By Rose Goodland
Little Miss Perfect has an older brother, Mr. Letdown. He was born first, never the best, and is always criticized by his parents. Little Miss Perfect learned from a young age that in order to receive love you have to be the best, and that’s exactly what she did. There are photos on the fridge displaying her every achievement since kindergarten while her brother’s high school diploma gets tucked away. With her being nothing less than perfect, you can see how detrimental a D on a chemistry quiz can be.
“You know your sister is top of her class again?” nagged mom. “You couldn’t even get into college yet she has dozens of scholarships.” Mr. Letdown smiled and continued eating his unseasoned potatoes. Little Miss Perfect took a deep breath and held back the bile building up in her throat. She used to love being paraded, but looking at the fridge she feels like a fraud.
“Seventeen and already more successful than you. I can’t believe we saved that much money when we should have been saving for her. If we had known -”
“I failed my chemistry quiz.” Little Miss Perfect’s world froze. She was expecting her mother's voice to break the silence but was shocked to hear her own.
“I’ve been perfect since day one, an absolute scholar but where has that gotten me? So scared of failure that I don’t allow myself to pause. No one should go their whole life dying to be perfect. I deserve your love and affection unconditionally, not because of a grade,” she took a breath and plowed forward. “So, while you both sit there and gape at me, I’m going to buy myself ice cream because I just failed my first quiz and I deserve a reward.” With that Little Miss Perfect walked away smiling.