Her Perfect Read online

  Her Perfect

  Stephie Walls

  Copyright © 2019 by Stephie Walls

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Dedication

  For M. Our imperfections are what make us beautiful. You’re perfect exactly as you are.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Colbie

  2. Eli

  3. Colbie

  4. Eli

  5. Colbie

  6. Eli

  7. Colbie

  8. Eli

  9. Colbie

  10. Eli

  11. Colbie

  12. Eli

  13. Eli

  14. Colbie

  15. Colbie

  16. Eli

  17. Colbie

  18. Colbie

  19. Eli

  20. Colbie

  21. Eli

  22. Colbie

  Epilogue—Eli

  About the Author

  Also by Stephie Walls

  Prologue

  Colbie

  “You’re making something out of nothing. I promise.”

  “You need help, Colbie.”

  I grabbed Jess’s wrist when she tried to leave. “I’m fine.” I enunciated those two words certain she’d understand how seriously I meant them.

  Jess was going to make herself sick if she didn’t stop twisting her neck. And the tears. “It’s all there. The pieces fit together. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid that I didn’t notice.”

  “Jess, I’m not kidding. Lower your voice.” I’d clamp her mouth shut or shove a wash cloth into it if I had to. I was not above gagging my best friend.

  The door to the hall stood open from where she’d entered, and her tone rose with each word. She had me trapped, unable to bypass her much less keep everyone else from listening.

  “No. If you didn’t have anything to hide, you wouldn’t be worried about anyone hearing me.” Snot ran from her nose, and she hiccupped when she talked. “How long have you been doing,” she waved her hands in circles, “this?”

  I took a deep breath, unable to come up with a response to settle her. The truth would only make matters worse.

  “Is this what happened that night Eli came to get you at my house?”

  I shook my head and stared at her shoes.

  Still I didn’t respond.

  Jess stomped her foot on the ceramic tiles, but her shoe didn’t make nearly the noise her voice did when she shouted, “Answer me, dammit. Tell me why you’re killing yourself.” Her fists shook at her sides, but I couldn’t determine if it was anger or disappointment that made her tremble.

  The stampede had begun at the bottom of the stairs, closing in rapidly.

  I tried to push her out of the way, but she latched onto the doorframe and held on for dear life. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “This is why you’ve lost so much weight, isn’t it? And why your parents are freaked out. They just don’t know it’s the catalyst for all the other stuff.” As if she needed each person in the house to hear every word she said, her clarity didn’t come quietly.

  My defensive walls went up thick and strong. If she wouldn’t shut up then I’d shut down. Which was precisely what happened when Caden stumbled through the door, followed by my brothers and parents.

  Caden spun Jess toward him. The change in his expression gave way the second he had realized she was crying. Chasity appeared confused. And none of my brothers said a word. My parents brought up the tail end, but before either could express concern or question, Jess sobbed into my little brother’s chest.

  “She’s going to die, Caden. I’ve told you a hundred times there was something wrong, and you wouldn’t listen.” Jess’s fist beat on Caden’s shoulder as her knees decided to quit holding her weight.

  It was a melodramatic performance to say the least. I rolled my eyes as Caden caught his girlfriend’s weight and scooped her up. He sat on the bed with her in his arms, and all I could think of was the way I felt when Eli cradled me.

  God, I missed him.

  “Colbie, what’s going on?” My mother’s prim yet surprised voice barely made it through the commotion of the multitude of people now hovering in the entrance to my bedroom. She glanced at Jess and Caden and back to me for an explanation.

  I crossed my arms. “Nothing.”

  “It’s not true.” Jess was a blubbering mess, and Caden needed to get his girlfriend under control. “Look at her face.”

  I swiped painful strokes under my lashes to remove mascara residue, knowing it was futile. I hadn’t gotten to wash my face before Jess went into hysterics. The water still ran next to me. In fact, she’d thrown my entire sequence out of order.

  “Look at her eye, Dr. Chapman.” She sniveled, and I wanted to wring her damn neck. “Just look.”

  My father pushed through the group, but before I could slam the door—that Caden had removed Jess from—and hide behind it, he slapped his palm against the wood and forced it open. I couldn’t remember the last time Daddy had put his hands on me, but he grabbed my chin so he could see my face.

  Jess continued to wallow from the bed. Meanwhile, my family waited with baited breath to see what Jess referred to. My dad was a doctor. If Jess had seen it, he would instantly. He tilted my chin to the side and used two fingers to pry my lids apart.

  He went from looking at my eyes to looking in them. “Colbie, what’s going on?” The gruff tumble of my father’s gravelly voice had taken on a softer, concerned tone. It was the voice of my childhood, the one that had tucked me into bed at night. I hadn’t heard that man in years, and I realized I missed him as much as I did Eli.

  I shrugged him off, but trying to get by him was pointless. And even if I had, there was layer after layer of people between me and freedom. “Nothing, I’m fine.” If I’d taken a gentler approach than snarling, I might have convinced my father that was true.

  “It’s not true, Dr. Chapman. Ask her what she was doing. Ask her what she does every time she leaves the table.”

  My brother tried to calm his girlfriend. “Jess—”

  “Ask her!” Jess was on the verge of hyperventilating, and my dad’s medical expertise would be better suited toward getting her under control before she passed out.

  “Shut up, Jess. Nobody cares.” The walls breathed in, stealing my air. “Shut up.” The room rotated, side swiping my equilibrium. “Shut up.” Gravity squeezed every inch of my body, ripping apart my flesh. “Shut up.” I no longer knew if I’d continued yelling the same words on repeat or if that was an echo smothering the bathroom. I didn’t care.

  Pandemonium had ensued, and I lost my grip on reality. Brother after brother leaned into my face and disappeared to allow the next to demonstrate their disapproval in my mind’s funhouse mirror.

  None of it was real, or maybe all of it was.

  1

  Colbie

  Four Months Earlier

  “Colbie,” my mother called from the bottom of the stairs. “Sweetheart, it’s the first day of your senior year; you don’t want to be late.”

  “Coming, Mama.” Pacifying her was easy.

  Of the seven kids, I was by far the one she worried about least. Smack dab in the middle at birth number four, I was the only girl in a vast sea of boys. I never gave her or my dad any trouble. My brothers would never have allowed it, anyhow. We were raised in the deep south by God-fearing Christians. Our family ate dinner together, we said grace before meals, attended church on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings, said “sir” and “ma’am” as muc
h as “please” and “thank you,” and as a whole, lived a life most envied. My daddy was a doctor, and my mama a homemaker, both of which had come from generations of old money. We wanted for nothing and had everything. But somewhere in the midst of that perfection, I’d gotten lost in the shuffle of my siblings’ sports careers. In the heart of Dixie, football was king, and my brothers were heirs to that throne.

  When I reached the bottom of the steps, I kissed her on the cheek. “Bye, Mama.”

  “Don’t forget your brothers have practice after school today. I told them you might be a little late if your piano lesson ran over.”

  I wasn’t normally charged with the responsibility of my younger brothers, Caden, Clayton, and Collin, but my oldest brother, Caleb—who also happened to be our high school’s football coach after a stellar college career at the University of Georgia—had to go to the courthouse after school today and wouldn’t be there to bring the three stooges home. He was finally tying the knot with his childhood sweetheart in the wedding of the century before the season really started, and they were picking up the marriage license today. Nothing ever interfered with football in this town—lives were planned around home games for tailgating, away games for parties around a huge television, and the possibility of attending a bowl at the end of the season. Add spring and summer training to that schedule and there was virtually no window of opportunity where football wasn’t front and center.

  Luckily, Chasity, my brother’s fiancée, had been a cheerleader and lived the life of football right alongside her soon-to-be spouse. She was the monogram-wearing, pom-pom waving, sorority type who ate that stuff up. The amount of pep that girl had made me wonder if she ever shut down. But she made Caleb happy, and that was all that mattered. Although I prayed like hell they chose a new letter besides C for their kids’ names. Caleb and Chasity Chapman were enough. I would never know what possessed my parents to make such a choice, but I swore the curse would end with me.

  “I know, Mama. I won’t forget to pick them up.”

  Caden was a month shy of turning sixteen and getting his license. This responsibility would fall to him at that point, but in the meantime, I was expected to fill in. My mother had community obligations that kept her busy now that we all had our own social lives. She was the epitome of a Southern belle and had an image to uphold. Our family ran like a well-oiled machine, and no one ever saw any chinks in the Chapman armor, not that there were any…besides me.

  The drive to the school was short, and while I attempted to listen to the radio, my brothers bickered about things that didn’t interest me. Once in the parking lot, we all exited and went our separate ways.

  I just had to make it through one final year before escaping this town, and I started counting the days today. Two hundred and eighty to go before graduation, including holidays and breaks. I’d gotten early acceptance to Vanderbilt and planned to follow in my father’s footsteps—I just wouldn’t be returning here after med school.

  “Colbie, wait up.”

  I turned at the sound of my name to see my best friend rounding the back of her SUV. Our parents had been friends since Lucifer fell from grace, and I’d known her since birth. Six days older than me, we’d both turned eighteen just before school started and had been friends since we first saw the light of day. She was the closest thing I had to a sister and the only person in the world who adored me in spite of my sports ineptitude and the fact that I had a vagina. Don’t get me wrong, my parents loved me, but when I showed no interest in cheering like Chasity and therefore wasn’t on the football field at every game, I slid down the totem pole until they forgot I was actually on it.

  “Hey, Jess. I thought we were meeting in homeroom.”

  “I had to come back out to get my phone. I left it in the car.”

  Jessica McLean and I had been cut from the same cloth. Both honors students, vying for the valedictorian title, and incredibly smart. We were blessed with beauty and brains, although she didn’t have to work nearly as hard at maintaining the beauty part as I did. People said the two of us could pass for twins, but I never saw it. Her raven-colored hair was much more striking than my mahogany brown, her porcelain skin didn’t have the small splattering of freckles mine did, and where my eyes were a pale blue, hers were as rich as sapphires. While we wore the same size four, I was just a hair taller. And though both of us were popular with the opposite sex, neither of us bothered with dating them.

  “Have you seen the new AP English teacher?” Her ruby-red lips parted into an award-winning smile.

  “No, what happened to Mr. Talley?”

  “I can’t confirm the rumors, but the word in the hallway is that he had a heart attack over the summer and retired early.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “You won’t think so when you walk into third period.” She veered off to her locker, sporting a mischievous grin, and I went in the opposite direction to my own. My friend waved over her shoulder as I shook my head. Clearly, Jess had a new zest for life and our senior year, although I had no idea what had brought it on.

  My class schedule was grueling. I wanted to get in as many advanced placement courses as I could to gain as many college credits as possible, but I also wanted the boost in my GPA. Salutatorian wasn’t good enough. Jess could have that honor; I had to be number one. AP Calculus, followed by AP Physics, and two hours into the day my head was already swimming. I stopped by my locker to drop off the textbooks I had acquired during the first two periods of school before racing off to AP English on the other side of the campus.

  English was by far my favorite subject. If I could make a living doing something with a degree in that field, I’d go after it—but I didn’t aspire to teach…I just loved to read. I arrived just after the bell rang and tried to sneak in the door unnoticed. I had no sooner taken a seat in the front row and leaned over to get a notebook and pen from my book bag than the man who’d been standing with his back to the class, writing on the board, turned.

  “You’re expected to be in your seat and ready to learn when the bell sounds. That doesn’t mean sliding in under the radar, thinking you’re any different than the rest of the students. Your tardiness prevents their learning.”

  When I sat up with my pen in hand, I realized his warning was issued directly to me. My eyes went wide, mortified that he would call me out on the first day in front of my peers. My stare met his, and the chocolate-brown irises did their best to instill fear. I saw red and wondered who the hell he thought he was.

  “I’m Dr. Paxton.” He spoke directly to me as though he’d read my thoughts. “I’m filling in for Mr. Talley until the district finds a permanent replacement, but make no mistake, I am not a substitute….” His gaze roamed the room momentarily before landing back on me. “And I will not go lightly on you.” The fact that he felt the need to enunciate that point in my direction only further served to escalate my agitation, and my classmates snickered at his insinuation. “My job is to prepare you to pass the AP exam at the end of the year, not just take it.” He turned away from the class and uttered his final words before starting the lecture. “Think seriously about whether you can maintain the workload outlined in the syllabus. If you can’t, excuse yourself now, find the nearest guidance counselor, and cry to them before you request a drop.”

  My jaw hung loosely in dismay, but I kept my lips closed to prevent anyone else from seeing just how far off my straight line Dr. Paxton had managed to knock me. Within seconds, I realized I had to forego my disdain for the man at the front of the room and focus on the words coming from his mouth. I’d taken pages of notes by the end of the fifty-minute period when the bell rang, interrupting his sentence. He reminded us to check the syllabus for homework assignments due tomorrow and dismissed the class.

  I quickly gathered my things and zipped my backpack as Jess stepped up to my desk. But before she got a word out, Drill Sargent Paxton interrupted.

  “Ms. Chapman, can I see you for a minute, please?”


  The glance I gave Jess indicated my confusion, which mirrored her own.

  “How does he know your name?” she whispered.

  I shrugged, wondering the same thing.

  “I’ll see you at lunch, Colbie.” The look of pity she threw my way didn’t ease my apprehension.

  My feet carried me to the dictator’s desk where he now sat casually on the corner with his ankles crossed and his hands firmly planted at his sides on the edge of the old wood. And I waited.

  “I expect you to be on time in the future.” He’d made his point at the start of class; reiterating it was unnecessary.

  “Yes, sir.” I held my head high and waited.

  “You don’t know who I am, do you?” The rigid tension washed away as though relief flooded him.

  Other than the pompous ass who’d embarrassed me in front of my classmates, I didn’t care who the hell he was. “No, sir. I do not.”

  “Eli Paxton.” He said his name as though he were some pop icon I should instantly recognize, but it was still just as foreign as before. “You are Caleb Chapman’s little sister, right?”

  I ground my teeth together, biting back the comparison I often received. “Yes, sir.” Years of etiquette training and classes in poise had me at my Southern best. Even though I raged inside, I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of knowing he’d garnered a rise from me.

  “I played ball with Caleb at UGA. We roomed together for four years before I went to grad school.”