The Other Side of Perfect

Dreams didn't follow logical, step-by-step patterns. They swirled, never taking you down a straight path.

We cried because doing something brave didn’t always make you feel brave. We cried because fixing things was hard, and change was slow. We cried for all the ways that loving something with your whole heart can also break it at the same time.

Not everything is so broken it has to stay that way, Alina. Some things, you can fix.

Yuna always says that just because something’s been a certain way forever doesn’t mean it shouldn’t change.

I sighed. “I used to only go here in the mornings.” “Why?” “It was the time of day that I was least likely to attack strangers who asked me too many questions.

So, was that what it was like for you? When your dad left?” I hoped I wasn’t overstepping, but it felt easy to talk to him, out here in the quiet. “Definitely.” Jude looked down at his shiny coffee-colored shoes. “At first, I was still pretending everything would go back to normal. But then, at last year’s Winter Formal, of all places, it hit me. I realized that, no matter what you do or say, you can’t change other people. That no matter how much you love or care about them, in the end, they are who they are. And if they don’t want what you want, you can’t change that.” Jude sighed and then looked up at the ceiling. “It was such a brutally depressing thought for me at the time. The puppy was born.” As I studied Jude’s face, it softened and he turned his eyes to me. “Later, though, the same thought became kind of freeing. My dad made his choice and I could accept it or not. It helped me move on. I didn’t want things to go back to normal.” “You didn’t?” “My dad always wanted me to do the things he wanted to do.” “That . . . sucks.” “It did suck,” Jude said. “But it helped me realize I was better off without him.” “So, once you did that, the puppy disappeared?” Jude scrunched his mouth to the side. “I don’t think the puppy ever goes away. I think it just grows up. You know, you live with it for a while, and then you start training it and learning its ways, and eventually it doesn’t need you as much anymore. Maybe it becomes an outdoor dog. You still have to feed it and give it exercise and pet it sometimes, when it comes back. But if you do all that, it’ll let you live your life.

I kept looking at it, during the Vamp dance and the ballet part afterward. In its pitiful mouth and mismatched eyes, I saw all the kind but woefully inadequate “maybe it’s for the bests” I’d heard over the past year. I still didn’t believe in that sentiment. Those words - best, beautiful - used mean only one thing to me. Now I realized they weren’t always straightforward. Beautiful things had bad parts, and bad things had beautiful ones, and I knew now that I could work with that. I could hold on to the beauty and the good. I could try to fix the bad. I wasn’t certain anymore about what I wanted to devote my life to. But that was okay. I was okay. I was here. I was dancing.