Page 36 of Perfect on Paper

“No,” I forced out in a strangled voice. “We have to find Brougham. We have to…”

“Brougham can wait. Here, unlock it. I’ll send him a text. We won’t be long.”

People were glancing at me as I sniffled, tears rolling freely down my cheeks. I rubbed a fist over them to try to clean myself up. I must have been the most overgrown child to ever burst into tears in the middle of Disneyland.

“This calls for bread bowls,” Ainsley said, making a beeline for the Pacific Wharf Café. And she must have understood the gravity of the situation, because Ainsley had never particularly liked the bread bowls.

With Ainsley as my guide leading the way, I zombie-shuffled past the red bricks of the Boudin Bakery, and didn’t even look up as we passed the enormous windows showcasing the bakers inside. When I was little I used to plant my feet firmly outside these windows and stare inside for what felt like hours, mesmerized by the golden-brown sourdough bread, begging my parents to take us on one more tour inside so I could watch the finely choreographed production process of dough to oven to tray. Even the rich, yeasty smell of the area should’ve been enough to wrap me in a cozy bubble. But though my stomach growled at the smell as we reached the soft browns and blues of the Pacific Wharf Café, everything from my chest up was numb.

“Are you gonna call her?” Ainsley asked as we joined the cattle-style lineup.

“I can’t right now. Maybe later.”

“Do you know who she might be dating?”

“Yeah. Raina from Q and Q.”

“Raina with the French bulldog face?”

I cracked a tiny smile. “What?”

“She’s always frowning like this.” Ainsley lowered her eyebrows and scrunched up her face into a dramatic frown.

“Well… yeah, thatiswho I mean.”

“See? Efficient. If I’d said, ‘Raina who’s yea high and has brown hair,’ we would’ve been here all night. Besides, I’m sure she has a great personality… when you get to know her.”

“Her personalitysucks,” I snapped. “She’s always competing with Brooke and talking down to her and I’ve never even seen her have a nice word to say. Notonce.”

“So, what you’re telling me is Brooke has inexplicably fallen for someone with a French bulldog face and a Persian cat’s personality?”

“… I mean, yeah, I guess.”

“Sounds plausible.”

From the tone of her voice, it sounded more like she meant “sounds like you’re jealous and skewing Raina into an irredeemable caricature so you can convince yourself the relationship won’t last long.” Which was simply the rudest, most accurate thing she’d ever said to me. I suddenly hoped her bread bowl was stale.

We carried our orders—mac and cheese for me, clam chowder for Ainsley—outside to sit in the cooling dusk. Instead of eating, I reread the message over and over again, like it might magically say something different on the twentieth opening.

“I’m sorry,” Ainsley said as she watched me. “There’s nothing I can say that makes this better. Except, maybe, high school relationships don’t usually last. I only know one couple who got together in junior year that’s still blissfully happy. Everyone else crashed and burned dramatically, usually around the SATs, and—Oh, no, babe, don’t cry.”

But I couldn’t help it. Brooke had feelings for someone else—she was dating someone else—and even though a part of me figured she’d never feel that way about me, another part of me had hoped. I was the best friend, the supportive one, who listened to her and laughed with her and stayed up with her chatting ’til all hours of the morning.

But she hadn’t chosen me. She was never going to. And it didn’t matter how caring I was, or how much effort I put into my hair and makeup, or how much time I put in. It was me, as I was, that wasn’t doing it for her. There wasn’t anything I coulddoto change that. And that made me feel like there was something inherently not good enough about me. I hiccupped and sniffled as sobs choked my throat. I wasn’t a pretty crier. I was bright red cheeks and wobbling lips and puffy, swollen eyes that looked like I’d smashed my face into a table to test its structural integrity.

“It’s okay,” Ainsley tried. “You’ll find your own patronizing Persian cat one day.”

“I… don’t… want… my own Persian cat,” I gulped. “I want Brooke.”

“I know. Life sucks.”

“And she’llmarry her,” I spat out. “I bet you anything she’ll marry her, because that’s just how my luck is going. And they’ll go on all these fancy trips to the snow and pose in their fancy ski gear and Raina will propose on top offuckingMount Everest and I’ll find out on Instagram and I’ll have to pretend to be happy for them.”

“That isso specific.”

“It’s just my gut feeling, okay? And Brooke will be allhappy—”

“Yeah, fuck her, right?” Ainsley deadpanned.

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