The Perfection Paradox Read Free

with them before her
parents whisked her off once again.
    High school
after high school had made her cynical, all she saw were flat
stereotypes, flawed to the extreme, in a way no one else could see
yet. Hannah didn't fit in anywhere. She’d rejected any social
norms, any social circles; those were reserved for people who could
actually belong to them. She had come to resent the fake bimbos who
were allowed to
be confident and social. Girls who had college and a
comfortable future they would take entirely for granted to look forward
to. After a while, the shiny façade of popularity faded away to
expose the true ugliness beneath.
    Hannah used
to daydream about what life as a normal teenager would’ve been
like. She wasn't unattractive, although she didn't tamper with her
hair and face the way a lot of the other girls did. Brown hair fell
just past her shoulders in loose messy curls. Her eyes were a plain
muddy brown and her skin was pale and smooth. She wasn't beautiful,
but she didn’t need to be, all she really needed was the time to
make friends, so she might be more than just the ‘new
girl.’
    A youthful
commotion erupted outside her window and she gazed out, watching
children in tattered overalls shriek with laughter as they chased
each other through the dreary streets, snot gushing from their
noses and crusty scabs scattered across their faces, arms and legs.
Most of them were barefoot, their matted hair blowing in the hot
polluted breeze that passed through their neighbourhood. The gust
blew hair into their eyes, and they pushed it out of their faces
with hands that had dirty blackened stubs for fingers.
    Hannah sighed
and dropped on to her bed, the springs tensing loudly. She needed
Rosewell to be different, for something or someone to change her
perspective, because otherwise, she might just die of
boredom.

    3.
    It was an
afternoon in late summer. The sun blazed mercilessly, a hot breeze
thrumming across the cracked earth, its touch barely a relief,
still oppressively stifling.
    Crickets sang
their songs in the nearby shrubs. The sky was a perfect blue, not a
cloud in sight.
    In the
distance the sound of lawnmowers could be heard, with it wafted the
earthy scent of freshly cut grass.
    “ Do you want
another beer?” Ryan asked, padding his forehead and neck with a
towel as he got to his feet.
    He barely
cast a shadow, the sun high in the midday sky. Ryan’s shoulders
were pink, his skin struggling against the strong summer
rays.
    Hunter opened
his eyes and lifted the sunglasses from his face lazily, sliding
them up to rest amid his mess of hair.
    “ Yeah, why
not…” he answered, sitting up to stretch his muscular arms
sleepily.
    “ I’ll come,”
he decided, the sun had become unbearably hot and he longed for the
cool embrace of the air conditioning in Ryan’s kitchen.
    Taylor was
spread across a nearby sun lounger, headphones blaring; Hunter
could recognize the song from where he stood on the other side of
the garden.
    Brad and
Riley were tossing a football back and forth, sweat falling from
their bodies like rain with every throw.
    Josh sat
under a large cream parasol, a snapback shading his eyes from the
brightness of the afternoon. He was biting his lip, his face
wrought with concentration as he played some game on his
phone.
    “ Beer?”
Hunter called over; Brad and Riley looked at each other and
shrugged, Hunter nodded in compliance, Josh grunted a muffled
“yes”, not even looking up from his screen.
    Hunter and
Ryan glanced at each other, shaking their heads and chuckling at
the deathly serious expression on Josh’s face.
    The gust of
cool air that greeted Hunter as he walked into the kitchen was
heavenly. He splashed ice-cold water on to his face, the best
feeling in the world.
    “ Here,” Ryan
handed him a bottle of chilled beer. Hunter popped the cap off with
a satisfying hiss and drank it greedily.
    “ Just what I
needed…” he said, placing the bottle on the granite