No Such Thing as Perfect by Sarah Daltry Read Free Book Online

where it asked if I was interested in a leading role, but my mind seemed to tell me that if I was good enough, if I was perfect, they would cast me anyway. And Miss Prism was a good role. Four women were cast – and forty had auditioned. But my mother had been right and so I had declined. I consider all this in the moment as I pass the drama table. Why bother if you can’t be the best? That’s what my mother always told me.
    “You should write for the paper,” Kristen says.
    “You think so?” I look over at the table. I enjoy writing. I like words, but I can’t see myself being an aggressive reporter. Then again, how aggressive can you possibly have to be for the college paper?
    “I think you’d be good at it. I mean, unless you’re going to sign up for the Ping Pong Club?” She points to the table at the end, which is where we’re headed. Since I’ve been mindlessly signing my name on things, it probably wouldn’t be that much of a reach.
    “Not that I have a thing against Ping Pong,” I tell her, “but I’m kind of-”
    “Dainty?” she asks.
    “What the hell? I’m not dainty. What does that even mean?”
    She laughs and grabs my pen, heading towards the newspaper table. “You just get a little OCD about random shit. You need to lighten up. Here. They need a music reporter. That’s your calling, Lily. You are going to be Bristol’s new punk princess.”

12.
    “Y ou look like a princess,” my dad said.
    My Prom dress was white and it was too long. There were bows and ribbons in places that didn’t need bows and ribbons, but it was pretty and my mother had found it at some store in the city. And if it was good enough for people in the city, it had to be good enough for me.
    “Do you think Derek will like it?” I asked Abby again. I’d been asking for weeks. He didn’t want to go to Prom. He told me it was stupid to come home from school for something dumb like a high school dance, but I hadn’t gone to Prom before and he had. Everyone had heard about his Prom.
    “Yes. Calm down,” she told me. “You look beautiful.”
    We were waiting for Derek and Jon. They’d both decided to come home, since Derek had to anyway for me. I knew he had exams coming up and he hadn’t been studying. We’d argued about it a few times, but I’d let it die because I didn’t want to go to Prom alone. He didn’t want to go at all.
    I grabbed Abby’s arm and pulled her out into the hallway. “Do I look okay? I mean, do I compare to Gina?” Gina had won Prom Queen last year. The pictures were still in the albums by the couch in the living room – Derek and Gina, Jon and Brianna. I didn’t know why my mom kept them. Jon and Brianna hadn’t lasted past summer.
    “Stop it, Lily. You look amazing. He’d be an idiot not to see that,” Abby said.
    She didn’t know about the fight. She didn’t know that I’d stayed up all night crying only two weeks earlier when Derek had said he thought I should go alone, that he had work to do, that it was a pointless tradition anyway and I wouldn’t even like it.
    He and I had been together almost six months. I wanted it to work. I was willing to sacrifice Prom for it to work, but he’d felt bad after making me cry. The next day, he had called back and he’d been genuinely contrite since. In my head, I envisioned him seeing me in the dress and feeling like an ass, begging for my forgiveness, but he was late and we had to take pictures and the limo was waiting and I was starting to wonder if I should have faked sick or something so everyone didn’t have to wait.
    “He’s here,” my mom called from the living room. Abby held my arm; she wanted to say something. There were moments when I thought she knew, when I felt like maybe I didn’t need to try to find the words for the anxiety and fear I lived with, but she just shook her head.
    When Derek walked in, he hugged my mom and then he looked at me, his eyes running over the length of my body. I was being inspected,