The Perfection Paradox (31 page)

Instead he
poured two beers and handed her one. His brain was on autopilot.
Make Kennedy happy.

Although
their conversation hadn’t sunken in when he was drunk, his
happy-o-meter was telling him they needed to change the subject
fast.

So he had,
and they’d spent a memorable ten minutes talking about Rosewell’s
game against Hamworth at the end of the season.

He’d all but
forgotten about the conversation until the evening his family sat
him down and told him Kennedy was dead.

It had been
the first thing that popped into his mind, like it had been some
sort of foreshadowing.

Guilt erupted
in the pit of his stomach and filled every crevice of his
soul.

40.

Emily threw
her schoolbag into her locker carelessly. She was pissed off. She’d
flunked her Literature test because she’d stayed up late talking to
a guy who wasn’t even into her.

“
Emily?” a
loud voice asked behind her, a voice she didn’t immediately
recognize.

She turned
around, still irritated.

Brooke Kent
looked down at her and she didn’t look happy.

Emily gasped
loudly before gathering herself quickly.

“
Oh… hi… it’s
Brooke right?” it came out sounding a bit too close to bitchy for
Brooke, who sneered down at her.

“
Don’t
pretend you don’t know who I am. It’s pathetic.” Her voice was cold
and hard.

“
I…” muttered
Emily, not sure what she was going to say but unable to say it
anyway.

“
Listen to me
Emily” Brooke’s face was inches from hers now, terrifying, but
still very pretty. “I know what you’re doing… Kennedy might like to
see the best in people but I’m not that naïve”

Finally,
Emily managed a response “I don’t know what you’re talking about”
she mumbled. She could barely convince herself, let alone
Brooke.

“
If I hear
anything,
anything
, about you spreading anymore rumours or lies about my best
friend, you’ll be sorry. You
don’t
want me as your enemy. I don’t care what this is
about, whether it’s about Hunter...”

Emily’s eyes
widened,

“
Oh yes!”
Brooke said, sneering, her eyes gleaming “I know about that too.
Whatever this is about it needs to stop. Spreading shit about
Kennedy will only make people hate you more and make you sink
further into social oblivion.”

Emily’s eyes
were welling up but she desperately tried to hide it from
Brooke.

She noticed
despite Emily’s best efforts.

“
Don’t start
crying, that is so pathetic. If you hadn’t run your mouth about
Kennedy in the first place we wouldn’t be having this conversation
right now. That’s what you get for being a backstabbing bitch. I
better not hear your name again.” Brooke turned on her heel, her
luscious brown hair whipping Emily’s face as she spun.

Emily had a
lump in her throat and her heart was beating fast. She felt as
though she might burst into tears. Her stomach lurched as she
remembered all of the things she had said about Kennedy.

Why had she
been so stupid?

She should’ve
just stayed quiet.

Her anger
towards Kennedy had flared up again, jealous that she had a friend
who cared so much for her that she’d threaten anyone who endangered
her happiness.

She spent the
rest of the day desperately trying to avoid both of them, rushing
into the girls bathroom at the sight of any blonde or brunette head
bobbing towards her through the sea of students and taking the long
way round to get to her sociology class to avoid passing Kennedy’s
advanced math class.

As the bell
marking the end of the school day chimed, Emily darted from her
Literature class as quickly as she could, rushing to her locker to
gather up her things pronto.

Suddenly, she
saw a head of flowing blondeness that could only be Kennedy’s exit
a nearby classroom and start in Emily’s direction.

“
Crap!
” Emily whispered under her
breath, panicking. She’d forgotten Kennedy had philosophy in Mrs
Parker’s classroom.

It was too
late to run into a bathroom or make a detour so she just stared at
her feet as Kennedy approached.

She glanced
up, hoping she’d already passed, but was bitterly
disappointed.

Kennedy
strode past, her head down, her long golden waves falling over her
face. She was looking down at her feet the same way Emily had been,
making eye contact with no one.

Emily watched
her, wondering why she was acting so covert. After several seconds,
Kennedy’s blue eyes glanced up to meet her own and Emily saw
something that made her inhale suddenly. Her eyes swelled in
shock.

She’d
expected anger on Kennedy’s face, and if not anger then just the
same indifference she’d previously exuded when their eyes had met
on the two or three previous occasions.

Kennedy’s
face had been blank and empty. Her eyes hollow and miserable, not
even miserable,
inconsolable
.

Emily felt
guilt erupt deep within her stomach, but sadness like that, closer
to depressed hopelessness, couldn’t be down to Emily spreading a
few rumours, could it?

As far as
Kennedy was concerned, Emily had always felt like a bird in the
path of a Boeing, no matter what Emily said or did, Kennedy would
barely notice her existence.

No, that face
indicated something was very wrong, maybe something with her family
or Hunter?

She’d
reassured herself it was nothing serious, a B on a test or an
injured teammate right before a big game, and soon convinced
herself it had been nothing at all, just Emily being a drama
queen.

She believed
that unquestioningly until the day after graduation.

41.

Hannah
couldn’t get their faces out of her head. She’d watched Kennedy’s
parents from the crowd of mourners who’d flocked to Rosewell
Stadium for her memorial service.

Her mother.
The usual glamor and luxury was gone, perhaps forever. In its place
despair and desolation the likes of which Hannah had never seen. No
makeup, no trinkets, no airs and graces, her face expressionless at
its best, crumbled into agonizing grief at its worst. Her hands
shook uncontrollably as she buried her face into her husband’s
chest, grasping at his black woollen coat desperately, as if it
might undo all that had been done.

Mr Blakewood
sat solemnly. His bottom lip had quivered as his son finished his
eulogy, and his eyes had shone with bright wet tears as Brooke
addressed his daughter, but it hadn’t been until the clapping that
he’d dropped his head into his hands and sobbed, all the anguish
and heartbreak and raw unbearable pain outing itself
then.

Hannah
couldn’t even begin to imagine, the moment they’d found out their
daughter, their only daughter, their eighteen year old daughter,
was dead.

The moment
they’d walked into the room and found her lifeless body, the moment
the doorbell rang and a police officer stood before them, telling
them their daughter was gone. Hannah didn’t know the details, nor
did she want to, but her mind kept drifting back to them, and when
it wasn’t deliberating over the Blakewoods sorrow, it would wander
to something even more difficult, something she’d tried so hard to
forget.

A flashback
to a memory almost forgotten.

Hannah
hitched her ragged backpack a little higher on to her shoulder. It
was the end of the day and she was threading through the bustling
hallways.

Around her,
locker neighbours were chattering to each other, catching up on the
day’s news.

Several
footballs were flying overhead, caught by a well built Varsity
footballer at the last second, narrowly missing collisions with
fire extinguishers, windows and students’ heads.

All of a
sudden, the crowd in front of her parted like the red sea, and
Kennedy and Brooke strode through.

Hannah shook
her head, smiling to herself. The infatuation with Kennedy was
enough to give her an invisible bubble of protection, no one ever
dared touch her, and a push or shove, even by accident, was
unthinkable.

Kennedy
glanced up at Hannah as she passed, and instead of the small polite
smile she’d become accustomed to that translated into
“
I have no idea who you are but I’m too
polite to say so
”, she smiled at her,
almost nervously, almost as if she thought Hannah might not
remember her.

As if any
person in the school didn’t know Kennedy Blakewood.

She
approached Hannah, who froze, not sure how to react.

She hated the
celebrity-obsessed culture they lived in, but the obsession and
endless gossiping of her classmates meant that Kennedy approaching
her,
her
, felt a
lot like meeting some movie star or famous singer. Seeing her
individual eyelashes, her lips, being close enough to smell her
perfume and identify the tints of grey in her blue eyes.

It was
strange seeing her up close after watching her from a distance for
so long.

But had she
even been watching her? She hadn’t realized she had until now. That
was the magnetic Kennedy Blakewood for you,
irresistible
.

“
Hannah? I
was wondering if you would mind us getting this philosophy
presentation done tonight? My week is crammed as it is and it would
be a relief to get it out the way. You could come over to my house
for a couple of hours, we could finish it off and then I could
drive you home.”

Hannah was
struggling to keep up, thoughts swarmed in her mind like bees in a
hive.

They’d just
been assigned the philosophy project, was Kennedy really so
organized? Go over to her house? Kennedy Blakewood’s
house?

She still
felt a little star struck from Kennedy’s dazzling smile.

Finally she
snapped back to reality, “Yeah sure, why not…” she mumbled in
response.

“
Great,
thanks. We just need to drop Brooke off at her house and then we
can head to mine.”

The three
girls headed to the parking lot together.

The bell
marking the end of school had only rung five minutes ago so the
place was at its busiest.

Kennedy and
Brooke were the subject of the usual stares of longing and
gossiping whispers and there were plenty of double takes and
bewildered glances as students noticed Kennedy had lowered herself
to talk to Hannah Hodge, dressed in brown corduroy pants and a
gaudy green cable knit jumper, juxtaposing sharply with the
goddesses who stood beside her.

Hannah
dropped herself onto the backseat of Kennedy’s silver convertible.
Brooke was in the passenger’s seat, fiddling with dials that
controlled the audio system. Finally a bubbly pop song burst from
the speakers and bounced around the car.

“
Put the roof
down!” Brooke yelled happily, thumping her fingers against the
window in beat with the song, “what’s the point in having a soft
top if you’re not going to use it!” Kennedy was laughing and
shaking her head, a few moments later, the roof of the car started
to retract.

As the car
reversed and Hannah felt the sun on her face and a light warm
breeze tickle her hair she felt like she was in some sort of
Hollywood movie. The music, the car, the wind, Kennedy and Brooke,
It was all so different from the world she occupied, it was all
so
exciting.

Kennedy
dropped Brooke off outside a Tudor-style mansion with a high iron
fence running around it. Brooke typed a code into the panel on the
fence and the ornate gate started to slide open automatically,
Brooke disappeared through it.

Hannah wasn’t
sure what to make of Brooke. She was bubbly and energetic, that
much was clear, but she seemed ridiculously aloof and indifferent
to Hannah, to most people who didn’t occupy her perfect world, like
someone you’d meet on a public bus and know you’re never going to
see again. Pleasant, but no questions asked, no social boundaries
broken.

Not that
Brooke Kent had ever been on a public bus.

Hannah had
crawled across the passenger’s seat once Brooke was gone and
Kennedy tossed her iPod into Hannah’s lap, inviting her to pick a
song.

Hannah
scrolled through the list feeling pressure to pick something
exceptionally good. Before Hannah could make a choice however,
Kennedy turned left sharply, her car coming to a halt in front of a
large bronze coloured gate.

Kennedy
grabbed a small remote out of the cup holder between Hannah’s seat
and her own and pointed it at the gate, clicking one of the
buttons.

The two
halves that made up the gate began to part down the middle,
swerving open slowly. Ahead was a long drive, at the end of it a
splendid fountain, casting rainbows in the sunshine. Just beyond
the fountain stood the most lavish house Hannah had ever
seen.