all she ever wanted to be was perfect -dylan-centric-. WARNING: mentions anorexia nervosa. slight swearing.
this is for lily, who suffered from eating disorders last year. all the best, lily.
this is unbeta-d, because i was in a rush (and i'm lazy) to post this. it's choppy and completely discontinued. oh, well.
cheers!
clara
review. please.
::
"Why can't you be like all your friends?"
It starts off on the first day of summer when her parents tell her that she's not perfect, and therefore she's not worth it. All Dylly does is ask-ask-ask and she always gets-gets-gets but when she doesn't get what she wants, all hell breaks loose. The tears flood out of the eyes, and she thanks god for waterproof mascara, but what Dylan Marvil (the girl who's not that shallow) is thinking about how to be perfect.
It's her new goal, now: perfection is of the utmost importance to her. When she wears a bikini to the swimming pool, she immediately puts on a cover-up and refuses to go back into the pool. Because no matter what everybody else says, all Dylan sees is blobs of sun-tanned fat.
::
Dylan Marvil loves crying -the heart-wracking sobs that make it seems as though her stomach is exercising and letting all the emotions go out-. To be perfect, she's developed a schedule, a regiment of some sorts.
1. Put on a poker face at school.
2. Ignore the stares you get from people who look at you like you're fat.
3. Hold your books close to you and try not to cry.
4. Go home and cry.
(and repeat-repeat-repeat)
She doesn't have a real life any-more; Dylan isn't even "normal" material ; but then again, when has being normal ever helped anyone?
::
Your mother and father don't like what you've become, this little sullen, depressed girl (frizzy red-head bed-head) who refuses to eat and do anything but exercise and mope; Dylan doesn't like what she becomes, but right now? Perhaps she's gone too far.
Oh, well. (Life goes on.)
Dylan's falling off the face of the earth and nobody's brave enough to save her. (when you told me you'd leave/i felt like i couldn't breathe/my aching body fell to the floor)
::
She likes to compare her life to a song: Oh, no! by Marina and the Diamonds, besides the lewd-sounding references that don't take part in her guy-abstinence life. Sometimes, when she's feeling especially moody, Dylan tries to believe that there's still some hope in becoming perfect. But she's just tried so hard and put in everything she's had, but the more she tries, the harder it gets.
(This game just can't continue anymore. It just can't.)
Should she quit? The struggle, the race, everything's that shaped her life for so many years? Give in? To what?
Her whole world is a mixture of so what? What then? What will other people think of me? But truthfully, over the past few years, though Dylan's skinnier than ever, she's become the most shallow girl at Emerson Academy. Truthfully, Dylan doesn't care what other people think of her.
Dylan cares about what she thinks of herself.
::
Her life is falling apart, and the first time that Dylan realizes that is when she nearly kills herself when somebody else in her dance class becomes better than her: one of her ex-best friend's, Skye Hamilton. Skye's perfect and everything that Dylan wishes that she could be; after all, every guy in the school wants to be with Skye and every girl wants to be her.
(Why can't she just be perfect? Is it really that hard?)
Motto of the Day: It's better to die perfect than to live imperfectly.
Good-bye inspirational quotes, hello despairing comments from old television shows and movies that don't make sense in the modern world.
::
Something changes on the third day of dance class, when they're assigned pas du deux partners. Her partner is this tall, lanky red-haired boy who looks like he has the clammiest hands in the universe, and Dylan inwardly shudders.
And outwardly, she assumes.
He moves forward to shake her hand, wiping his sweaty palm on his jacket. "Hey. I'm Todd Lyons."
She raises her eyebrow. Ah, a newbie, she thinks to herself. "Are you new here?" Just to make sure. (what other kind of person would be interested in her?)
"Yep. First year, just moved into second year."
Of course. "Then, you don't know anything about me. I'm Dylan Marvil. I don't do relationships. Friends. You should probably know that, in advance."
"I already knew that." He makes an attempt to seductively whisper into her ear but fails when she accidentally (oops!) whacks him in the face with her new ballet flats. The fail is also due to the part that he's wearing some sort of tutu thing to audition for the evil stepsister part in the movie Cinderella. (ugh. fairy-tales).
"Oops!" she says, in a way that means that Dylan's not really sorry at all.
::
There's something different about Todd, and she has to prove it. Dylan's the Ice Queen of the Emerson Dance Academy -she can't have feelings. That would go against everything she stood for (but what did she really stand for? being perfect? was that even possible? so far, it wasn't.).
Dylan decides that it's too hard. She has enough stress on her mind with the mid-year dance showcase coming up and finding a decent choreographer (they're supposedly hard to find). Competition's another priority.
She books the dance studio ahead of time. So ahead of time that Miss Raine has to ask her to let other people use the studio. "Dylan? You don't need to practice so much, you're already perfect. You're the best dancer here. Why do you hate me?" Skye says in that whiny voice of hers.
Dylan thinks about switching roommates next year.
::
Near the winter break, Skye is chosen as the lead role for the dance performance -the lead role which is usually given to third-year's and perhaps some unfortunate repeat students-. Not lucky second-years.
Dylan knows that her audition was technically perfect. The director told her that, himself. But it was the director's son, Landon, who was enamored with Skye. So in love that he begged his father to give Skye the lead role.
Life really isn't fair.
"So, I guess we'll be partners," Todd points out one perfect day. At least it was perfect until he opened up his mouth (and that is when, it started going south).
Dylan shrugs. She's too tired to argue. "Is there really another option?"
He grins. "Not if you want to fail."
Both of them know that perfectionist Dylan would never take that option.
::
The first time that Dylan Marvil almost loses control of herself is on the third day of January, when auditions for a February musical (she hates those things) are available with one of the guys that the director recommended her to try-out for (Derrick, that's his name).
She shows up to some deserted room with barely any props and a piano player who looks like he's struggling with a E flat major scale. One octave.
Dylan scoffs and walks to the front of the line, ignoring the protests of the uni students that she walks past. She knows that she's better than them. After all, in the class standings, Dylan's only second, after Skye. And Skye, preoccupied with her own little love triangle (everything back at the academy's the Skye Show. Nobody cares about Dylan). "Last Day on Earth," she requests, in a demanding sort of nature. The director, who can't be much older than her, looks at her in some sort of "is she a potential girlfriend/crush", and by the grin on his face, Dylan can tell that he's decided yes.
"Anytime now."
A single note hangs in the air, and then suddenly everything's a whirlwind. She was supposed to be letting herself go in this song, with real passion and emotion, but Dylan's decided to go in the classical ballet way.
After all, that's what she does best.
She can do a little hip-hop and jazz, but it's all too awkward. And unfamiliar. Dylan hates not knowing everything.
Within five minutes she gets the part, and she can't help but grin. Covering up the smile with a poker face, Dylan strides out.
She's changing.
::
Three crying girls, a small, chinese first-year by the name of Amanda Xu, a Russian girl with a horrible accent but excelling training, and a pretty blonde who looks like she should be a perky cheerleader, not a ballet dancer, all leave Todd's room that night.
"Can you keep it down? I'm trying to practice!" Dylan yells across the hall. There's not a response, and their tears won't stop. Dylan sighs, and turns back to the music (the song's name is Diamonds). Todd's supposed to be her pas du deux partner, but apparently he has better things to do at twelve o'clock in the night? (Like what? have a life?).
::
The day of the showcase, they're both wearing a light purple ballet uniform, and when he tells her that she looks beautiful, Dylan gives in to the compliments and thanks him.
She can hear bees now. That's what happens when she gets nervous, Dylan hears bees in the background -buzzing, buzzing, buzzing-. A knot grows in her stomach, and Dylan tries to complete the pirouette (why can't she even turn five times? How long has she been doing dance for?)
Dylan falls to the floor.
Todd catches her.
::
TEN MISSED CALLS.
A minute later, she thinks it's stopped but then, INCOMING CALL again-
TODD.
She throws the phone to the floor, and wonders why she even has his number -but Dylan knows why, even though she doesn't like to admit it.
She did something horrible and stupid and something that's completely un-logical and un-her-like.
Dylan Marvil fell in love.