Imperfectly Perfect (27 page)

"I've looked everywhere I can think of Em," Tyler said, "I don't know where else he would go. At least we know he has his wallet."

Tyler had a point. I remembered watching Shane as he grabbed his wallet from the dresser on his way out of the room. He wouldn't have done that if he planned on just going on a walk to clear his head. He knew damn well where he was going, and he would need money to get there.

"I know where he is," I muttered, "he went back to Maine. He's with Ms. Strout."

Before I could say anything else, Tyler tagged his phone and quickly tapped the screen. In seconds he was talking to Ms. Strout. They exchanged some pleasantries and then Tyler began to speak low and hushed.

I wanted to know what he was saying, but I didn't really care at that moment. Instead I was hurt beyond belief. Not only had I been deserted by my boyfriend, I had been deserted by my best friend.

"He's there," Tyler huffed, "she said he got there a few hours ago and that he won't talk to her."

I started to cry, not because I was sad for myself but because I was hurting for Shane. I had done something so awful that he couldn't even talk to his own mother about it.

As I lay in my twin bed, watching the sun come up through my bedroom window, I still wasn't sure why I had come here. I knew I needed to get away and in my haze, it was the only place I could think of.

It's safe to say that Mom was shocked to see me. I told her I didn't want to talk about it and immediately locked myself in the comfort of my old room. That had been hours ago. I had hoped to have a little more clarity on the situation by now, but I still felt as betrayed as I did when I left Vegas.

There was a soft knock on the door. "Shane honey, can I come in?"

I contemplated for a moment and decided that I had been alone long enough. "It's open Ma."

She smiled as she entered my room holding a tray full of food and a cup of coffee. "I thought you might be hungry so I made you some breakfast."

I sat up, took the tray from her, and immediately popped some sausage into my mouth. "Thanks Ma."

She sat next to me and watched me. My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn't eaten in about thirty-six hours.

"Tyler called," Ma spoke softly, as if walking on eggshells, "they're worried about you."

I mumbled and started to eat. I knew Emma would figure out where I had gone eventually. I was just glad it had taken her long enough for me to get on a plane.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on here?"

I shrugged. I hadn't decided what I was going to do yet. I had already called the firm and taken until Wednesday off, but beyond that I didn't know what my plan was.

"Well you can't hide here forever Shane. You have people that love you, people that need you," my mother stood up and walked towards the door. "This is not the man I raised. You're acting like a child. Maybe you are more like your father than I thought you were after all."

Her words cut through me like a knife, just as intended. She knew how I felt about my father. I had vowed never to be like him.

"I am
nothing
like him," I seethed.

"Oh but you are. Here you are hiding from something that could be great. You're risking it all, and why? Because things got a little tough? Like it or not, right now you are your father's son!"

She slammed the door as she left, leaving her words to eat at me. As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. I was running from a tough situation instead of trying to work through it. Just like my dad had ran from me thirty years ago.

Disgusted with myself, I threw my fork down and set my tray on the bed. I slowly walked out of my room and down the hallway to the living room to find my mother sitting in her rocking chair, looking rather smug.

"So you want to talk now?" she chirped.

I couldn't help but smile. My mother was a master, especially when it came to conniving people into doing what she wanted.

I threw myself onto the couch. Ma had known that I loved Emma before I even knew myself. We had talked about my situation when I was home months ago, for Christmas. She had tried to convince me to just go ahead and lay it all out there, but I hadn't listened. I told myself that whatever advice she offered from now on, that I would take it. Mom loved Emma; in fact I sometimes questioned whether she would choose Emma over me if the situation ever arose.

I didn't know where to start.

"Well it's about Emma," I began.

"Obviously," she quipped.

"It turns out she's not exactly who I thought she was."

This piqued my mother's interest and she sat forward in her chair. With a heavy heart, I recounted the incident in Vegas; leaving out the vulgarities I wished I could take back.

I stopped talking and Mom sat back in her chair and sipped her tea. "Well, I can see why you're upset," she sighed.

"Exactly," I was relieved that it wasn't just in my head and that I had good reason to feel like I did.

"Now let me finish," she scolded, "I get it Shane, I really do. It's upsetting and shocking, but jealousy can be a terrible thing."

"I'm not jealous."

"Yes you are. You say you're upset because you were left out of the loop. They say they didn't tell anybody because it wasn't important, and to them it wasn't. But ask yourself this; would you be okay with it even if you knew when it was going on?"

I thought about this. I tried to remember my life before I realized I loved Emma, but even then everything revolved around her. I remembered the twinges of envy when she would go out without me or bring a guy home. Even before I truly loved her, I wanted her to be mine.

"No, I wouldn't have been okay with it."

"You have to remember that you and Emma are two different people. You've always been guarded, and she has a few more skeletons in her closet than you do. If you can't love her skeletons, than you can't love her."

Mom was right, again. I couldn't change the past and, no matter how badly I wanted to, I couldn't rewrite history. The fact of the matter was that it took me twenty years to realize that Emma was the perfect girl for me. And in those twenty years she had done some things that I didn't care to think about, but that didn't change the way I felt about her.

"So now that you realize that you've made a mistake," Ma spoke as she walked her teacup to the kitchen sink, "how long can I expect for you to be here?"

This was her subtle way of giving me the boot. As lonely as it was sometimes, she loved the freedom of living alone.

"I'll leave first thing in the morning."

I ached, in more ways than one. Exhaustion had set in, but as tired as I was sleep was the last thing on my mind. I stared at the moon from the taxi. It was full and beautiful, but most importantly it was simple and simplicity was something my life had been lacking for a while now.

"Here you are," the driver stated throwing the car into park.

I rifled through my wallet and handed him some cash. "Keep the change."

As the cab pulled away I was left alone in the dark. Standing on that familiar sidewalk I was filled with apprehension. I still hadn't heard from Shane, but I refused to let him slip through my fingers over something so trivial. The past was the past, and it couldn't be changed.

I put one foot in front of another and walked down the street, like so many times before. The house was pitch black, just like the rest of the street. I bent down and grabbed a handful of pebbles. Rolling them in my hand, I couldn't help but think of the irony of it all.

All these years I had needed him for many different reasons, but tonight I needed him to forgive me and forget what I had done. I picked one of the pebbles from my hand and held it gingerly in between my thumb and forefinger before launching it towards the window. It took three more attempts before the light snapped on. I saw him wipe his eyes as he looked out the window. Confusion spread across his face as we made eye contact. I was so nervous that I waved.

He pulled open the glass pane, "Emma? What are you doing here?"

I ran to the side of the house and hurriedly climbed the lattice attached to the side of the house. Exhausted, I threw my arms onto the edge of his window in an attempt to support my weight.

"I need you," I breathed.

Without speaking, he grabbed my hands and pulled me through his window and into his arms.

"You're crazy, you know that," he muttered.

"Only for you," I kissed his neck. He responded by squeezing me tighter and I knew that everything was going to be all right.

"I'm sorry I lost my head," he spoke slowly as he leaned away from me and looked down into my eyes. "Ma helped me see that I was just jealous."

"I can't change what happened, but I am sorry we never told you."

Shane put his hands on the back of my neck and pulled my lips to his. I felt my heart skip as he slowly guided me towards his bed. He broke the seal of our mouths and with his hands still behind my head, he laid me back onto the mattress. Releasing me briefly, I watched him stalk across the room and shut off the light. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness, but with the help of the moon I was able to find him as he hovered above the bed and removed his shirt before joining me in his twin bed.

I giggled.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"It just seems so weird, doesn't it? Think about all those times I climbed to your room before. Yet here we are in the town where we grew up together, and all those years have passed us by."

Shane seemed to understand what I was trying to say. "It is, but I feel like we've come full circle. I wouldn't change anything because this is how it's supposed to be," he pulled my shirt up over my head, and licked his lips. "This is perfect."

Once we got back to New York, Tyler and Shane locked themselves in Tyler's room and talked it out. I'm not sure what was said in that room, but I figure it had been necessary for them to maintain their friendship.

It took a few weeks for things to die down but as far as I was concerned, things had returned to normal. We fell back into our familiar pattern of living. It really was as if nothing had changed; just Shane and I kissed and shared a room. All four of us were together doing everything just as we always had and I finally didn't have anything to bitch about. I was completely and utterly happy.

It was a fairly early on a Sunday morning, and we were all gathered in the living room. We were watching the World Cup Soccer game between Italy and USA that Tyler had recorded the day before, so we could all watch it together.

Shane and I were lounging on the futon, Tyler was on the beanbag chair and Rob was perched in his usual spot on the windowsill taking drags from his cigarette, whilst being careful to blow the smoke out the window. As careful as he was trying to be the smoke was still wafting towards me and it was making my stomach churn.

"God. Can you put that thing out Rob? It's making me sick," I pleaded.

Without arguing, he pushed the screen out of the window and flicked the cigarette with his thumb and forefinger.

"Since when does cigarette smoke bother you?" he asked as he stalked to the kitchen and grabbed a water bottle from the fridge.