Boston.

  He didn’t say a word or try to kiss or touch me, just stepped aside to let me into the house. We stood in the foyer.

  “I think we need to talk,” I said.

  “Clearly,” he said. Then he turned and started walking up the stairs. I followed.

  When we got to his room, he sat down at his desk. Neither of us said anything, and I looked around the room, realizing as I did that I was trying to memorize it.

  I took a deep breath. “First of all, I want to say that I’m really sorry for how I’ve been acting lately. I know you’ve tried to help me and I’ve been kind of . . . difficult.” I smiled on difficult, but he didn’t smile back.

  I wasn’t sure what I was going to say next, but luckily, Jason jumped in. “I don’t get you anymore, Juliet. This should be, like, the happiest time ever. We’ve got everything we worked for. For fuck’s sake, we got into Harvard. Harvard. You know how many people would kill to be in our situation?”

  “I know,” I said. My voice sounded strange to me, almost like I was about to cry even though I wasn’t.

  “And all you do is just mope around like somebody died.” He realized what he’d just said and quickly added, “I know what happened with your mom is awful. I’m not, you know, saying you should just get over it or anything. But everyone’s doing okay. Your mom. Your brother. It’s like you’re the only one who’s not okay.”

  I nodded my head almost violently. “I know. I know they’re all doing okay. But I’m not. I need to take a breath, Jason. I can’t keep doing all this shit I’ve been doing just because I’m supposed to be doing it.”

  “J,” he said, and he took a step toward me. “J, what’s wrong? I feel like I don’t know you anymore.”

  “I think you’re right,” I said, not moving to meet him. “You don’t know me anymore.”

  “What?” Suddenly he sounded suspicious. “J, what’s going on?”

  I imagined telling Jason about Declan, how if I did, everything would fall into place for him. He’d think this was all because I’d fooled around with someone else, and there would be no way I could explain that it wasn’t that. This wasn’t about Declan. Declan was just a small part of a much, much larger and more bewildering whole.

  I took a deep breath and got my shaking voice under control. “I’m not who I used to be, J. I’m different. Everything that happened to me this summer, it made me different. Or maybe I was always different and I just didn’t know it. The point is, I don’t want to be who I used to be. I don’t want to be just . . . doing things to get As and make other people happy. I want to be happy.”

  “Then be happy,” said Jason.

  “I’m trying,” I said, and now I couldn’t stop myself from crying. “I’m not going to Harvard next year. I’m going to defer.” I hadn’t known for sure until the words were out of my mouth that I was going to say them, but as soon as I heard them, I knew they were true.

  Jason stumbled away from me. The backs of his legs hit the chair, and he fell into it. “This is crazy.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But this is who I am right now.”

  “What do you want, Juliet?” He leaned forward. “What the hell do you want? Do you even know?”

  “I want to be happy.”

  “Well, let me tell you something.” He pointed his finger at me to emphasize his point. “If getting into Harvard early action doesn’t make you happy, nothing will.”

  I threw my hands up in the air. “Can you seriously not see how fucked up that is, Jason? Can you seriously not see anything beyond Harvard and the American Latin Exam and just . . . being the best at everything?”

  “You make it sound like there’s something wrong with being the best at everything. But there isn’t. And you may not remember this, but once upon a time, you wanted to be the best at everything also.”

  “I know I did.”

  We stared at each other, neither of us saying anything.

  Jason finally broke the silence. “I feel like we don’t want the same things anymore.”

  And even though he wasn’t saying anything that I didn’t already know, I started to sob. Neither of us moved. Jason sat on his desk chair, and I stood a few feet away, just bawling.

  “I think you’re making a huge mistake,” said Jason. His voice shook, and when I looked at him, I saw that he was crying.

  He’s right, I thought. I am crazy and I’m making a terrible mistake.

  But even if the rest of my life’s happiness depended on it, I couldn’t change my mind. I couldn’t go to Harvard next year. I couldn’t want the things Jason wanted, the things I’d once wanted also.

  And if I couldn’t want what he wanted, I had to let him go.

  “I’m sorry,” I sobbed. “I’m really sorry, Jason.”

  “You should leave,” he said. He turned his chair around, and he put his elbows on the desk. “I want you to leave.”

  As I walked down the stairs, I thought about how this house had only been my home for a few months but Jason had been my home for four years. And then I thought that it wasn’t fair that at seventeen you could make choices that you might regret for the rest of your life because you really had no idea what you were doing and the stakes were just too high.

  I put the keys on the table in the front hallway. And then I walked through the front door, got into my car, and pulled out of Jason’s driveway for the last time.

  31

  “I can’t do this.”

  “Yes you can.”

  Sofia and I were standing at the edge of the senior parking lot, twenty yards from the door of school. We’d been there for ten minutes. In another minute, we were going to be late for first period.

  “No, I really can’t.”

  It was just after eight a.m. on Monday morning. All weekend, I’d been dreading this moment. It was bad enough being at home knowing Jason and I weren’t together anymore. Being at school without him was unthinkable.

  It was also happening.

  Sofia put her arm around me, and at first I thought she was just being reassuring, but then I felt the not-so-gentle pressure across my back.

  “You’re about as subtle as a Mack truck.”

  “You don’t need subtle right now, my friend. You need to get to first period.”

  I let her push me forward, open the door, and guide me through it. The hallways were almost empty, a sign that I was actually going to
be late to history for the first time all year. Sofia was going to be even later than I was because apparently she’d decided to escort me to history class before going to science, which was on the other side of the building.

  She patted me on my cheek. “I’ll meet you at your locker before English, okay?” Today was a B day, so English was the first class I would have with Jason. Or without Jason.

  I leaned against the cool metal of the lockers. “Let’s cut English today.”

  “And Latin?” asked Sofia. “And science? What are you going to do, get homeschooled because you broke up with your boyfriend?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Ha-ha,” said Sofia. “I’ll see you in forty-two minutes.”

  Seeing Jason in person was actually the least dramatic part of my morning. I got to English before he did and sat toward the back, and he came in about a minute later and sat in his usual seat. When he saw me, he hesitated, then nodded. I nodded back, thinking, I’m going to throw up. I am seriously going to puke all over Mr. Burton’s classroom.

  But then I didn’t. We had class. The bell rang. Jason left. I left.

  The earth continued its rotation around the sun, and I realized walking down the hallway with Sofia that I’d been so freaked out about seeing Jason I hadn’t even noticed if Declan was in class or not.

  I didn’t see Jason at morning break, but it was there that I learned that my personal life had rocked the senior class so hard you’d have thought there’d been an armed attack on the school. Elise and Margaret huddled next to me, stroking my hair and shoulders.

  “Are you okay?” asked Elise. “Oh my God, I can’t believe it. I feel like my parents are getting divorced or something.”

  “That is seriously insane, Elise,” said Sofia. “Jason and Juliet are not your parents.”

  “Even your names sound good together. You guys are so much more of a better couple than me and George. We’re the ones who should have broken up.”

  Margaret rolled her eyes. “Then do it already, why don’t you?”

  “Oh yeah,” said Elise. “I’m going to go out with George for three years and then break up with him five months before prom.”

  “But who’s counting?” said Sofia.

  Elise pressed her knuckles to her lips and stared at me. “Oh my God. Prom.”

  “Hello!” Sofia cried. “You’re supposed to be helping her, remember?”

  “Sorry,” said Elise immediately. And because she was Elise, she started organizing. “Okay, Friday night, my house. Girls only. Incredibly stupid rom-com. Ice cream.”

  “Guys, I really think I’m okay. Really.” I looked around my circle of friends. “You have to believe me. I’m no longer into saying I’m okay when I’m not.” I gave a little laugh. “That’s kind of what got me here in the first place.”

  “Just tell me this,” said Elise, briefly considering what I’d just said. “Who broke up with who? Because if you broke up with him, I’ll believe you’re fine, but if he broke up with you, rom-com and ice cream.”

  I thought about how I’d hammered that question home with my parents. Whose choice was it? Whose fault was it? Not that my four-year relationship was the same thing as my parents’ twenty-year marriage, but for the first time, I got an inkling of what my dad meant when he talked about their splitting up. He was right: People could want different things. It was possible to love somebody but to grow away from that person.

  Sometimes, it was nobody’s fault.

  “It was a mutual decision, Elise,” I assured her.

  “Oh, please,” she said, but the bell rang before I could convince her, and really, I didn’t need to anyway.

  I called Harvard when I got home from school. The woman in the admissions office gave me the name of the dean I had to write to if I wanted to defer my admission, and she told me to explain in my letter why I wanted to take the year off.

  “The problem is, I don’t know why. I want to not go to Harvard next year. I don’t exactly know that I want to do anything else.” Outside it was snowing. Inside, my mother and I were cleaning up from dinner. There was music playing quietly, and the house didn’t feel lonely. It felt cozy.

  “Maybe Dr. Bennet can help you figure out what you want,” said my mom. She passed me a scraped plate, and I put it in the dishwasher. That morning, before going to school, I’d agreed to think about seeing Dr. Bennet, since it seemed stupid to say I wouldn’t see someone because of her name. When I got home from school, I’d decided I would definitely see her because (and this was embarrassing, but it was also the truth) my mom had spoken to her that morning and Dr. Bennet had said she wouldn’t have any openings in her schedule until March at the earliest.

  March was more than a month away, but I’d told my mom to call her back and say I’d take her next available opening.

  Because even when it came to therapists, I wasn’t interested in one who wasn’t highly selective.

  32

  I wanted to tell my dad in person about breaking up with Jason and deferring Harvard, so I called him and said I wanted us to have dinner. We agreed I’d meet him in Manhattan Thursday night, and he texted me an address. I’d assumed it was a restaurant, but when I got there, it turned out to be an apartment building, all glass and steel, nothing like our brick colonial in Milltown. The doorman asked who I was there to see, and I said, “Richard Newman,” and then I added, “My dad” and I asked what floor to go to. If it was odd to him that Mr. Newman had a daughter who didn’t know where he lived, the doorman didn’t show it. He just gave me the apartment number and waved me up.

  “I didn’t know you were so into modern stuff,” I said as we sat at the white table on the white chairs, eating the Chinese food he’d ordered from a place across the street. It was strange to see how my father had chosen to furnish his own space. Everything in our house on Long Island had been carefully chosen, furniture you could imagine handing down to your children through the ages. This was all Ikea or Ikea-esque.

  He looked around as if he’d never really noticed the furniture. “I just grabbed a bunch of stuff. I’ve never furnished an apartment before. Well, in college I lived with some friends the summer after junior year. I found a sofa on the street and we used that. So I guess, you know, I had some experience.” He held a container in my direction. “Dumpling?”

  “No thanks.” I watched him serve himself a dumpling, then drip some sauce over his plate. And into the silence I blurted out, “I don’t know you very well.”

  “What?” My dad put down the container. “What do you mean?”

  “Like I didn’t know that about you—that you’d lived with friends the summer after your junior year of college.”

  “That’s not exactly crucial information, Juliet.” He shrugged. “But anyway, now you know.”

  I toyed with the edge of my napkin so I could say the next sentence without meeting his eyes. “And you don’t know me very well.”

  “Why would you say that?” he asked, hurt.

  “I mean . . .” I took a deep breath. “I’m more than my SAT scores and my grade point average.” I finally made myself raise my eyes and look at him.

  My dad stared back at me like I’d punched him. “Do you think I don’t know that?”

  Suddenly I felt defensive. “It’s what you always ask me about. It’s what you’re always telling me you’re proud of. I just . . . it seems like that’s all you care about.”

  “Juliet,” he said quietly. “You have to know—”

  “I’m not going to Harvard in the fall.” I crossed my arms and stared at him, hard, across the table. I’d planned on building up to it slowly, but hurling it at him like that was unexpectedly satisfying.

  “What?” If I’d meant to shock him, I’d succeeded. He sat there, staring at me, his eyes wide behind his glasses.

  “You heard me. I’m deferring admission.” I squeezed my biceps with my hands, willing my arms to stop shaking.

  He shook his head slowly. “I have to admit
I can’t believe you’re saying this.”

  “Well”—I gave a little laugh—“believe it.”

  My dad shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “I believe it.”

  “That’s it?” Now I was the one who couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “That’s all you’re going to say?”

  He took a sip of his water and put it down on the table, turning it slowly as he spoke. “I guess I’m surprised that you want to take time off. You’ve always seemed so driven to me. Sure of what you want. You’re more like your mom in that way. I took forever to commit to college. And even when I went, I kept dropping out. Remember, I didn’t graduate until I was almost twenty-five.”

  “But you always told me not to do that!” I cried. “You told me not to waste my time the way you did.”

  My dad frowned and looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t think I said that.” He shook his head slowly, as if he was struggling to remember. “I really don’t think I would have said that. Maybe I said it was great that you were so driven. I’ve always admired that about you. And your brother. But I don’t think I put pressure on you to know what you want to do.”

  “Are you kidding me?!” I was practically screaming. “Every time I got an A, you told me how proud you were of me.”

  “I was proud of you.”

  I pointed my finger threateningly at him. “That was all you ever cared about.”

  “No it wasn’t,” said my dad, and now he sounded angry. “I’m proud of everything you do. I was proud when you got that internship with Children United—”

  “Because it was so prestigious!”

  “Because you wanted it so much!” my father yelled back.

  “I just want you to love me for who I am!” I wailed.

  “Juliet, how can you say that?” My dad looked like he was about to cry. “Do you really think I only love you because you get straight As and fancy internships?”

  “I’m not an idiot, Dad,” I snapped. “I know you’d love me if I didn’t get straight As and fancy internships. But you love me more when I do get them.”