Perfection Doesn't Exist

I hadn’t talked to Matt for a couple days, and Alex was avoiding me for reasons unknown to myself. I decided to have a complete bum day before I had to go into work at Rams Head later. Nikki had left with Zack so I came out from my room and stumbled down the stairs in a pair of sweats and an old t-shirt. I walked into the kitchen and stared out the window in front of the sink. Snow was falling from all directions. I let out a happy sigh and walked over to the fridge, grabbing the container of chocolate Haagen Dazs ice cream and a spoon out of the utensils drawer. I walked into the living room and sat Indian style on the couch, not bothering with changing the channel on the TV; I wasn’t watching it anyways.

While I sat and ate my ice cream, I debated whether to tell Alex that we needed to cool our little make Matt jealous act. It wasn’t doing any good. I groaned and fell back further into the couch.

It was four thirty or so when I was woken from my nap by the sound of the front door being unlocked and pushed open. I turned my head, because from where I sat I had a perfect view down the mini hallway that lead to our entryway/front door, and saw Nikki and Zack bolting inside. I got up to bring my empty container into the kitchen. “Hey guys,” I greeted them as they brushed off the snow from outside.

“Hey girl,” Nikki said back, walking up to peer inside the empty ice cream container.

“Hey Jess,” Zack said with a small wave.

I smiled at him, said hello, and threw away the ice cream container. I turned to Nikki and said, “What did you guys do tonight, or do I not want to know?”

Nikki rolled her eyes. “We went to a movie, smartass.”

I smirked and shrugged.

“What did you do?” she asked with a smirk, wiping the one off my face.

I pouted. “Jerk,” I mumbled. I walked over to the window again and peered outside. The snow was falling, but not too hard. I sighed again. I loved snow, but if it kept up like this, I couldn’t go anywhere if Zack and Nikki decided to do it in the living room tonight.

“Talk to anyone today?” Nikki asked me, referring to Alex and Matt.

I shook my head, turned away from the window to face her and Zack. “No; it’s like everyone’s avoiding me.”

Nikki walked over and patted my shoulder. “I can’t really help because this situation is so messy, but it’ll all get figured out one way or another. Of course, you could just call Matt and ask him why he’s avoiding you,” Nikki suggested.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, right,” I told her, not providing any further explanation.

“What abut Alex?” she suggested. “Ask him what’s going on.”

I shrugged. “I guess,” I mumbled, pulling out my cell phone. I dialed Alex’s number and he answered on the second ring.

“Yeah?” he said distractedly as way of a greeting.

I rolled my eyes. “Nice greeting, Gaskarth.”

“Oh, hey Jess. What’s up?” he asked, his tone just a tiny bit brighter.

I shrugged. “I have a question,” I said, leaning against the counter. “Why is Matt avoiding me?”

“Why would I know?” he asked gruffly, as if this was a subject we weren’t supposed to bring up.

I rolled my eyes and said, “Back down, Alex, I just figured you might have some inside info that I didn’t, that’s all. And, because you got all defensive, I now know you do. So spill what you know.”

Alex sighed. “Forget it, Jess. Talk to him.” Then he hung up.

I stared at my phone in disbelief and when Nikki asked me what was wrong, I sputtered, “He hung up on me!”

She rolled her eyes. “Drama king,” she muttered under her breath.

Zack said, “What did he say?”

“He refused to give me any information and said that I needed to talk to Matt first. Zack, do you know what’s going on?” I asked him, now extremely curious.

He shrugged. “Matt and the guys went out to the diner the other day. Long story short, he and Alex started arguing—about you. At least, that’s what Rian told me,” Zack told me.

“Why?” I asked, still confused.

Zack shrugged. “Dunno—Alex just said something happened that got them talking about you and Matt told him not to fuck with you. Alex got fed up with the way he was acting and told him to fuck off and Matt left, or something along those lines. So now Alex is pissed at Matt and Matt is pissed at Alex. It’s really sucky.”

I sighed and buried my head in my hands. Alex and I were supposed to make Matt jealous, but they weren’t supposed to stop talking. I sighed and checked the clock. I had an hour to get down to Rams Head. “I need to go get ready; I have to work tonight.” I hurried off to jump in the shower, straighten my hair, and brush my teeth. I threw on a pair of jeans, a pair of Ugg boots, and an old t-shirt from my high school. I grabbed my coat and left, telling Nikki and Zack goodbye.

It didn’t take me too long to get to Rams Head. I parked and got out, bringing my iPod and phone with me in each pocket. I walked inside, not bothering to check to see who was playing that night and instead looked for my uncle. He was in the front by the stage talking to some people standing on stage. “Uncle John!” I called as I walked towards him. He turned to me and smiled. “Hi, Jess. Glad you could come,” he told me sarcastically.

I scowled. “I’m not that late! And it’s snowing!”

My uncle laughed. “It’s fine Jess. But they need to do sound check real quick so can you take care of that?”

I nodded and finally looked at who was playing tonight. I didn’t recognize who it was until the guy on my left said, “Jesse!”

I stared at him for a few minutes before I was like, “Oh my god! Jeff!” He jumped off the stage and came over to give me a hug. “How are you? More importantly, what the hell are you guys doing here?”

Jeff Czum had befriended me in the past few years, starting when Cute is What We Aim For had played here my first night of working. I had fucked the sound up during sound check, and Jeff just turned it into a big joke with the guys so no one got mad at me. Needless to say, we were pretty good friends. Jeff laughed. “We have a show here tonight.”

I rolled my eyes. “No shit, idiot. I just didn’t realize you guys were on tour again.”

Finally, Dave and Shaant came over to see me. “We aren’t,” Dave said, giving me a hug. “We were just doing a few shows at some colleges near by so we decided to play here too.”
I nodded. “How are you guys?” We talked for a few minutes, them telling me they were good, me telling them I was good, before we had to start sound check. I went up to the board and took a seat, glad to have a distraction for the night.

***

For some reason unknown to myself, my uncle had his son, Max, come down to Rams Head to work sound with me that night. This way, I got to take a break that I normally wouldn’t have had. Max was my age, and he actually went to school for audio engineering and stuff like that, so he really knew his way around the sound board. I got up and let him take over while I went to get a drink from the bar.

“Water,” I told the bartender while I took a seat, waiting for my order. And of course, as luck would have it, Matt was sitting a few seats down drinking a beer and messing with his phone. I sighed. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I mumbled to myself. I stood up and walked over to him, taking a seat next to him and saying, “You come here often?”

Matt looked at me, the surprise not hidden on his face. He looked away and took another drink of his beer without saying a word to me.

I sighed and when the bartender handed me my water, I took a drink. “Ok, fine, don’t talk. I’ll see you,” I told him and got up. I was just trying to break the ice between us, but he wasn’t having any of that.

“Hold on, Jess,” he finally said to me. I stopped and waited. “Want to go outside and talk?” I nodded.

We walked outside and I was glad I had a sweatshirt on because it was cold. Matt ran his hand through his short hair and sighed. “Alex and I—”

“Aren’t speaking, yeah he told me.”

Matt stared at me for a minute and nodded. “Know why?”

I shook my head. “He said I needed to talk to you. So here I am, talking to you. Why aren’t you guys talking?”

“He’s a fucking idiot and got mad because I called him out on something.”

I nodded and looked up at the sky. “Ok, what did you call him out on?”

“That he’s messing with you.”

I nodded again and then shook my head. “Too bad he’s not.” Matt groaned. He obviously didn’t want to hear this, but I didn’t care. “He’s not Matt. We’re friends. He’s kissed me a few times, but he’s doing it with good intentions.”

Matt just gave me one of those you’ve-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me looks before he said, “You’re kidding right?”

I shook my head. “Look, you don’t know the whole story, so you can’t really get mad for two reasons. One, you don’t know the whole story, and two, what do you care anyways?” I asked him. I was frustrated with this whole thing.

Matt shook his head like he couldn’t believe I was asking that. “I care because I don’t want you to get hurt, Jess. I’ve told you that. You just come back and tell me to fuck off, so I do. I told you that too. But now I don’t know what the fuck to do.”

We were quiet. I didn’t know what he should do, either, and I told him this.

“I think you need to tell me what is really going on.”

I looked at him. He was right, but where should I start? Oh hey Matt, Alex and I were never serious, he was just trying to make you jealous because he thought you and I would be good together for some reason and now it’s gotten really messy and I’m pretty sure in this whole process I might have fallen for you a little bit and now I’m so far beyond confused it’s not even funny? There was no way I was saying that. So I just shook my head. “Nothing’s going on. Just… Alex being Alex, I guess.”

Matt shook his head again in disbelief. “Great, so what’s going on?”

I sighed. I guess I was going to have to tell him the whole story. “Alex started this whole thing. He wanted to make you jealous, or get you laid, I’m not sure. But he started acting like he liked me and when I realized it was all a big joke and you were still getting mad at me for hanging around Alex, I wanted to get you back for being such a dickface. At the New Year’s Eve party, it was supposed to all come to the surface and you were supposed to fucking notice me,” I stressed. “Then, we were going to tell you that this was all a plan to get you to notice me, and yet you still didn’t! You just yelled at me, again!” I finished, yelling at him. I didn’t realize how much my voice had escalated during my speech, but it had.

“I didn’t notice you? Really? You looked fucking gorgeous, and yet there you were, kissing Alex and dancing with Alex all night!” he yelled at me.

I scowled. “Yeah, and there you were chatting up some blonde bimbo!”

Matt laughed. “Yes, that’s exactly what I was doing Jesse. That blonde bimbo was one of Alex’s most recent conquests and I was trying to get some information out of her as to how he got them to see if he was doing the same to you! I was looking out for you, Jesse!” he yelled at me.

I shrunk backwards. I didn’t know what to say. In some ways, I was happy he had been looking out for me, but in others I was really upset because he thought I could be anything like those stupid girls Alex had hooked up with who only wanted sex, and were really quite slutty. I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure if I could.

We were both quiet. “Jesse?” Matt asked me after about five minutes of silence.

I looked at him with sad eyes and said, “You think I’m like that girl?”

Matt laughed and took a step forward. “No, I don’t, and that’s why I was looking out for you. I knew you weren’t like them and so you might fall for Alex’s stupid charm more easily.”

I shook my head. “But I didn’t, Matt. That’s not what this was about. This was always about you. It was from the beginning and yet you didn’t even fucking realize it!”

“How would I have realized Jesse? You didn’t really give me any hints that you were trying to get me and not Alex, you know.”

I shrugged. “You still didn’t notice me, though. I was just like the friend, or even worse, the sister.”

Matt cringed. “Believe me Jesse, you were never like my sister,” he mumbled probably not thinking I’d catch it but I did.

I gave him a tiny smile. “Really?” He looked up at me, confused. “Never like a sister?”

Matt laughed. “Never, ever. I think if you were, the thoughts I were having on New Year’s Eve would be illegal in most states.”

My smile grew. I took a step closer to him so we were no longer ten feet away. “In the beginning, this was about Alex. After that, it was about me getting back at you. And after that, it was about how I think I started liking you somewhere along the way.”

Matt smiled. “Good, because in the beginning, when I first met you, I thought you were the most annoying girl I’d ever met. Then, I thought you were gorgeous and I started liking you but all you liked to do was push me and agitate me, so I assumed it was a one way street. And now, I still think you look gorgeous, but if I have to see you kiss Alex again I’m going to go insane.”

“For the record, I never wanted to kiss Alex.”

Matt laughed. “Yeah, alright.” We were close enough now that I could feel his breath on my cheeks. I was contemplating going in for the kiss when he made the first move and kissed me first. My arms snaked around his neck while his went around my waist. We backed up against the wall of the venue, chills racing up my spine, but not from the cold. Matt trailed kisses from my mouth to my jaw and down to my neck while I leaned my head back as far as possible to provide better access to my neck area, before we got yelled at by a passerby to “get a room!” We abruptly stopped what we were doing and laughed to ourselves, trying to get our breathing back to normal.

We connected our foreheads and smiled. I kissed his lips again and then we just stood there together, oblivious to the world around us.

For the whole time that I had “been with” Alex, I never realized that I had seriously started to fall for Matt, but now, with my head on his head and being close enough that I could smell his distinct smell of cologne and shampoo/soap and hear his heart beat and feel his chest rising and falling and still taste him, I realized that I had fallen good and hard and it was going to be hard to get back up.