Perfectly, Imperfect // JJ MAYBANK

chapter one

Arizella Carter

"ARIZELLA!" MY MOTHER SCREECHES AS I FALL OUT OF MY PIROUETTE AGAIN, I flinch as I turn to the side of the dance studio. Her face is scrunched up in anger, nostrils flaring and all— You know in those cartoons where the characters get so mad smoke comes out of their ears? That would be my Mother right now if that was a real thing.

"Are you not listening to a word Duncan is telling you? You're messing up your footing each time which is causing you to fall out of your pirouette each time!" She shouts at me, I glance over at Duncan. He flashes me an apologetic smile, the one he always gives me when my mother lashes out on me like this.

"Grab your fucking things, I'm not wasting more of my money for you to mess up. This is about perfection, if you can't live up to the expectations... You don't get what you want." She swings open the studio door and leaves without another word, the door slamming closed behind her.

Paris Carter, everybody. That's my mother in the flesh, the perfectionist in everything that she does— That includes the children she raises. Me and my younger sister, Alexandra, have had the pressure of perfection dawned on us since the minute we left the womb.

If you're anything short of perfect, it's disgraceful in her books... Sloppy even. Nothing is ever good enough for her, I master a dance move she's been busting my ass to learn and she's already talking about the next thing I need to do, to be better. Exhausting.

I do it though because nothing scares me more than disappointing her. She's my mother, after all, the only one I will ever have, at the end of the day she's taken care of me since I was born— Given me the best life she could provide and making sure we had experiences that not many children get to have... And even though it's not what I personally would like to experience, I don't complain. Experience is experience.

"I'm sorry, Kiddo." Duncan apologizes as I pack up my dance back, pulling my sweater over my head to cover up my sports bra. I pull off my foot thongs and throw them carelessly into my bag.

"Don't sweat it, Duncan, I'm just sorry she's making me leave early again. I know that's a huge waste of your time." I swing my bag over my shoulder, sighing as I wipe the sweat off of my forehead.

"No, Arizella. It's never a waste of time, you know you're my favourite student." He smiled at me in reassurance, I giggled punching his shoulder playfully. "Practice those pirouettes at home, okay? I know en dedans have always been harder for you. Don't beat yourself up over it."

Duncan has been giving me private dance lessons since I was around the age of eleven, I think. So it's easy to say that he knows me pretty well, and we have gotten to develop a great bond. He's also one of the very few on Figure 8 who have been able to see my mother lose her shit, she wouldn't let anybody at the country club catch her being anything other than classy.

"See you later this week, Duncan." I wave at him before making my way towards the door, I knew if I wasn't out at the car soon that my mother would storm back in and cause another hissy fit.

THE DRIVE HOME WAS PAINFUL, TO SAY THE LEAST, this always happened when she was upset with how dance class went. She's ignoring me until late in the evening just to punish me, little did she know I actually enjoyed that time.

Sometimes if she really was pissing me off, I'd purposely mess up just so I wouldn't have to hear her talk my ear off later on.

"Hey mom, I was wondering if I could go hang out with Wheezie's– Oh okay, cool." Alexandra tries but our mother walks right past without any recognition that Alexandra was speaking to her.