Read Online No Such Thing as Perfect by Sarah Daltry - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sarah Daltry
Tags: Drama, Literary, Social Issues, new adult, college, Poetry, Women's Fiction, Literary Fiction, Relationships, Feminism, rape culture
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were up. I could hear Derek and Jon’s voices from the kitchen, chatting about school, and I stood in the upstairs hallway, crying, because it was my fault and I had wanted it and why couldn’t I be happy? Why couldn’t I be normal?
By the time I made it downstairs, the puffiness was gone around my eyes and I smiled when I saw him at the kitchen table. He got up and made a big gesture of pulling my chair out for me.
“Can I tell them?” he asked loudly as he pushed me into the table.
“Tell us what?” Jon asked.
“Last night, Lily and I talked and... well, Mrs. Drummond, you wouldn’t mind her having a college boyfriend, would you?”
My mom glowed at the idea.
I had pacified her. I had proven I could be good enough and Derek and I could succeed where Jon and Brianna had failed and she would have everything she wanted. It didn’t matter to her that Derek hadn’t asked me a thing, including whether I was ready. It didn’t matter to anyone that my body ached because I’d done things I suddenly wanted to wash off, that I hadn’t planned on doing yet. I told myself that what I had given up for that smile was worth the price. Anything was worth the cost to feel like maybe I hadn’t failed for once. I believed that, because I had to believe it.
17.
T here are only two reasons people in town come here, to the hill that looks over the river, and neither has to do with the way that the sun glares off the ruins of the factories that built, and eventually ruined, our town. One reason is to have sex, and Derek and I know the area well. We’ve spent many evenings, and some afternoons, up here, when my parents were at home or Jon was or he just wanted to do something different. It’s not romantic, but it’s secluded because it used to belong to the factories and now only the ghosts of those lives remain.
The other reason people come up here seems inexplicably linked to that history. It’s oddly both a place where couples go to be together – and also to grow apart. Throughout high school, almost everyone broke up with someone here, like there is pressure in the air that you need permanence to exist in such a place and, without it, you realize there is little worth clinging to in your relationship.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said,” Derek starts, “about transferring.”
I turn in the backseat of his car to face him. The weather is still insisting on summer regardless of the calendar and I’m sticky and warm. Derek turned the car off when we arrived and now, in a barely acceptable state of undress, I’m trying to find my underwear and he’s looking out the window at the river.
“Good, I wanted to talk about that,” I say. I find my panties somehow between two soda bottles and an old CD under the passenger seat. It was over before it even started, like requisite physical interaction without meaning. “I mean, I like Bristol. I guess I would love it eventually, but it’s hard to be in two places at once. I feel stuck between home and school.” He doesn’t say in anything in response, but as soon as I say the words, “I think I’d be better off somewhere familiar, with you and Jon,” he says the words I’ve dreaded since he acknowledged me for the first time.
“That’s why I think we should probably take a break,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just...” He pauses and cracks the window open more, but the suffocating air isn’t because of the heat. I need to fix this. I can’t screw this up. This is the only thing I’ve been able to keep intact, besides my schoolwork, and I can’t just take tests and write papers for the rest of my life. “Look, Lily, I really enjoy spending time with you, but I like my freedom, too. Some of the rugby guys have been talking about renting a house and I feel like I’m trapped in this relationship with you, like I have to pass everything by you first,” he says.
“I’ve never asked you for anything,” I argue.
“Not
By the time I made it downstairs, the puffiness was gone around my eyes and I smiled when I saw him at the kitchen table. He got up and made a big gesture of pulling my chair out for me.
“Can I tell them?” he asked loudly as he pushed me into the table.
“Tell us what?” Jon asked.
“Last night, Lily and I talked and... well, Mrs. Drummond, you wouldn’t mind her having a college boyfriend, would you?”
My mom glowed at the idea.
I had pacified her. I had proven I could be good enough and Derek and I could succeed where Jon and Brianna had failed and she would have everything she wanted. It didn’t matter to her that Derek hadn’t asked me a thing, including whether I was ready. It didn’t matter to anyone that my body ached because I’d done things I suddenly wanted to wash off, that I hadn’t planned on doing yet. I told myself that what I had given up for that smile was worth the price. Anything was worth the cost to feel like maybe I hadn’t failed for once. I believed that, because I had to believe it.
17.
T here are only two reasons people in town come here, to the hill that looks over the river, and neither has to do with the way that the sun glares off the ruins of the factories that built, and eventually ruined, our town. One reason is to have sex, and Derek and I know the area well. We’ve spent many evenings, and some afternoons, up here, when my parents were at home or Jon was or he just wanted to do something different. It’s not romantic, but it’s secluded because it used to belong to the factories and now only the ghosts of those lives remain.
The other reason people come up here seems inexplicably linked to that history. It’s oddly both a place where couples go to be together – and also to grow apart. Throughout high school, almost everyone broke up with someone here, like there is pressure in the air that you need permanence to exist in such a place and, without it, you realize there is little worth clinging to in your relationship.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said,” Derek starts, “about transferring.”
I turn in the backseat of his car to face him. The weather is still insisting on summer regardless of the calendar and I’m sticky and warm. Derek turned the car off when we arrived and now, in a barely acceptable state of undress, I’m trying to find my underwear and he’s looking out the window at the river.
“Good, I wanted to talk about that,” I say. I find my panties somehow between two soda bottles and an old CD under the passenger seat. It was over before it even started, like requisite physical interaction without meaning. “I mean, I like Bristol. I guess I would love it eventually, but it’s hard to be in two places at once. I feel stuck between home and school.” He doesn’t say in anything in response, but as soon as I say the words, “I think I’d be better off somewhere familiar, with you and Jon,” he says the words I’ve dreaded since he acknowledged me for the first time.
“That’s why I think we should probably take a break,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just...” He pauses and cracks the window open more, but the suffocating air isn’t because of the heat. I need to fix this. I can’t screw this up. This is the only thing I’ve been able to keep intact, besides my schoolwork, and I can’t just take tests and write papers for the rest of my life. “Look, Lily, I really enjoy spending time with you, but I like my freedom, too. Some of the rugby guys have been talking about renting a house and I feel like I’m trapped in this relationship with you, like I have to pass everything by you first,” he says.
“I’ve never asked you for anything,” I argue.
“Not
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