Perfectly Flawed (13 page)

Now, I am standing in my room, after a long,
hot, relaxing shower, trying to find something
date
appropriate
to wear. I don’t really know what to wear on a
date; I’ve never been on one before. I’d call Kennie, but she’s
cheering at a boy’s soccer away game before she heads to some
stupid cheer party. I’d call Harley but she’s still an infected
human geyser. She also doesn’t really approve of this. I later
learned that through angry texts in all caps yesterday when I told
her that I agreed to a date with Ryder
after
he threatened
to sing to me again and again and again and…

Well, you get it.

That leaves only one
real
option.

Why didn’t I think of her sooner.

“ZEPHYR!” I scream out my window, leaning on
my arms until my head pokes over the empty alley that separates our
houses. I look down and see his family’s canoes leaning against the
side of his house, on our side are our trashcans and recycling bins
full to the brim—we forget about trash day. A lot. I can hear metal
music playing from the ancient stereo he has had set up in the
corner in his room since we were nine, you know, back when they
were
still
a big thing. It was his Christmas gift from his
grandparents, their old one. He loves the thing and uses it
religiously rather than conform and buy an iHome like the rest of
the civilization. Mine’s pink and sits on my nightstand.

He wanders to the window lazily, his long
hair tied back away from his face. A few locks fall free, framing
his face when he hasn’t tried to tuck them behind his ears. There’s
a splotch of yellow paint beneath his left eye, a smudge of green
paint on his forehead, and a splatter of blue paint on his white
t-shirt.

“Yeah?” he asks, cleaning his hands on an old
towel covered in various colors. It’s been so long since I’ve seen
him paint; it’s a refreshing sight. When he was younger and decided
that he liked art, I would sit in his room as he discovered his
technique. Sometimes I would sit as his model. Fully clothed.
Although he did try to convince me to take off my shirt once. That
was the summer that I started wearing a bra and he noticed.

It’s been even longer since I’ve seen any of
his pieces except for the one hanging on my wall. It was his
attempt at a self portrait—it was a great attempt. It looks just
like him. He hated it so I stole it when he wasn’t looking and I
refused to give it back. I still do when he begs me for it.

“Is Jamie home?” I call over the alley. She’s
the only person I can think of to help me with this problem in such
a short notice. I’m not sure what I’ll do if she isn’t home.
There’s my aunt but I’d feel a little weird asking her about this.
Hey, do you have any idea what I can wear that’s both sexy and
modest?

Not that I
want
to look sexy for
Ryder.

“Yeah, want me to send her over?” He slings
the towel over his left shoulder before he crosses his arms along
his chest. Zephyr leans forward, revealing more of himself in the
window across from mine.

“Please?” I beg sweetly, speaking over the
alley.

“Not a problem,” he says to me, briefly
chuckling, as he turns to yell, “JAMIE, GET YOUR ASS OVER TO
JOEY’S.”

I snort loudly, using my hand to cover my
mouth

“Thanks,” I call to him, watching him walk
away from the window briefly, maybe to check out his painting from
a different angle.

“Anything for you, my dear,” he replies,
distracted.

A few moments later, Jamie stands in front of
my open closet, staring at my clothes, trying to put something
together in her mind, anything that could possibly look good
together and look great on me. From the look on her face—mostly
boredom, I swear that she yawned!—I can tell that she is neither
satisfied nor impressed.

I wouldn’t be, either. I know what’s in
there. Nothing but band t-shirts and worn jeans.

“This is all you have?” she asks, her hand
fiddling with the end of her side braid. I can see that she’s
trying not to bite her nails, a nervous habit she’s had since she
was a kid. Something I gained from hanging around with her a lot.
Her mother used to scold her for doing it. Jamie tried to stop
until she started getting French manicures—she couldn’t bite those
off.

“All I have,” I answer her. She hasn’t even
seen my dresser. It’s more barren than my closet, if that’s to be
believed.

Her eyes trail to me, looking me up and down,
nibbling her thumbnail lightly—making sure not to chomp
through
the nail—as she decides something in her mind.

“What size are you?” she asks, curiously.
Should I answer? Isn’t that against girl code or something? “I
mean, you’re small, definitely smaller than me,” she clarifies
quickly referencing my tinier-than-normal body. “But I still might
have something that might fit you.” Quickly, she sucks her lower
lip into her mouth, lightly nibbling on it in exchange for her
nails. “Come on,” she tells me, briefly looking into my closet one
more time. “And bring those boots.” She pointed to a pair of black
slouchy boots Hilary gave me for my birthday last year, the ones I
hadn’t yet worn.

I grab them and follow her across our joined
yards into her house. It’s a two story, just like my house. The
layout is the same, only flipped. The interiors are mirror images
of each other. And while their house is blue with white trim, mine
is white with a blue trim and some funky rock sculpture glued
beneath the large front windows.

Inside Jamie’s bright yellow room—her
favorite color when she was twelve, she hates it now and vows to
change it when she can—she throws a black skirt at me. The fabric
slides from my hands, the skirt falling in a heap onto her carpeted
floor. It’s soft and smooth, too cute for me, though. It’s the
exact thing that I can picture Jamie wearing. It’s small enough
that it’d be tight and show off her curves, perfectly flaunting
her—ahem—
ass
ets.

“Try that on,” she demands, her eyes
narrowing as she contemplates. “It’s too small on me, I never wear
it.”

I slip it on, noticing how high waisted it
is. I angle my body so she can’t see my stomach as I tug the skirt
up. Jamie has never seen my scars. She doesn’t even know about
them. I don’t want her to see them now.

She stares at me—clicking her tongue and
tapping her fingers on her desk—as she decides what to pair with
it. Rummaging through her dresser, the second drawer from the top,
she produces a pale, grayish-teal top. I pull it over my head,
thankful that I wore a camisole today, and work to tuck it into the
skirt as she instructs me to do.

“I like it,” I tell her quietly, amazed at
how she can dress me. I smooth my hands over the fabric, wincing at
how tight it is against my body, but I still look good. Great even.
I look different, I feel different.

“Me too,” she murmurs, still staring at me
like a work in progress. “But it’s still missing
something
.”
Her eyes widen and light up; she turns and starts searching the top
left drawer of her dresser, pulling out a pair of lace thigh high
tights. My face falls. “These aren’t as slutty as your thinking.”
She knows me well. I pull them up my legs and then slip on my
boots. They feel new, Makes sense, I’ve never worn them before.
“Perfect!” she tells me, excitedly. “You look ready for an evening
of anything.”

I laugh.

“This isn’t too much, is it?” I ask, a little
uncertain. I check my reflection in the mirror on her vanity.
Turning every which way, spotting different parts of me I’ve never
seen before. I have an ass—where did that come from? And my chest
doesn’t look too bad either. It’s still too big for my taste, but I
can’t hide them in this top.

“Not at all,” Jamie assures me before
continuing with, “and any jewelry should work.” Her hands reach up
to my hair, pulling a curl and watching it fall into place. “Now,
how were you planning to wear your hair?” she asks with actual
eager interest that scares me.

“
Wear
my
hair
?” She makes it
sound like I can remove my scalp and trade it for a different
version—maybe the newer model. Hair 2.0?

“Zephyr!” Jamie calls twenty minutes later,
after she has tamed my unruly curls so they fall down my back in a
wave rather than frizz. Whatever anti-frizz serum she used on my
head I really need to invest in because my hair has never been this
soft, never moved so effortlessly before. I thread my fingers
through it, feeling the curls glide along my skin. It feels like
silk. “Come and see the final product!”

Jamie is oddly too excited about this.

“Jamie, what are you yapping—” he stops that
sentence when he sees me standing in his sister’s room, his brown
eyes widening. I think his mouth dropped open. He has never seen me
like this; no one has ever seen me like this, like…
feminine
. It is a bit weird but I kinda like it. Distracted,
he pulls his hands through the strands of hair that fell out of his
hair tie, whatever remaining paint on his hands now streaks his
hair in a dull rainbow. “Wow, Joey.”

I think I just made my best friend
speechless.

“I know, right?” Jamie declares excitedly
behind me.

“What is it?” I ask, self-consciously. The
need to flee overwhelms me but Zephyr is blocking the door,
blocking my escape. “Do I look weird? Do I look bad?” My hands
instinctively smooth out the fabric again. “Should I change?”

I may not like Ryder—I damn near loathe the
kid—but I don’t want to look horrible, I want to look beautiful,
breathtaking even. This is my first date after all; I want it to be
memorable and fun. Okay, what I really want is for someone, which
would be Ryder in this case, to become speechless at the sight of
me.

“Uh—gah—no,” Zephyr sputters out. “You should
only wear that for the rest of your life.”

“This girl thinks she looks bad,” Jamie
chimes in from behind me.

“No, the complete opposite, Jo,” Zephyr
starts as he leans against the doorframe, his eyes grazing me up
and down as if he’s seeing me for the first time. I can understand
that, I feel like I’m seeing
myself
for the first time, too.
“You look great, really.”

But not beautiful? That’s the word that I
really want to hear.

“Okay, then.” I nervously tuck my hair behind
my ear, still captivated by the feeling it. It makes me smile.
“Thanks, Jamie.” I turn to give her the biggest smile I can muster,
and shockingly enough, it isn’t fake. It’s wide and toothy and
makes my cheeks hurt. Again, if I was a hugger, this would be a
moment to hug her.

“Not a problem,” she waves my thanks away
with her hand. “You have to promise to call me tomorrow and tell me
how it went, okay?”

“I will.” I think.

I walk past Zephyr, watching his eyes follow
me as I slide by him. I make it to the stairs, hearing him keeping
up behind me, keeping close on my tail as I descend the stairs to
head back to my house.

Somehow, the feeling of his eyes on my back
makes me smile. There is some sort of flutter going on in my
stomach. Not sure if it’s nerves or…

“If you need me,” he tells me before I can
make it through the front door. “To come and get you, I will, you
know?”

“I know, Zeph.” I turn to face him; he’s
close. Very close. Close enough that I can smell the paint on his
hands, on his shirt, on his cheek. Subconsciously, I reach my hand
up to wipe at the paint smudged under his eye, the yellow rubbing
off onto my thumb easily.

“If he does anything that he shouldn’t,” he
begins quietly, grabbing my hand to look at my thumb. I’ll need to
wash the paint off when I get home. Or maybe I’ll just let it dry.
“Touches you, pressures you to do
anything
, I will be there
faster than he can say
No, not the face
.” He quickly wipes
of my thumb with the towel, leaving it clean, leaving my hand in
his.

I squeezed his hand. “You’re really worried
about me—about this date—aren’t you?” I ask, surprised that
Zephyr’s taking so much interest in this. It’s only a date with
Ryder Harrison. What should he be worried about?

However, yesterday, after he watched Ryder
serenade me, horribly, he asked me if I agreed to the date. When I
told him that I had, I watched his face fall and he told me that I
had nearly sold my soul to the devil. He said that all that Ryder
was going to do was hurt me. Zephyr acted like I was in love with
Ryder, that he was my dream date, when I just wanted to get this
date over with so Ryder would leave me alone.

Whatever Zephyr thought, whatever he was
worried was going to happen was not going to happen. I’d make sure
of that.

“Just a little bit,” he admits, hesitantly,
possibly goading my own response. “What does your aunt say about
this?”

I giggle lightly. “Hilary just wants to meet
him,” I tell him, remembering the conversation I had with her when
I got home from school yesterday. I told her that someone asked me
out, she thought I turned him down—because, normally, I would—and
her mouth dropped open when I told her that I agreed to a date with
the quarterback of the football team. “You know, she needs to
commit his face to memory in case I go missing and she needs to
identify him in a lineup, the usual parental/guardian stuff.”

“As long as she’s on board with your date
with the devil,” he mutters, deadpan and sarcastic. He’s not as
good as I am but there’s the Zephyr I know.

“I’ll talk to you later,” I tell him as I
back out of his house, releasing his hand and letting it drop in
the open space between us, giving him a smile as I close his door.
I pass his parents as they arrive home from the grocery store, but
lugging three store tote bags. You know, the ones that you buy from
the store so you don’t use the plastic or paper bags.