PAST PERFECTION

By Dawn Miles

Your past doesn’t have to define you. But memories of your history may haunt you longer than you’d like, especially when your life is driven by a consuming desire for perfection and fueled by a life of partying.

Leah Gaylord’s attempts to succeed in the social scene of her Midwestern small-town high school leave her wounded after a web of repeated betrayals and broken hearts. Scarred by her experiences with senior Seth Maddux at age thirteen, foolishly addicted to the hope her relationship with Lance Rushford could be real beyond their weekends partying together—Leah repeatedly sabotages her chance to get it right with the good guy, Connor Waverly.

A three-sport athlete and farmer’s daughter, Leah finds some comfort in the cyclical nature of sports and the seasons but is convinced that escaping the swirling rumor mill of Arrow City would free her desperate soul. She leaves for college, expecting her future to unfold flawlessly once Connor returns, but Leah must learn she’s not in control, and everything works out according to God’s perfect plan, not hers.

With raw transparency, this young adult autobiographical novel highlights God’s redemption after a messy tangle of teenage turmoil, but also demands that you guard your heart because even in God’s goodness, lingering layers of scars may follow you forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685265120

Book preview

Chapter 1

The sticky Midwestern summer night settled over the small town of Arrow City for their annual Big Days. The irony of having the word city in its name never struck Leah until much later in life. The sleepy village of a whopping seven hundred citizens gathered as the school year concluded for community and camaraderie to celebrate the suffocating start of summer. A street band played some oldies from a trailer stage; kids paid a quarter to throw wooden rings around two-liter pop bottles; and grandparents lounged at the bingo table, telling old stories while teens took turns convincing older friends to sneak them drinks from the beer tent.

In such a small town, everyone knew everyone. But in his long dark trench coat, among the many Wranglers and baseball hats, someone new stood out that night. Leah’s breath caught in her throat. Handsome as ever. Mysterious even more. She was drawn to him in an instant but watched him quickly vanish down a side street, surprised by her own reaction to a complete stranger. Intrigued by this unknown identity, Leah lingered a bit longer.

Hellooo! Are you still coming? Jasmine impatiently nodded toward the end of the one-street celebration where several upperclassmen were congregating.

Uh, yeah. Sorry. Leah caught up with Jasmine and Claire, her best friends all through junior high. Insecure and full of self-conscious doubts, Leah followed as Jasmine boldly led the three incoming freshmen toward the cool crowd. Striking black hair and a golden-copper skin that only glowed deeper in the summer sun, Jasmine commanded attention of all eyes. And Claire, with her perfectly paletted face and not a strand of salon-dyed hair out of place, confidently joined the group containing two of her older sisters.

Leah awkwardly tightened her typical chestnut-brown ponytail and forced a quick exhale from her cheeks. Even though she knew everyone there, Leah struggled to mumble more than a meager hello to anyone who even looked at her. She was pretty, in a simple what-you-see-is-what-you-get sort of way, with a pleasant personality as well, but Leah just never felt comfortable walking into a crowd. It wasn’t that she was antisocial or a snob even. Leah just always wanted to be sure to get it right in every aspect of life. Afraid of saying the wrong thing, Leah figured it was usually safer to simply say nothing at all. Trying to internally manage the social cues and conversations of a crowd completely exhausted her.

Standing at the edge of the group, the three girls placed themselves as if they belonged but didn’t exactly. Did anyone recognize they’d even entered the area? Leah’s eyes continually scanned the crowd, quietly cataloging conversations and processing every person-to-person interaction. Always watching, always observing, Leah liked to know what was going on. It gave her a small sense of control when she felt so out of place.

Attempting to force a conversation until someone noticed them, Claire asked, So, what did you guys get on that history final? Mr. Pairman is a fun teacher, but man, his tests are hard!

No kidding! Jasmine agreed with emphatic exasperation. I managed to pass with a C-.

Leah just stood there, forcing an awkward smile. Her gaze continued to dart around the crowd, this time in an attempt to avoid eye contact with her friends.

Shut up! You got an A, didn’t you, Leah? And you probably didn’t even study!

I did too! Leah defended herself half-heartedly.

"Well, I still hate you! Mr. Pairman must be crazy thinking we’ll ever need to know that stuff! It’s not like the past is ever really going to have anything to do with our future!"

Straight A student. Three-sport athlete. Artist of the Year. Yes, she had known more than her share of success. And yes, she was aware people didn’t like her because of it. There was always an internal battle at war within. She wanted to do her best at everything, but she felt resentment from her peers at times.

Sometimes she wondered if she should just sandbag and mess up on purpose, but her competitive nature never allowed that to happen. Her desire for success is what drove her most days. Always wanting to do the right thing and to do it well. Always wanting to fix anything that was broken with a perfectly designed plan. Always wanting to make her parents proud.

The oldest of three kids, her parents were simple, hardworking farmers from the middle-of-nowhere agricultural heartland. Dennis, her dad, was slightly OCD with his tools in the shop, and Susan Jo, her mom, was supersmart but had dropped out of college after three semesters to get married. Leah could see how some of these traits shaped her personality, but she had never felt undue pressure from them to succeed in any way.

Yet the desire for success definitely ran deep in her blood, coursing through her veins. She would never forget the day in second grade when the teacher returned her phonics worksheet with more red ink than she’d ever seen in her life. Leah hid in the pink Pepto Bismol bathroom stall of her elementary school, crying tears of disappointment the entire recess. And receiving an S- in handwriting on her report card that same year was almost more than she could manage. S minus? Not satisfactory? Leah never wanted anything in her life to be less than satisfactory again.

Hey, girls, heard you talking about Mr. Pairman. You think he’s a tough history teacher. Just wait until basketball season starts! You’ve never had a coach like him before—guaranteed.

Kerri Boggs, Leah’s closest neighbor to the north, lived not quite two miles up the road from the Gaylords. Here, in a landscape of nothing but fields of cornstalks and bean stubble, neighbors was a term used loosely. Sure, theirs was the next house visible in that direction, but they definitely didn’t grow up as best friends, popping over to play whenever they wanted as kids. Separated by acres and acres of flat land and a thirty-foot-deep drudge ditch, their families helped each other out when needed (as most farmers do), but they weren’t really close friends.

A year older, she had been a basketball standout this past season as a freshman and already seemed to be one of the most popular girls in high school. Sounds like Leah here’s going to be a great addition to our team.

Curiously wondering why Kerri would think that and unsure of how to handle the compliment, Leah felt her cheeks begin to burn. She shifted her weight from side to side and quickly tried to determine an appropriate response. Deny the compliment? Say thank you? Point out Jasmine and Claire would be joining the team too? In the seconds it took her mind to rattle off possible responses, Kerri’s older brother Matt walked by.

As Leah managed to mutter a simple Um, thanks, Matt gave her a playful elbow to the side. You taking good care of my pigs, Leah? he asked over his shoulder on his way to a group of guys sitting on a picnic table. Just last month, the Gaylords had decided to add a little livestock to their homestead. Primarily crop farmers of corn and soybeans, Dennis thought the addition of pigs as a 4-H project would be beneficial for his kids. They would get to experience firsthand how animals were born, they would get to be responsible for the care and feeding of one of God’s creatures, and they would get bacon—most importantly, the bacon!

They’re still alive so far…, Leah smiled. The Boggses had had pigs for years, so when they heard Dennis was interested, Matt offered to help get them set up. Last week, she had gone with her dad to pick up a couple of extra supplies from the Boggses’ barn: another feeding pan, an extra pitchfork, and a spare ear-notching tool. Leah was thankful people had enough personality and distinctive physical characteristics to solidly mark their own identity. Poor pigs had to have a pattern of triangle chunks cut out of their ears just so their owners could identify who was who.

Right! That must have been where Kerri’s comment came from. Matt and Leah had been shooting hoops in the Boggses’ shop that day while the dads talked about what other farmers around the county were doing in their fields. Leah impressively drained bucket after bucket with Kerri’s dad and brother both looking on.

She decided then that the perennial success of the Arrow City Lady Archers basketball teams probably had a lot to do with their dads’ shops. In addition to the barns and the grain bins, most farmers had huge metal toolsheds with cement floors where they could work on their tractors and farm equipment. Conveniently, these shops almost always had a basketball hoop hanging in them as well, where kids could perfect their shot from a very early age, any time of year.

She remembered how laser focused her shooting became when their conversation had turned to how the crops were looking after the recent hailstorm. It seemed whenever Leah felt stressed, sports helped her release her pent-up anxiety. Hailstorms. Floods. Tornadoes. Midwestern weather was always a threat to knocking out a farmer’s fields. But with a ball in her hand, Leah could block out any badness, at least for the moment.

As she finally returned to the present conversation, she realized Jasmine and Claire had joined the small circle with Claire’s sisters, leaving her standing there with Kerri by herself. Anytime you want to come over and shoot hoops, just let me know. My boyfriend, Aaron, drives right by your house every day. He can pick you up on his way by. The more we practice, the better we’ll be!

Okay. Thanks, Kerri! Wow. Leah couldn’t believe Kerri Boggs had just invited her over. Sure, it was all because of basketball, but it still made Leah feel important.

A bit bolder now in this moment of confidence, Leah quietly asked, Hey, do you know who the tall guy in the trench coat was tonight?

Oh, that was Seth Maddux. He’s friends with Aaron. He just moved here this spring and will be finishing his senior year at Arrow City. Leah knew Kerri would have the answer. Leaning in just a bit, and lowering the volume of her voice, Kerri continued, He’s living at his grandma’s house over on Beech Street. His dad died of cancer last year, and I guess his mom left them when he was little.

Leah verbally responded with little more than a short hmm, but inside, her heart was breaking for this guy she didn’t even know. She couldn’t even imagine what life must be like without two loving parents.

If you wanted to know anything, it was usually a safe bet to ask a Boggs. They knew all the gossip. Their grandma was the ringleader of the old ladies who spent their entire mornings in the town’s little family restaurant, sipping coffee and sharing the news. With little else to do with their time, they’d sit at tables, the clicking of their spoons against the side of their steaming coffee cups as they stirred in sugar barely drowning out the clicking of their tongues and the shaking of their heads with the stories of Arrow City citizens. Gossip seemed to be high-octane fuel for their little community. It’s what kept it moving along. No one could keep a secret here.

Surveying the circles of high schoolers standing there, Leah had heard at least one rumor swirling about almost every single one of them. What percentage of each story was actually true, Leah would never know. But behind the socialite faces, she knew there were scars from living in a small town. And Leah would find out only all too soon how deep the wounds would cut once Arrow City got done spinning her ’round.

Chapter 2

Kerri quietly slipped Leah a bottle from the cooler holding a secret stash as they rounded the corner of the Boggses’ basement game room. Lynchburg Lemonade—Leah had never heard of it, but the words Tennessee Whiskey and the Jack Daniels logo alerted her that the liquid inside was more than an innocent summertime sweetness.

Before she could consider the contents any more closely, Leah stopped dead in her tracks. The mysterious guy from the Big Days stood six feet in front of her, taking aim for his shot at the dartboard, with Aaron and Matt looking on. Her big blue eyes drank in every part of this tall dark mystery as she quickly calculated the options of drinking what she now held in her hand.

Leah had been to the Boggses’ house a couple of times over the summer to shoot hoops, but being invited to hang out on a Saturday night was the next step up. If she declined the drink, Leah felt it would be a big mistake for her social life. She liked feeling included by part of the popular crowd. The rest of her friends were still fresh from junior high and just as immature as she was. Leah knew she had a lot of learning to do.

Always uncomfortable in a new environment, Leah just wanted to know the right thing to say and do in any situation. Kerri, with a year of experience in high school already, plus a boyfriend who was the senior captain of the football team, would be able to help Leah learn the ropes.

She wanted to be invited back again, so Leah grabbed the bottle top and gave it a quick turn. Resulting in nothing more than the loss of a couple of layers of skin from her thumb, Matt chuckled and handed her a bottle opener. Not a twist-top. Probably gonna want to use one of these.

Right, Leah responded, trying to play it cool even though she had no idea what to do with the small tool of metal. Nervously eyeing the bottle opener as she flipped it through her fingers, Leah felt the heat rising to her ears and wondered if her expression was reflecting the confusion in her head. She hated not knowing what to do. No one in her family drank beer from a bottle. This utter sense of ignorance overwhelmed her as she continued to fidget while her mind calculated every possible option of how the item in her hand could remove the lid from her drink.

Need some help? Matt offered kindly. Noticing her nervousness, he popped the top off for her, dropping the lid back into Leah’s hand.

She choked out a whisper, Um…thanks. Why did something as simple as not knowing how to open a beer bottle make her feel like such a fool?

Leah watched as Seth Maddux impressively hit the final bull’s-eye with perfect precision. That’s what she wanted. To hit every target with exact accuracy every single time. To know what to do in every situation. Not knowing was simply not acceptable in her mind.

Shooting the cap into the trash can against the back wall with the flick of her wrist, Leah took a sip and began to relax.

Nice shot, Seth acknowledged, impressed with her aim. Looks like I’ve got my next competitor.

Oh, um… I’ve never played darts before. I… I don’t know the game.

That’s okay. I’m a good teacher. He winked and offered her a set of darts with a flirtatious grin. Leah took another long gulp, letting the sour whisky burn her throat before stepping up for her first lesson.

As his hands squared her hips and he leaned into her, Leah knew she was in trouble. High school was going to be a whole new world, and she was now certain there was so much she didn’t know.

Beer sprayed out of Aaron’s mouth like a fire hydrant as Leah’s first throw missed the board completely and landed with a loud thunk straight into the basement wall. Matt and Kerri looked at each other with wide eyes, wondering how much trouble they’d be in when their parents noticed the hole.

See? I don’t know what I’m doing! Leah grumbled as humiliation flooded her body for the second time that night.

Reaching around her waist, Seth spun her into his huge frame. Really? Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s your first time.

Doesn’t matter. I hate not being good at something, Leah admitted with a solid mixture of authority and annoyance.

Kerri chipped in from her place on the floor, wiping up Aaron’s mess. Seriously, Leah, do you really think you’re going to be good at everything?

Well, no…, Leah replied dejectedly and then added so quietly even Seth couldn’t hear from his close range, but I want to. She wanted to know what to say, what to do. She wanted to know how to use a bottle opener. She wanted to be a good dart player. She just wanted to get everything right. If Leah could just know it all, she felt she’d be successful. That’s how it had worked in the past. When it came to school, Leah would just learn the information, and then she’d get an A on the test. When it came to playing the piano, she would just practice her piece, and then she’d get a sticker on her sheet music for her performance. But when it came to people, human beings couldn’t be learned or practiced; they were entirely too complex. And for that, Leah