The Perfection Paradox (29 page)

“
Kennedy, I
don't know why you left us, why you couldn't talk to me, why I
couldn't help you the way you've helped me
ceaselessly
since we met as fourteen
year olds. I wish I could have helped you overcome your inner
demons the way you helped me overcome mine. I can't imagine how I
will continue my life without you, how I will ever be happy again.
I miss you so much, you will 
always
 be my best
friend."

She stood for
a moment. Swaying like a frail flower in a thunderstorm, a single
beautiful thing in a silent cacophony of despair and anguish,
before returning to her seat, visibly shaking. 

Principal
Andrews leaned towards the microphone.

"Now we will
hold a one minute moment of silence for Kennedy Blakewood before
the service draws to a close."

Every figure
that made up the crowd of thousands rose to their feet to mark
their respect.

The silence
was deafening.

Stifled
weeping was the only sound that could be heard.

Birds stopped
singing. Traffic seemed to halt.

It was the
longest and shortest minute imaginable.

Finally,
Principal Andrews looked up from his watch and spoke into the
microphone "Thank you for your support and condolences."

From
somewhere in the crowd, a single clap started.
Nearly instantaneously others joined it. They were
applauding in grief-stricken, haunting unison.

Kennedy's
family, who had for the most part maintained their composure during
the service, lost control. 

Brooke was
bent over, her head in her hands. Kennedy's parents were
sobbing in each other's arms. Her three brothers were inconsolably
shaking with despair, overwhelmed by the power of the booming
applause for their beloved dead Kennedy.  

35. The night
of Graduation

“
Hunter wake
up!” a voice nagged in the distance. Hunter turned over and ignored
it, “Hunter, for god sake! Get out of bed!”

“
Get out of
my room I’m sleeping!” Hunter mumbled loudly in the direction of
his bedroom door.

“
Hunter, you
need to get out of bed, something has happened, something terrible.
Come downstairs now.”

Hunter
groaned and lurched out of his bed, pulling on a t-shirt and a pair
of track pants. He glanced at the digital clock on his bedside
table, 10pm, unusually early for Hunter, but he’d already been
asleep nearly an hour. He’d been at a party with his friends the
night before Graduation day and had barely slept and then
graduating itself had taken the last of his energy.

He stumbled
down the stairs to his family’s sitting room.

“
What the
hell? Why can’t I have one night to sleep! I’ve been awake more
than twenty four hours!”

Hunter’s
whole family was sat on the couch, and Hunter could see his younger
sister had been crying, as had his mother.

Even his
father, who never cried, looked red eyed and pale.

“
Hunter, come
sit down, we need to talk”

“
What’s going
on?” Hunter asked suspiciously, “come on people, stop sitting
around snivelling and tell me!” He hated being kept in the dark
about big things.

His father
spoke up, his voice quivering, “Hunter, sit down. You’re going to
need to sit down.”

Hunter strode
across the room and took a seat on the empty sofa
angrily.

“
Tell me
what’s going on,” he demanded, looking from one wan face to the
next.

“
Hunter, we
received a phone call about half an hour ago from your
principal.”

Hunter
continued searching their face for clues.

“
What
happened? Am I in trouble?”

His mother
shook her head slowly, blowing her nose on a crumpled up tissue she
clasped in her hand. Her face was red and patchy and the makeup
she’d meticulously applied for her son’s graduation was smudged
around her eyes and across her face.

“
Hunter,
Kennedy died a couple of hours ago.”

Hunter
snorted. It started out as laughter but then very quickly evolved
into panic.

“
What? Don’t
be stupid Mom. That’s impossible”

His father
spoke up again, “We’re so sorry son, we know how you felt about
her…”

“
You’re
joking right? This can’t be real…”

“
We’re not
joking” His mother stated, a single tear rolling down her
cheek.

Hunter stared
in disbelief at all three of their faces, searching for a clue that
this was all a joke or a fucked up lie.

His sister
had started weeping into their mother’s chest. Hunter held his head
in his hands. He stared down at the floor, his eyes wide with
shock.

He couldn’t
be here right now.

He stood and
rushed up the stairs back to his room. His mother called out after
him but he ignored her words.

“
I want to be
alone!” He shouted, at no one in particular, just
everyone.

His voice
sounded high pitched and alien, as if it had come from someone
else’s throat.

He needed to
be alone to get his head around this.

These things
always seemed to happen when you least expected them, catching you
off guard, like a punch in the stomach. They knocked the air out of
you for a few seconds and you felt yourself floundering, deciding
between defeat or survival.

Hunter
already missed the blissful ignorance he’d possessed five minutes
ago before his mother had woken him up. Even the ignorance of
walking down the staircase sleepily, thinking about how tired he
was, vowing to get back to bed as quickly as possible. Absolutely
unaware of the call his parents had received half an hour earlier,
of the grieving family mere streets away that had discovered their
daughter’s dead body not even three hours ago.

His mind was
racing and he felt like he was dreaming.

Dread filled
him, rising from his feet and legs until it left his heart and
brain turgid.

Kennedy
dead?

He was still
realizing exactly what that meant, every second that passed, the
realization hit him again ever harder.

He couldn’t
fathom the implications.

Black dots
blinded him, and he felt himself topple over and his head hit the
floor before it all went dark.

36. The day
after Graduation

Matt was sat
on the sofa of his family’s living room playing his games console,
bored. “Darling, if you have nothing to do why don’t you sort
through your wardrobe so we can donate the clothes you don’t want
to charity”

Matt rolled
his eyes, just because he was bored that didn’t mean he wanted his
mother to find menial tasks for him to do to keep him busy, this
was what graduating was about, he’d worked hard, and now he got
time off, and that meant having the freedom to be bored.

“
Darling…”
his mother repeated.

“
Fine…” Matt
retorted, pausing his game and tossing the remote on to the sofa
next to him.

He ambled
into the kitchen where his mother was preparing an early dinner
from a recipe she’d found online, sipping casually from a glass of
white wine at regular intervals.

“
Here!” she
said happily, handing him some cardboard boxes to put the unwanted
clothes in.

Matt took
them from her and turned to head up the stairs.

He’d climbed
the first three steps when he heard the familiar “ping” of his
mother’s laptop telling her she’d received an email.

She gave an
excited gasp, as she did every time she received an email. She was
still getting used to the convenience of technology. Matt chuckled
to himself. He took two more steps before he heard the sound of
glass shatter.

He dropped
the cardboard boxes on the stairs, rushing back down to the
kitchen.

“
What’s
wrong?” He asked hurriedly, his voice brimming with concern,
staring from the broken wine glass on the floor to his mother. She
had her hands clasped to her face and tears in her eyes.

“
Oh Matt. I
have terrible news…”

“
Mom, what’s
wrong?”

She was
sobbing now.

“
You’re
scaring me, please tell me what’s wrong!”

She walked
across the kitchen towards him and took his hands in her own,
gripping them earnestly. She looked up at him, staring into his
questioning eyes ruefully.

Her hands
were shaking.

“
Kennedy
Blakewood is dead”

The words
seemed to echo.

Matt stared
at her for five long seconds in absolute confusion and
disbelief.

“
What do you
mean?”

His voice
sounded hoarse. His mouth was dry.

”
No… No, Mom…
No!”

“
I just got
the email from your principal, she died last night.”

Matt shook
his head, “But we had graduation last night, she was there, this
must be a mistake…”

His hands
were shaking now too. He felt like he was in a warped dream and he
was praying to god he would wake up soon.

He felt his
body convulse and he vomited into the kitchen sink.

What the hell
was going on, Kennedy couldn’t be… he couldn’t even bear to think
of the word. She just
couldn’t
be. Not without him telling her how he felt, not
without the future they would’ve so definitely had together
somehow.

It was too
much to get his head around. The one person who had kept his dreams
of a remarkable life alive, the only thing that he clung to that
made him believe his life would one day be extraordinary, was
gone.

What would he
do now?

His life
would be so empty without her, so lacking in purpose.

He couldn’t
handle it. The thought alone of existing without her overwhelmed
him with misery.

He slid down
against the kitchen cupboard and held his head in his hands,
sobbing violently.

What did he
have to live for now? 

His sister
ran downstairs into the kitchen. She looked frightened.

“
Is it
true
?” he heard her ask, though her voice
sounded like it was very far away.

He saw the
blurry image of his sister’s face crumble and tears stream down her
face. She covered her mouth, wailing loudly.

This had to
be a dream, Matt thought to himself amidst the chaos, the world’s
worst nightmare.

The only
something that had been worth anything to him was gone.

37.

Emily stared
into the distance, her red, aching eyes barely blinking.

“
Why don’t
you just forget about him Em?” Sarah asked, sighing sadly as she
watched her forlorn friend, “Why don’t you just move
on?”

Emily’s whole
body seemed to quiver, from her dry crackled lips to her pale podgy
legs, her chest heaved as she deliberated.

“
Just pretend
I’m her
,” she remembered whispering to him
that night, that night he’d finally kissed her.

“
I’ve tried…”
She started, her voice quiet and rough, “I’ve tried so many
times…”

She looked
toward her friend, her dead eyes seemed to look straight through
Sarah, “But every time… every time he pulls me back in. He pulls me
back in with a smile, a look, sometimes just a word. And then he
owns me again. I slip back into believing this time is different,
this time that look meant something, this time he felt it too. But
it’s never true.”

She felt like
a leaf, so strong to start with, so green and crisp you’d think it
was infinite. But then that dead brown colour, that poison, finds
its way in and spreads, through arteries and veins, through lungs
and brain and heart, through everything that makes you alive, and
then slowly you crumble and wither.

Brown eats
the green, then the brown rots away, leaving patches. You can’t fix
patches, once they’re there, you can never fill them, not in quite
the same way. Instead they weaken you, like each passing breeze
weakens the leaf, until one overwhelms it and sends it spinning
into the dazzling abyss to die.

Sarah kneeled
in front of her friend, clasping Emily’s hands in her
own.

“
He doesn’t
deserve you Em” she insisted, Emily’s hands were bitterly cold in
Sarah’s toasty grasp.

Emily shook
her head ever so slightly.

“
I’m tired of
you and Amanda telling me that. I’m tired of telling myself that.
It’s not true. I don’t deserve him. He’s in a different league to
me and I need to stop lying to myself. Girls like me don’t end up
with boys like Hunter, girls like Kennedy do. Girls who are smart
and beautiful and witty and popular.”