Perfectly Flawed by Nessa Morgan Read Free Book Online Page A

speak much in the
beginning. At all, actually. Sure, I told her the basics; how my
day went, if I was making any new friends at school, how me and my
aunt got along. Mostly, I answered any questions that she asked
that pertained to my present. I never told her anything about
before, nothing about what happened.
    “Good afternoon, Joey.” The sound of her
voice, low and throaty like she’s been smoking for the past ten
years, catches my attention and I stop looking around the room and
try and focus on her and her designer suit. On the small wooden
table between us, next to the box of Kleenex, is the small tape
recorder she’s used since I started seeing her. It’s black and
silver with six buttons. Three dots above the buttons light up; one
green, one red, and one blue. The steady green means that the small
machine is recording; the blinking red means that the tape is
nearly full, and I’m not sure what blue means. I’ve never seen it
flash before. Right now, the only light blinking is the green.
    “What’s up, Doc?” She smiles at the Bugs
Bunny reference, a tired joke that I’ve said since I was nine. I’d
be polite and ask her how she was doing, how her life is going,
maybe take an interest and ask follow up questions, but she made it
quite clear years ago that this was my time, not hers. So I
just sit and wait for her to fire the first question.
    “How are you doing today?” Dr. Jett asks. Her
hand holds a black Pilot G2 pen, not a Montblanc you would normally
expect with someone like her in her perfect suit and coiffed hair.
She tucks a loose strand of golden blonde hair behind her ear as
she waits for my response.
    “Fine.” I bite my tongue before And
yourself? slips from my mouth. It’s a habit of mine.
    “And school?” she continues, trying to probe
something juicy from me, anything that she can pounce on. “How is
that going?”
    “It’s school,” I answer, matter-of-fact. What
would she expect me to say about school? Oh, I dropped out and
decided to join the circus as a trapeze artist. So no more school
for me anymore . Maybe then I’d have something to say that’d
shock her.
    But I don’t.
    However, this is the typical dialogue during
our sessions. I don’t understand why she wants to record them. I
mean, she has my permission to do it. I don’t really care if she
has my voice—all my thoughts, all my problems, every one of my
delusional issues—on tape. It’s just that she could hand write the
entire thing like a minute keeper and still have too much useless
information.
    I don’t really have a problem with the tape
recorder. It’s not like she just announced one day that she was
recording my worst moments for playback for the hell of it and she
didn’t care if I agreed or objected. No. I willingly let her
because I didn’t really give a crap when I started these
sessions.
    Somewhere in this building, in the deep, dark
abyss of all things disturbing and chaotic, I grow on tape.
Physically—no one can see that. They can speculate when listening,
my voice changes. Mentally—I’d say that was minimal growth, but I’m
biased and self-critical. Eh, I’m mostly self-loathing and
wallowing in my own self-pity.
    I’m also a little vain, can’t you tell?
    “It started last week,” she continues, not
meaning it as a question, but simply stating the fact. Her eyes
glance down at the blank page on her lap. I haven’t given her a
reason to write yet. “Do you like your classes, Joey?”
    I shrug, saying, “They’re okay.” Instantly,
with her simple question, I feel weak, I feel vulnerable. I hate
feeling as if my walls are down, like they’ve fallen with her
words, and I’m exposed. Completely bare. I try and suppress the
feeling. “I’m in four AP classes, so it’s not too hectic for
me.”
    “ Not too hectic ?” she replies, her
right eyebrow arced, repeating my statement before she continues
with, “Most students can’t handle that kind of workload.”
    That is