"I'm not perfect but I keep trying cause that's what I said I would do from the start."-Perfect, Hedley
________________________________________________________________________
The panic started to set in during the last five minutes of my trig class. The inevitable moment was coming, I knew it with every tick of the clock. My retake of the test was in a few short moments and though I practically ate, slept, breathed nothing but trigonometry since Saturday with the help of Luke, I still felt completely unprepared. No amount of studying could change the fact that I was terrible at all things math related and couldn’t recall formulas to save my life. It felt useless that I was even getting the chance to redo this test, but Luke had really stuck his neck out to get this opportunity for me. Because of that, I felt obligated to repay him by trying to complete this exam.
The teacher announced dismissal and my heart lurched in my chest. This was it. This was the moment I had been dreading all weekend. I stared at my desk, trying to will myself not to throw up all over the textured green carpet. My stomach tied itself into knots, my palms sweated. The room suddenly felt too small, too hot, like my claustrophobia had set in. My brain kicked into overdrive as the students piled out the door, forcing my heart rate to spike. My chest constricted around my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. My brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen to recall anything I had learned.
A hand landed on my shoulder just as I had decided to forget this stupid test and bail. When I looked up Luke was standing above me, a wide grin stretching his lips out. His dimple sunk deeper into his cheek than it usually did and for some reason that loosened the cage around my lungs.
“You’ve got this, Remy,” he promised. “You’ve spent too much time studying not to pass.”
I shook my head and gulped. My voice would barely rise above a whisper when I tried to respond. “Luke… I don’t know if I can do this.”
He gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry, okay? Like I’ve said before, it’s just a pretest. It’s not even that important.” I must have still looked skeptical because he crouched forward to make us eye level and lowered his voice. “Okay, tell ya what. If you get overwhelmed or forget just close your eyes and think of my voice. I spent hours reciting this stuff to you, Remy, thinking of me saying it might help.” His cheeks darkened with a hint of pink when he said this, like suggesting that I should think of him in a time of need embarrassed him.
I placed my hand over his on my shoulder cautiously and exhaled. “Okay.”
“Luke?” We looked up to see the professor, Luke’s mother, standing in front of my desk with papers under her arm. Luke’s hand slipped from my shoulder. “You need to leave now, sweetie.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Luke nodded before turned to me. “Remember what I said. You’ll do great! I’ll be waiting outside, okay?”
I waved as he hurried out of the classroom, leaving me to accept my doomed fate.
Mrs. Redford sat the exam on my desk with a smile before returning to the whiteboard at the front of the room. As soon as the paper was placed in front of me I regretted the decision to put myself through this. I couldn’t even comprehend the first problem. All the words seemed to run together. The sentences were made of gibberish, like a foreign language I never got the privilege to learn. There were too many numbers mixed in with letters, it was like the alphabet had vomited all over my math homework.
I can’t do this, I thought. There was no way. None of it made any sense. A headache was already battling to explode my brain.
Remember what I said, Luke’s voice chimed in, smothering my doubts before they could drown me.
I shut my eyes and sucked in a deep breath, slowly blowing it out my nose. I let my mind open and pulled at the memories of Luke drilling formulas and definitions into my head. They flowed easily, his voice carrying the knowledge I needed from my brain to the paper.
I opened my eyes and touched my pencil to the sheet.
*****
“I did it!” I yelled when I ran out into the hallway.
Luke was waiting right outside the door like he had promised, a warm smile lighting up his blue eyes. “See! I told you!”
I bounced on the balls of my feet, gripping the test in front of my face to show off the bold B scribbled at the top. “I can’t believe it!” I turned the paper around to stare at it, unable to keep the grin from spreading across my face. I was convinced this was a dream. “It’s all thanks to you, Luke. Really.”
He shrugged. “All I did was tell you the steps. You’re the one that put them to use.”
I had to break eye contact. The pride covering his face was drowning me. I pulled my phone out of my bag to give me something else to occupy myself. “I have to tell Emma,” I said, but when I unlocked my screen I saw three missed calls, five texts, and a voicemail from my best friend. “Crap,” I muttered under my breath as I clicked on the voice message.
“What is it?” Luke wondered, but I held up a finger to silence him as Emma’s voice rushed through my phone.
“Remington, I swear if you don’t call me back I’m going to scream. I need you, like now. This is a major cat alert, not just a regular one. This is a massive shit storm will go down if you don’t get back to me in probably the next hour. Please.”
“Frick.” I clicked out of the voicemail and hurried to call her back.
“Is she okay?” Luke questioned. He must have been able to hear her panicked voice.
“It’s a cat alert.” I told him when Emma didn’t answer before trying again.
The look he gave me spoke volumes for how confused he must have felt.
I tossed my hair over my right shoulder and turned my back to him, pointing to the silhouette of a sitting cat tattooed behind my ear. “Second tattoo story: when we were younger Emma’s mom didn’t want Em to have anything to do with me. I was tattooed and pierced and had a reputation my entire town seemed to know. She thought I was a bad influence and it got to the point where Emma couldn’t even text me and we only saw each other at school. To get around the rules, Emma would only text me one thing and only when things were bad and she needed me. She came up with ‘cat alert’ because she loves cats and, I don’t know, it made sense at the time. It basically became our mutual distress signal.”
Emma finally answered on the second ring of the fourth time I called her. “Remy!”
“Emma, thank God. What’s wrong? I’m so sorry I didn’t answer. I had to retake my math test.”
I heard a noise that sounded like her hitting her forehead with the heel of her palm. “I forgot! I’m so sorry!”
“Don’t worry about that. What’s going on?”
“Can you come to the lunch tables?”
“Of course. I’m on my way.” I ended the call and shoved my phone into my back pocket. “I have to go. Emma sounds really upset.”
But Luke being the little lost puppy he is followed me when I started to walk away. “I’m coming with you.”
“Luke, I’m fine. I can handle this.”
He shook his head. “I don’t doubt that, but I want to help.”
I sighed. What harm could come from him following along? It’s not like he would take no for an answer anyway. “Fine. We have to hurry though.”
He launched into a sprint that I was hardly able to keep up with, weaving and ducking past groups of bystanders. I was impressed that he could move that fast in his skintight jeans with the rips in the knees, but I wished he would slow down. With my luck, had I been him I would have fallen on my face or destroyed the whole leg of my pants. How the pants didn’t slide right off his hips I would never know.
My lungs burned, my chest ached. It was getting harder to keep up with Luke with each passing minute. I needed a break but I couldn’t stop. We had to find Emma. We couldn’t stop because something was going on and she was panicking. She needed me.
We came to the top of the hill and saw her sitting alone at the picnic table under the shade of a cluster of trees. She had sat herself as far from anyone else as she could. Her arms were around her knees, her head pressed to her arms and even from our distance I could see her rocking back and forth. Whatever was stressing her out had hit as hard and sudden as it could.
She only stilled when she heard my panting breath and Luke’s heavy footfalls. She lifted her eyes, narrowing them at Luke. “I didn’t know he was coming.”
“I didn’t either,” I responded through gasps. I pressed my hand against my heaving chest like that would actually help. “He doesn’t understand the word no.”
Emma sat up a little, loosening her arms from their bear hug around her legs. “I don’t know if you want him here for this.”
I glanced at Luke then back at Emma before I sat across from her. “He’s determined to be in our lives-”I looked back at Luke to see a small grin form on his lips-“I guess you might as well say whatever in front of him.”
My statement had two opposing reactions: Luke was the happy end, a gleeful smile spread across his face and popped his dimple into place as he took a seat beside me. Emma, on the other hand, was the nervous end. She bit into her bottom lip and wrung her hands together as she struggled to form a sentence.
“Uh, well.” She stumbled over her words before clearing her throat. “Um, Isaac asked me out for an official ‘first date’.”
A scowl overtook my face despite my efforts to fight it off. “Oh, really?” There was an edge to my voice I hadn’t intended to be there, but I couldn’t seem to shake it. “That’s good, right?”
I saw Luke glance at me with his eyebrows knitted together but he didn’t try to interrupt. Instead, he sat there silently with his lips pursed and his hands clasped under his chin.
“It’s great, but I asked him if I could bring friends so I felt more comfortable.”
Where was she going with this? “Okay. And he said?”
“Only if these friends were dating because he wasn’t going to have any awkward third wheels.” Her eyes dropped as the words left her mouth, suddenly fascinated with her hands as she picked at her nails.
“Emma, I don’t understand.”
She had a sheepish smile and wide eyes when she met my gaze again. If she had been a puppy her expression made me think she’d have her ears pulled down and her tail tucked. “I might have told him you guys were a couple.” She waved her finger between me and Luke.
I felt his eyes on me but I couldn’t bring myself to even glance his way for fear he’d see the blush coloring my face. “You did what?”
“Why us?” Luke questioned. His voice shocked me. It cracked, making the usual deepness slip into a higher note for a second.
I cringed at Emma’s answer. “You’re the only guy Remy likes, Luke. Rem, I had to do something. I can’t go on this date alone. I need you.”
I ran my hands down my face, praying the redness would disappear. I had to pull myself together for Emma’s sake. Here she was telling me she needed me and all I could think about was how screwed up I was and how much this was going to cause me discomfort. With a deep breath, I dropped my hands to my lap and sat up straighter. “I understand that. It’s fine. We’re fine. We can…” I swallowed and forced my head to turn, meeting Luke’s cautious blue eyes. “We can pretend, right Luke?”
Obvious shock crossed over his face before he pressed his lips into a tight line and nodded once. “Of course.” He seemed unsure of this himself, his eyes searching my face for something I couldn’t pinpoint.
I nodded back at him, hoping I appeared more confident than I felt. “Okay.” I turned back to Emma, trying to force a smile to pull my lips up. “It’s settled then.”
Her shoulders instantly relaxed, dropping away from her ears as her expression brightened. Her green eyes lit up, making it a bit easier for me to be happy about this situation. “Really? Thank you guys so much! You have no idea what this means to me.” Maybe I didn’t, but I could guess. Comfort. Security. Peace. Reduced anxiety. Happiness. Everything I couldn’t feel. “You guys are great.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I pushed her away when she tried to hug me across the table.
Luke leaned into my side, resting his cheek against the top of my head. My heart rate picked up at his touch, causing my chest to ache in a much different way than it had earlier. “So I guess you’re my girlfriend?” There was a smile in his voice that I couldn’t bear to look at.
He’s kidding, Remy. He’s just kidding. I chanted to myself to restrain the urge to shove him off. My voice pulled one of Luke’s stunts and pitched higher than normal when I attempted to speak. “I guess you’re my… boyfriend.”
“Pretty fair trade if you ask me.”
Emma slammed her hands on the table harder than necessary right at that moment, causing Luke to jump and separate himself from my body. I silently thanked my best friend for the distraction while my breath returned to a normal pace.
“Geez Emma!” Luke yelled, clutching his heart. “You nearly killed me.”
“SO!” Emma practically shouted, ignoring Luke completely as she leaned her chin into her hands. “Let’s talk about something less anxiety inducing, shall we?”
I cleared my throat as Luke scratched the back of his neck. “Um, well I made a B on my math test.”