Perfect
The storyline is based on the song, "Perfect", by Simple Plan. This story is in two parts, The Letter and The Story. The Letter is in first-person, being written from daughter to father. The Story is in third-person, and is what actually happened. This is also the sort-of prequel to I'm With You.
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The Letter
Hey Dad-
I bet you're wondering why I've written you a letter when I can just come by and speak to you. Well, I can't just talk to you about what I have to say here. You never listen anymore, you'd just yell at me.
All my life I've known I want to be an actress. But you always wanted me to be a lawyer, like you, or a doctor, like Mom. You used to bring me around the office with you, introduce me to the best, and teach me things. You tried to raise me like you were raised - harsh, demanding, expecting the best. But I couldn't be like you.
It seems like ages ago that we used to go out as a family - you, me, and Mom, or just you and me. We used to have so much fun. At the park, at the beach, movies, shows, plays, carnivals, boardwalks, we used to do everything as a family. You were my hero.
Then I grew up, and things got worse.
I'm sorry if I couldn't be all you wanted me to be. I have a talent and it's something I can't ignore. I've done well in school, better than so many others I know, but I don't have straight A's. Why is getting straight A's so important to you? I'm not athletic, Dad, I could never be the star soccer player you wanted for a daughter, and I'm sorry.
I've done all I could to make you proud. Do you know how much time I've sacrificed trying to develop the talents I have? Why is it that lead parts in the school play for three consecutive years cannot make you as proud as simply making the soccer team could have?
I had a boyfriend, remember him Dad? He was Jewish, tall, handsome, and a year older than me. He was the boy you always wanted me to marry. Do you remember the fight we had after I broke up with him? I told you that characteristics are nowhere near as important as love, and you hit me - not the first time, and certainly not the last.
Since then it's only gotten worse.
I'm sixteen, Dad. You can't run my life for me forever. I have to be my own person now. Nothing is ever going to change what you've done to me Dad. I'm afraid to live here anymore. I'm so confused, so friendless, so lost and alone in the rain. If you come in here and find this letter and nothing else, I'm afraid I may already be gone forever.
We lost it, Dad. Even you know that nothing can last forever, and this should have ended way too long ago. It's just too late to go back to the way things used to be.
I'm sorry I can't be perfect.
-April
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The Story
April Cunnings was your average sixteen year old girl. She had long red hair and gorgeous blue eyes, like the sky on a clear day. She was of average height and weight for her age. She lived in a place called River City, and was a sophomore at the nearby Earth Regional High School, which contained students from River City and also the next door Stone Town.
She seemed to have a happy life. She got good grades at school, all A's and B's. She was a good artist - she could draw so well, people often mistook her works for photographs. She was a talented actress, and had gotten good parts in the last few school plays she'd been in - since seventh grade at River City Middle. She could sing pretty well, and was an okay dancer - the perfect girl for any musical.
She had a perfect family. Her father was a lawyer, well-known in the community. Her mother was a cardiologist. Both made lots of money and could afford nearly anything April, their only child, wanted. Both had hoped for April to follow one of them in career choices. Her mother had also been a star on the girl's soccer team when she was in high school, and April was expected to follow her legacy. Even growing up to be a famous soccer player would have satisfied both of her parents.
But it was not to be. As April got older, she displayed absolutely no interest in medicine, law, or sports. Her athletic skills were mediocre at best. Her father would always try to train her - make her go jogging, or lift weights - but he only succeeded in putting April off of sports more. When April started participating in Drama Club in middle school, they were a little happy, but disappointed that she hadn't made the team.
When it came time for April to go to high school, they left her alone, trusting her to pick what was best for her. They were shocked to find out, freshman year, that April hadn't even considered going out for the team, but had instead tried out for the school musical and made a good part. There was a great shouting match between her and her father when he discovered that she had totally missed tryouts. She struggled underneath the workload of Honors courses. Her grades began to drop, resulting in lectures, yelling, and a rare beating. When the school year had finally ended - the show was a great success, if you were wondering - her parents refused to fund her through theater camp. Instead, they sent her to summer school to take Advanced Biology and Modern Law courses.
At the end of the summer, her uncle died, and her aunt - her mother's sister - came to live with them. Her aunt was a photographer, and though her parents disapproved of the career, they allowed April to spend lots of time with her aunt. They didn't know that her aunt was teaching her the art of photography to develop her artistic skills instead of bringing her to summer school.
April's sophomore year began, and her parents finally found out that she had stopped attending her summer school classes. Her dad yelled and screamed and beat her more forcefully than ever before, but April remained steadfast in her beliefs. She landed the part of Liesel in her school's production of The Sound of Music, a pretty good role. Her grades remained the same, mediocre in everything except for Art, in which she excelled. At the end of the first semester, she had earned herself mostly A's and one B. Her teachers said she should be proud. Her dad said she should be ashamed.
That night was different, though. Something was going to change then and there. April was sick of the abuse, sick of the yelling, screaming, fighting, just plain sick of life in general. So when her dad called her to "come downstairs THIS INSTANT", April decided she would do something totally different. She would change things tonight.
"APRIL!!!" her dad shouted.
""Yes, father?" she asked sweetly, strolling into the room.
"What is this?" he asked, pointing directly to the B on her report card next to Honors Chemistry. April squinted at it, and then looked back up.
"I believe it's the letter B. Second letter in the alphabet, comes right after A and right before C," she remarked cheerily. Her aunt laughed, her mother backed away, and her father seemed to get a little more pissed.
"That's NOT what I was talking about!" he responded, his voice raising. April imitated a look of comprehension.
"Oh, that. That's a report card. They get sent out to parents each term to inform the parents of how well their children are doing. They contain letters A, B, C, D, or F, showing the student's progress. An F represents failure, a D is poor, a C is average, a B above average, and an A excellent. That letter is a B, which shows above average work and good test scores," she said, still smiling innocently. Her aunt cracked up, but her father's face turned red as he crumpled up the report card.
"THAT'S NOT WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT, YOU LITTLE PIECE OF UNDESERVING FILTH!!!! YOU KNOW THAT B'S ARE ONLY FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE WORTHLESS AND CAN'T GET INTO COLLEGE!!! HOW STUPID CAN YOU GET, CHILD????" he shouted, his face dark red.
"Calm down," her aunt said, going over and trying to hold him back. He swatted her out of the way, pushing her up against the wall.
"I WON'T HAVE A CHILD OF MINE GROWING UP TO BE AN IDIOT. YOU WON'T BE PARTICIPATING IN THAT STUPID PLAY OF YOURS UNTIL YOU START SHOWING TO ME THAT YOU AREN'T STUPID! AND YOU'RE GROUNDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!"
"That's not fair!" she shouted back at her father.
"AS LONG AS YOU LIVE IN MY HOUSE, YOU FOLLOW MY RULES! GO TO YOUR ROOM!" April turned to go, and then stopped.
"No." she stated calmly. Her father was startled. April had never disrespected him so blatantly. Her aunt, recovering from the force of the push, smiled, but April's father turned around with the angriest look on his face.
"What do you mean, NO?" he asked, scaring April by not shouting.
"No. It represents dissent, disagreement, negative response, a contradictory idea to what has been previously said," she continued calmly. Her father, angrier than ever, reached out to strike her and he hit her, forcing her to the ground with the impact. He would have continued if her aunt hadn't gotten between them. As her father and her aunt continued to shout at each other, she crawled past the chair where her mother was sitting, head in her hands. Slowly April climbed up the steps and crawled into her room, sitting on her bed. She began to fume silently.
I hate my dad! There's no way he can be allowed to do this to me, and I won't stand for it! It's just plain unfair, she thought to herself. She was drawn to her window, and watched as rain slowly began to fall outside, steadying into a torrential rainstorm. She listened to the heavy tap-tap- tap of the rain on her roof, but there was an occasional loud THUMP on the roof, like something falling on it.
I would say it was thunder, but there's no lightning. So it can't be that. I wish I could get out of here! My life sucks so badly! She returned to her bed but kept the curtains open and watched the rain, trying to block out the screams from downstairs.
As she sat and fumed, she got angrier and angrier. She looked around her room, at all of the things she had. The old computer sitting on her desk, which hadn't been replaced because her father said she had to do better first. The small black-and-white TV which she'd only been given because her dad bought a new big-screen color TV for her parents' room. The countless drawings she'd done, the posters for musicals and shows she'd been in, the photographs that her friends had taken of her during those shows, the headshots from each show, pictures of her favorite stars, and news articles about random things, all lined the wall. April realized that her room was the only place where her dad hadn't been able to get rid of who she really was, to break her spirit entirely.
The rain began to pound harder and harder on the rooftop. The screaming from below died off, and she heard a single person's footsteps walk up to her room. There was a soft knock, and when April didn't come to answer her door, the steps continued on past her room. April figured out it was her aunt, but didn't want to speak to anybody - she was getting really, really pissed off just thinking about the fight that must have been going on. She felt like doing something destructive, or at least, leaving.
She pulled out a notebook from under her pillow and began to write on it. She normally wrote when she was emotional, but instead of a poem or monologue it started coming out as a letter to her dad. When she finally finished it, she signed it and left it on her desk. She really felt like leaving then - but she just had to leave a mark to show her dad how she truly felt. So she did what any pissed-off teen would do.
She trashed her room.
She pulled the covers, the sheets, everything off her bed, threw them all over the place. She tossed the mattress up against the closet, broke the glass display cases on the wall with an old baseball bat. In a fit of anger she shoved the old computer off her desk and it smashed onto the floor, breaking into many pieces. As she surveyed the damage in her room, she was satisfied, but not quite. For a final touch, she dedicated the room by writing right above her bed in large black marker.
I'm sorry I can't be perfect, it said in her loopy script.
Perfect, she thought, surveying her room. If this doesn't tell Dad what I feel like, nothing will. And then she opened her door.
Quickly she ran, out her door, down the front steps, and out into the rain. She had nothing with her, no jackets, no bags, just what she was wearing - jeans and a black t-shirt. She stood for a moment in the rain, and looked up into the clouds. Then she continued running. She ran for a long time, until she finally reached the river that ran through town. She stood on the bridge and wept for a long time.
She finally recovered and stood on the bridge, sopping wet, just thinking about her life.
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To be continued.... (I'm With You)
The storyline is based on the song, "Perfect", by Simple Plan. This story is in two parts, The Letter and The Story. The Letter is in first-person, being written from daughter to father. The Story is in third-person, and is what actually happened. This is also the sort-of prequel to I'm With You.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Letter
Hey Dad-
I bet you're wondering why I've written you a letter when I can just come by and speak to you. Well, I can't just talk to you about what I have to say here. You never listen anymore, you'd just yell at me.
All my life I've known I want to be an actress. But you always wanted me to be a lawyer, like you, or a doctor, like Mom. You used to bring me around the office with you, introduce me to the best, and teach me things. You tried to raise me like you were raised - harsh, demanding, expecting the best. But I couldn't be like you.
It seems like ages ago that we used to go out as a family - you, me, and Mom, or just you and me. We used to have so much fun. At the park, at the beach, movies, shows, plays, carnivals, boardwalks, we used to do everything as a family. You were my hero.
Then I grew up, and things got worse.
I'm sorry if I couldn't be all you wanted me to be. I have a talent and it's something I can't ignore. I've done well in school, better than so many others I know, but I don't have straight A's. Why is getting straight A's so important to you? I'm not athletic, Dad, I could never be the star soccer player you wanted for a daughter, and I'm sorry.
I've done all I could to make you proud. Do you know how much time I've sacrificed trying to develop the talents I have? Why is it that lead parts in the school play for three consecutive years cannot make you as proud as simply making the soccer team could have?
I had a boyfriend, remember him Dad? He was Jewish, tall, handsome, and a year older than me. He was the boy you always wanted me to marry. Do you remember the fight we had after I broke up with him? I told you that characteristics are nowhere near as important as love, and you hit me - not the first time, and certainly not the last.
Since then it's only gotten worse.
I'm sixteen, Dad. You can't run my life for me forever. I have to be my own person now. Nothing is ever going to change what you've done to me Dad. I'm afraid to live here anymore. I'm so confused, so friendless, so lost and alone in the rain. If you come in here and find this letter and nothing else, I'm afraid I may already be gone forever.
We lost it, Dad. Even you know that nothing can last forever, and this should have ended way too long ago. It's just too late to go back to the way things used to be.
I'm sorry I can't be perfect.
-April
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Story
April Cunnings was your average sixteen year old girl. She had long red hair and gorgeous blue eyes, like the sky on a clear day. She was of average height and weight for her age. She lived in a place called River City, and was a sophomore at the nearby Earth Regional High School, which contained students from River City and also the next door Stone Town.
She seemed to have a happy life. She got good grades at school, all A's and B's. She was a good artist - she could draw so well, people often mistook her works for photographs. She was a talented actress, and had gotten good parts in the last few school plays she'd been in - since seventh grade at River City Middle. She could sing pretty well, and was an okay dancer - the perfect girl for any musical.
She had a perfect family. Her father was a lawyer, well-known in the community. Her mother was a cardiologist. Both made lots of money and could afford nearly anything April, their only child, wanted. Both had hoped for April to follow one of them in career choices. Her mother had also been a star on the girl's soccer team when she was in high school, and April was expected to follow her legacy. Even growing up to be a famous soccer player would have satisfied both of her parents.
But it was not to be. As April got older, she displayed absolutely no interest in medicine, law, or sports. Her athletic skills were mediocre at best. Her father would always try to train her - make her go jogging, or lift weights - but he only succeeded in putting April off of sports more. When April started participating in Drama Club in middle school, they were a little happy, but disappointed that she hadn't made the team.
When it came time for April to go to high school, they left her alone, trusting her to pick what was best for her. They were shocked to find out, freshman year, that April hadn't even considered going out for the team, but had instead tried out for the school musical and made a good part. There was a great shouting match between her and her father when he discovered that she had totally missed tryouts. She struggled underneath the workload of Honors courses. Her grades began to drop, resulting in lectures, yelling, and a rare beating. When the school year had finally ended - the show was a great success, if you were wondering - her parents refused to fund her through theater camp. Instead, they sent her to summer school to take Advanced Biology and Modern Law courses.
At the end of the summer, her uncle died, and her aunt - her mother's sister - came to live with them. Her aunt was a photographer, and though her parents disapproved of the career, they allowed April to spend lots of time with her aunt. They didn't know that her aunt was teaching her the art of photography to develop her artistic skills instead of bringing her to summer school.
April's sophomore year began, and her parents finally found out that she had stopped attending her summer school classes. Her dad yelled and screamed and beat her more forcefully than ever before, but April remained steadfast in her beliefs. She landed the part of Liesel in her school's production of The Sound of Music, a pretty good role. Her grades remained the same, mediocre in everything except for Art, in which she excelled. At the end of the first semester, she had earned herself mostly A's and one B. Her teachers said she should be proud. Her dad said she should be ashamed.
That night was different, though. Something was going to change then and there. April was sick of the abuse, sick of the yelling, screaming, fighting, just plain sick of life in general. So when her dad called her to "come downstairs THIS INSTANT", April decided she would do something totally different. She would change things tonight.
"APRIL!!!" her dad shouted.
""Yes, father?" she asked sweetly, strolling into the room.
"What is this?" he asked, pointing directly to the B on her report card next to Honors Chemistry. April squinted at it, and then looked back up.
"I believe it's the letter B. Second letter in the alphabet, comes right after A and right before C," she remarked cheerily. Her aunt laughed, her mother backed away, and her father seemed to get a little more pissed.
"That's NOT what I was talking about!" he responded, his voice raising. April imitated a look of comprehension.
"Oh, that. That's a report card. They get sent out to parents each term to inform the parents of how well their children are doing. They contain letters A, B, C, D, or F, showing the student's progress. An F represents failure, a D is poor, a C is average, a B above average, and an A excellent. That letter is a B, which shows above average work and good test scores," she said, still smiling innocently. Her aunt cracked up, but her father's face turned red as he crumpled up the report card.
"THAT'S NOT WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT, YOU LITTLE PIECE OF UNDESERVING FILTH!!!! YOU KNOW THAT B'S ARE ONLY FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE WORTHLESS AND CAN'T GET INTO COLLEGE!!! HOW STUPID CAN YOU GET, CHILD????" he shouted, his face dark red.
"Calm down," her aunt said, going over and trying to hold him back. He swatted her out of the way, pushing her up against the wall.
"I WON'T HAVE A CHILD OF MINE GROWING UP TO BE AN IDIOT. YOU WON'T BE PARTICIPATING IN THAT STUPID PLAY OF YOURS UNTIL YOU START SHOWING TO ME THAT YOU AREN'T STUPID! AND YOU'RE GROUNDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!"
"That's not fair!" she shouted back at her father.
"AS LONG AS YOU LIVE IN MY HOUSE, YOU FOLLOW MY RULES! GO TO YOUR ROOM!" April turned to go, and then stopped.
"No." she stated calmly. Her father was startled. April had never disrespected him so blatantly. Her aunt, recovering from the force of the push, smiled, but April's father turned around with the angriest look on his face.
"What do you mean, NO?" he asked, scaring April by not shouting.
"No. It represents dissent, disagreement, negative response, a contradictory idea to what has been previously said," she continued calmly. Her father, angrier than ever, reached out to strike her and he hit her, forcing her to the ground with the impact. He would have continued if her aunt hadn't gotten between them. As her father and her aunt continued to shout at each other, she crawled past the chair where her mother was sitting, head in her hands. Slowly April climbed up the steps and crawled into her room, sitting on her bed. She began to fume silently.
I hate my dad! There's no way he can be allowed to do this to me, and I won't stand for it! It's just plain unfair, she thought to herself. She was drawn to her window, and watched as rain slowly began to fall outside, steadying into a torrential rainstorm. She listened to the heavy tap-tap- tap of the rain on her roof, but there was an occasional loud THUMP on the roof, like something falling on it.
I would say it was thunder, but there's no lightning. So it can't be that. I wish I could get out of here! My life sucks so badly! She returned to her bed but kept the curtains open and watched the rain, trying to block out the screams from downstairs.
As she sat and fumed, she got angrier and angrier. She looked around her room, at all of the things she had. The old computer sitting on her desk, which hadn't been replaced because her father said she had to do better first. The small black-and-white TV which she'd only been given because her dad bought a new big-screen color TV for her parents' room. The countless drawings she'd done, the posters for musicals and shows she'd been in, the photographs that her friends had taken of her during those shows, the headshots from each show, pictures of her favorite stars, and news articles about random things, all lined the wall. April realized that her room was the only place where her dad hadn't been able to get rid of who she really was, to break her spirit entirely.
The rain began to pound harder and harder on the rooftop. The screaming from below died off, and she heard a single person's footsteps walk up to her room. There was a soft knock, and when April didn't come to answer her door, the steps continued on past her room. April figured out it was her aunt, but didn't want to speak to anybody - she was getting really, really pissed off just thinking about the fight that must have been going on. She felt like doing something destructive, or at least, leaving.
She pulled out a notebook from under her pillow and began to write on it. She normally wrote when she was emotional, but instead of a poem or monologue it started coming out as a letter to her dad. When she finally finished it, she signed it and left it on her desk. She really felt like leaving then - but she just had to leave a mark to show her dad how she truly felt. So she did what any pissed-off teen would do.
She trashed her room.
She pulled the covers, the sheets, everything off her bed, threw them all over the place. She tossed the mattress up against the closet, broke the glass display cases on the wall with an old baseball bat. In a fit of anger she shoved the old computer off her desk and it smashed onto the floor, breaking into many pieces. As she surveyed the damage in her room, she was satisfied, but not quite. For a final touch, she dedicated the room by writing right above her bed in large black marker.
I'm sorry I can't be perfect, it said in her loopy script.
Perfect, she thought, surveying her room. If this doesn't tell Dad what I feel like, nothing will. And then she opened her door.
Quickly she ran, out her door, down the front steps, and out into the rain. She had nothing with her, no jackets, no bags, just what she was wearing - jeans and a black t-shirt. She stood for a moment in the rain, and looked up into the clouds. Then she continued running. She ran for a long time, until she finally reached the river that ran through town. She stood on the bridge and wept for a long time.
She finally recovered and stood on the bridge, sopping wet, just thinking about her life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To be continued.... (I'm With You)