Perfect

•Nine•

T R I S

I am an idiot.

I know I'm an idiot because I'm smiling like one, but I'm mostly an idiot because, slowly, I'm throwing everything away that I've worked hard for.

I can't afford to be falling for anyone, let alone letting someone break down my walls. No— not when it's taken me so long to build them up so high.

But sometimes things like emotions have to work in a way you don't want them to. They're considered tricky, in that sense. And as much as I try not to give in to such stupidness— stupidness such a love –all I can do is sit and stare and watch and love as Tobias looks at me, or as I look at him, or as his name pops up on my phone.

I hate the fact that, although I try to make everyone inferior to me, there is no stopping me from loving.

As much as I wish there was.

T O B I A S

Today consists of boring classes I try to block out by the sound of the tapping of my pen. Like now, in my mental health and happiness class, where Mr. Black stands at the front of the room, holding up half a glass of water in the air.

"Is he having a seizure or something?" Zeke, who sits next to me, whispers. I snicker along with the other students who were close enough to hear him.

"Do you even know what a seizure is?" Shauna says, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Yeah. It's the type of face you made the other night when I made you have all those orgasms, isn't it?" Zeke retorts. Shauna pokes her cheek with her tongue, and faces the front of the classroom in a huff. I knew the two of them have been having problems for a while, but I didn't think they were this bad.

"TMI," someone whispers in disgust.

I turn my attention to Mr. Black and wonder how stress management, which was announced to be today's subject, has anything to do with a glass of water. I expect he'll ask the 'half empty or half full' question. But instead, with a smile on his face, he inquires, "how heavy is this glass of water?"

My fellow students call out answers that range from eight ounces to twenty ounces. I look straight ahead and keep my eyes fixed on the glass, still wondering about its relevance.

Mr. Black replies, "the absolute weight doesn't matter. It's about how long I hold it for-"

A noise from across the room interrupts him. Someone has come in late and dropped a book and then, in picking up the book, upset all her other books so that everything has gone tumbling. This is followed by laughter— because we're in high school, which means we're predictable and almost everything is funny, especially if it's somebody else's public humiliation.

The girl who dropped everything is Myra, the same Myra, if I remember correctly, that Tris had that dispute with in our English class. She turns beet red and I can tell she wants to die. Not in a jumping-from-a-great-height kind of way, but more along the lines of please, Earth, swallow me whole.

I know this feeling better than I know my dad or Lauren or Zeke.

And so, because I'm so used to it and because this Myra girl is about three dropped pencils away from crying, I knock one of my own books onto the floor, and as I bend over to pick it up, tilt the table over to send the others flying. All eyes shift to me. This is followed by snickers and a couple of small laughs.