Free No Such Thing as Perfect by Sarah Daltry Page A

meaningful, but the cafeteria was so loud. I couldn’t make sense of anything except that she was right and I didn’t have an answer for why I didn’t do a thing about it. Nothing scared me more than not knowing the answer.

19.
    T he rest of the weekend is unbearable. My mother glares at me as if she knows, but I didn’t mention anything about Derek. Let her think she’ll live her golden dream of us populating the world with perfect babies. I don’t have the stomach or mind for telling her otherwise. But she glares and my dad tries to smooth it over, but he’s lost so much of himself, too, in the last few years and the whole weekend is this incredibly odd distant reality. In a few weeks essentially, I can’t make sense of anything. School felt alien but expectedly so, but home was supposed to remain the same. Consistent. Normal. And now I’m in this spiral where I can’t remember when I am.
    My mother angrily passes me a bowl of salad during lunch before we all head back to school and I almost feel like I should be asking about the school play again, because all of my memories and flaws are flooding the now with their insistent pleas that I find myself. I didn’t even know I was lost until suddenly I was.
    “I’m not hungry,” I say and I pass the salad on to my father and Jon talks about some class he’s taking that he probably doesn’t even attend and I hate him. I hate my brother for the first time in almost nineteen years.
    “Is there a girl in the picture?” my mom asks him.
    “I’m keeping my options open,” he replies. You’re keeping their legs open , I want to retort, but it makes me feel bad about myself. It feels judgmental and petty, like it’s their fault and I certainly don’t want to fill my mom’s head with this idea that any girl Jon brings home might be a slut. Because even if she is, it’s not like she’s being a slut all by her damn self, that’s for sure.
    By the time Derek shows up, I’m not prepared for the charade. He kisses me while I’m sitting at the table, brushing his lips over the top of my head and resting his hands on my shoulders. While he chats with my mom, the touch radiates in my blood. All of the intimacy, all of the memories are mocking shards of mistakes inside my body. He’s been inside my body so many times and it doesn’t matter. It was supposed to be special and I was supposed to be special, but special’s a lie we tell girls to make them feel better about having to be broken just to grow up.
    “Are you guys ready to head back?” he asks.
    “We’re still eating,” I point out, although I haven’t touched my food.
    “I have practice,” he says.
    “Well, maybe the world doesn’t revolve around you.”
    “Lily,” my mom says, before turning to Derek to apologize. “She’s been moody all weekend. I’m sure it’s her hormones from all that weight she’s gained.”
    “Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Drummond. I’m used to it. Besides, girls don’t care about sports, so I’m sure she doesn’t understand.” I ran track for four years, but I’ve given up on explaining to Derek that running is a sport. I don’t bring it up now, either.
    “Fine. Let’s go,” I say, getting up and grabbing my bag. “Wouldn’t want you to be late.”
    Jon, oblivious, gets into the backseat as he’s done for the last year when it was the three of us and I’m left debating between sitting next to him and letting Derek act like our driver or sitting next to Derek and pretending it doesn’t hurt to see how easy it all is for him. It’s still a toss-up when he wraps his arms around my waist and kisses my ear.
    “I told you it was only a break. I just need to get things in order. Don’t go forgetting all about me. I still care and I still want to see you,” he says. “I’m going to make big plans for the weekend after your birthday. That’s less than a month away. You’ll see – it will be better this way.”
    “It will be better to put everything