"You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly."
-Sam Keen
"Hey, Christine!"
I turned from my contemplation of the assignment on the chalkboard in English class, seeing Marisa enter the room and smiled. She slid into her desk in front of mine and, making a face, tugged at a strand of her hair. "How come it's always my friends with the perfect hair?" she asked, glaring at my dark curls mockingly.
I laughed. "Perfect? Please! I wish!" I sat back in my chair a little. "I can't do anything with it but leave it down or braided." I pushed an errant lock out of my face and scowled at it. "One of these days I'm just going to chop it all off..."
Marisa's eyes widened. "You wouldn't dare!" I grinned mischievously and wiggled my eyebrows. "I won't let you!" she declared.
"Oh really?" I gave her my best Charlotte-intimidation-glare and she stared back until both of us dissolved into giggles.
"Oh, I finally saw your guy-friend today... you know... Erik," she stated, chewing her lower lip, once our laugher had died down.
"Really? When? You don't have any classes with him."
Marisa looked uncomfortable, pushed her glasses up further on her nose, and sighed. "He was delivering a message to my teacher during third period... he walked in, handed him the note and walked back out..." She looked away from me a moment, her friendly face saddening. "Then the whole class erupted into laughter as soon as he went out... it was awful, Christine... I've never seen anything so cruel..."
I sat back, pale. I remembered the math teacher asking Erik to deliver the message... he just took it, without saying a word. When he had finally returned, his hands were clenched and his mismatched eyes burned with anger. Then, I hadn't dared ask why... not when he was in a mood like that, but now I knew.
"Do you know a guy named Pez?" I asked, watching her closely.
"Pez? Oh, yeah. Everyone knows Pez," she replied looking confused at this sudden change of topic.
"Does he like to play jokes on people? Or lie a lot?"
"No... he's usually very serious. He's in one of my classes and the teacher always asks him to deliver messages and stuff. I'm pretty sure that he's trustworthy... why?"
I doodled on a piece of paper. "Oh... no particular reason..." I replied as nonchalantly as I could. Marisa gave me an odd look but luckily for me, the teacher started class. I barely listened the whole period as conflicting thoughts wrestled around in my mind. Was Pez implying that Erik might hurt me? Impossible! Erik would never... he does have a bad temper though, what if...? No! I won't think badly about him, it's because of him that I got the part of Maria. I owe Erik big time. Perhaps I should ask Erik about it... no, that might make him mad... I'll ask Pez! Yes, that's what I'll do and get this whole silly business cleared up.
But I didn't see Pez the rest of that week and then we started practicing for the musical and I forgot completely. But not for long.