Flawed / Perfect. Cecelia Ahern

I learned that from the way I hear some laugh when he drives away and they get back to whatever they were doing, having found the entire thing fun. My life is drama at its mightiest.

      I recognise some of their voices. They are the gossip reporters, the news anchors, the familiar voices of my past. And now they’re talking about me. Only it doesn’t sound like me, not that person, just this revved-up version that I don’t recognise. They analyse and dissect my own behaviour with more thought than I’ve ever given it myself. I’m too weak to care about it and too embarrassed to listen to it properly. It is wafting in and out of my ears and mind, and quickly out again. I would rather sleep.

      There is a television in my room, but I haven’t turned it on, nor my phone. It’s for the part of me I lost, the invisible part of me that I never knew was essential. The part I gave away to become nothing.

      So far, technically, being Flawed has not altered my life. I haven’t been anywhere, haven’t done anything. I have stayed in this bed, and yet I don’t feel the same at all. Not because of the physical scars and ache, either, but I feel different to the bone. Just what Crevan intended.

      There’s a knock on the door and I know that it’s Mum. I’ve learned how to tell who’s there, how to recognise the different styles. Dad’s is tentative, hesitant as though he’s afraid of disturbing me; Mum’s is all business, like she belongs in the room. She doesn’t even wait for a reply and enters. I turn over on my back to face her, feeling the pain in my spine as I do so.

      “Your dad has worked out a way for people to visit. He’s blacked out the windows of his jeep. So he can meet visitors at the station, then drive them directly into our garage without anyone seeing.”

      The garage has direct access to the kitchen, so nobody has to set foot outside the door.

      “So if there’s anyone you want to see …”

      “Art,” I say simply. Probably the first word I’ve uttered in days. It would be romantic if it weren’t for the circumstances.

      She looks down at her hands, as if afraid to answer. I thought he would have visited me by now. I’ve been waiting. Listening. Each time I hear the doorbell, I hope it’s him, but it’s not, it never has been.

      “Nobody knows where he is,” Mum says, finally. “After your verdict, he went home and packed his bags and took off.”

      “I bet Crevan knows,” I say groggily, my tongue still heavy in my mouth. My throat is dry, and the words don’t come out easily. My tongue feels huge in my mouth. It is this that has been the most difficult sore to deal with as it blisters and scabs.

      “No. He’s pretty much going out of his mind trying to find him.”

      I smile. Good.

      Mum hands me a glass of water with a straw.

      “Are people ashamed to visit me? Is that why they’re going through the garage?”

      “No.” She pauses. “It’s for privacy. So you can come and go in privacy.”

      “I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

      “School.”

      I look at her in surprise.

      “Next week. When you’re healed. You can’t hide in here for ever.”

      I strangely hope I’ll never heal, so I never have to leave.

      “Besides, they won’t let you stay in any longer. You have to face the world, Celestine.”

      I wonder whether she will apply this to herself, too. She looks tired around her eyes. She hasn’t left the house for as long as I have, no visits to her clinic for a pick-me-up, though she will probably want an entirely new face after the scrutiny she has come under. I wonder how all this will affect her work, if she has been dropped from any of her portfolios. It would be naïve to think not. No one can be discriminated against for having a relationship with a Flawed family member. They are not responsible for the actions of their loved ones, but still, people always find a way to get around that. My mum’s life is just another person’s life I’ve ruined.

      “Mary May is your Whistleblower. She has stopped by every day; she has been thorough in what we and you are allowed to do. She is … meticulous in her work,” Mum says, and I detect nerves. This woman must be some force of nature. “She has insisted on seeing you every day, but I’ve held her off,” Mum says with a determined look in her eye, and I know it couldn’t have been an easy task. “You’ll meet her in a few days. She’ll run through the rules and then stay with us during dinnertime. She wants to observe that we are abiding by the rules for the first few days. And you will see her every day after that. Each evening she’ll do two tests.”

      “Angelina told me,” I interrupt her, not wanting to hear about the invasion again.

      “She won’t be in your life apart from that.” She tries to make the daily invasion not sound as bad as it is. “You need to eat something,” she says, looking at my tray filled with food. “You haven’t eaten for days.”

      “I can’t taste anything anyway.”

      “Dr Smith says your taste buds will come back.”

      “I can taste blood, so I must be okay.” Bad joke. And I’m not sure I can taste blood. My tongue is blistered and scabbed, and I just imagine it flowing down my throat whenever I swallow.

      Mum winces.

      “Maybe it’s better if I never taste again anyway, given the food I have to eat every day of the week for the rest of my life.”

      “It’s a healthy diet,” Mum says perkily. “Probably one we should all be eating. And we would, but we’re not allowed to join you, sorry.”

      “Are you going to defend everything they do?”

      “I’m just trying to look on the bright side, Celestine.”

      “There is no fucking bright side.”

      “Language,” she says, propping me up with pillows again, but she sounds like she couldn’t care less what I say.

      “Are Flawed not allowed to swear, either?”

      “I think more than anything, Flawed are entitled to swear,” she says.

      We smile.

      “There she is,” she whispers, tracing a line around my face with her finger. “My brave baby.”

      I look at her properly. “How are you, Mum? You look tired,” I say tenderly.

      “I’m fine.” Her resolve weakens. “I’ve booked myself in for an eye-lift,” she says, and we both laugh. It’s the first time she’s ever admitted doing any work to her appearance.

      “Where’s Juniper?”

      “She’s out at the moment.” She stiffens.

      “She’s being funny with me.”

      “She’s afraid, darling. She thinks you’re angry with her.”

      I think of the sad way she looks at me when she sees me, the gentle tone in her voice when she asks me what she can do for me, and it makes me bark back at her. I’d rather we return to the banter that we used to have. I’m more comfortable with her being irritated by me, but instead now I see her pity. I think of the fact that she didn’t come to my aid on the bus and how she didn’t testify in court. Mum is right; I feel nothing but anger at her. I know I’m wrong, but somehow it is burning inside me.

      “Are you angry with Art?” Mum asks. I know the point she is making: How can I be angry with my own sister and not Art? But somewhere deep down, I keep wondering why he didn’t try harder to make it stop. Why couldn’t he convince his dad? But I understand. I once trusted Judge Crevan, and he wouldn’t have expected his own dad to land me in so much trouble.

      “Do you think