Cecelia Ahern - Perfect

“Sometimes you must be selfish for the greater good,” Raphael says, shaking his head.

“Whatever decision I make, Raphael, you and Granddad will be okay. I wouldn’t do that to both of you.”

“I appreciate that,” he says, almost sadly, for me.

But he doesn’t realize, I am being selfish. I have grown to love my Flawed world. I love the friends I have made. I love Carrick. I know who I am. I feel like one of them. For that to be taken away would be to go through it all again, being ripped away from a world and people I know. I feel at home being Flawed, maybe more comfortable than ever; I feel at peace in my scarred skin. I don’t want my brands removed. I don’t want to go back to who I was, to the life that I had. I would never feel at home being perfect. It doesn’t exist; it’s all fake.

But I don’t tell him any of this.

I look up at the clock.

Watching the time.

Waiting.

“Why do you keep looking at the clock?” Raphael asks, suddenly suspicious.

“No reason,” I say.

He narrows his eyes. “Celestine, you’re up to something, aren’t you?” he says, watching me. “That’s why you’re not taking the deal.”

“I’m not up to anything.”

It’s not a lie. I’m not up to anything now. I’ve already done it. Something is about to happen. Something I put into motion before I was even captured.

SIXTY-SIX

I GLANCE AT the guard, who’s still in the room.

“I’m not up to anything,” I repeat.

Granddad watches me, eyes narrowed, as though he’s trying to figure me out. He knows me well; he, too, suspects something. Or perhaps he already knows. Carrick is now beyond angry with me. He picks up a chair and throws it against the far pane of glass. It just bounces back at him. I see his red face, the veins pulsating in his neck, the anger high.

“Uh-oh,” Raphael says.

The guard in my cell jumps to attention.

“Leave him. He’ll calm down,” Raphael says.

“Back in your cell,” she says to Raphael, opening the door.

“I’m not finished with my client,” he protests.

But he doesn’t get to say much more because he’s strong-armed back into his cell by two guards who come racing in to settle the Carrick situation. I need Carrick to calm down—he can’t lose it now. Carrick has his back to me, deliberately so, a sign of his anger. His back is heaving up and down as he tries to gather himself. I write quickly and slam the page against the window adjoining our cells.

He’s going to ruin this if he doesn’t realize what is about to happen.

Turn around, Carrick, turn around.

I bang on the glass but of course he can’t hear me.

The guards open his door and I pray he doesn’t attack them. He finally looks at me, but I’ve lowered the page. I can’t risk the guards reading what I’ve written. I rip it up into a million pieces and throw it in the trash. The guards go to either side of him. They hold their hands out in front, like they’re taming a wild horse. Carrick ignores them, turns around to look at me, eyes red like he’s been crying. He thinks he’s ruining my life, but he has no idea how much he has saved me. If he had just read my note, he’d understand everything.

The guards stay with him for some time, blocking my view. Then, when they leave, he stays where he is, and I stand at the glass willing him to look at me, but he doesn’t.

I smile and shake my head. It’s not going to work. He can’t make me hate him.

And there is nothing he can do to stop what is about to happen.

SIXTY-SEVEN

THE GUARDS RETURN with our food and deliver a tray to each of us. As they do that, they remove the pen and paper from my cell and dump the Highland Castle uniform down on my bed, red scrub pants and a red T-shirt.

Raphael picks up a fork and pokes through the food with a look of disgust. Granddad leaps in, heaping the forkfuls into his mouth. Carrick keeps his back to me, ignoring the guards, ignoring the food, ignoring everybody and everything. He wants me to hate him, but it’s not working.

I go to the small toilet in the holding cell to change out of the slip and into the uniform. When I return I smell the food and my stomach rumbles. There’s soup, a beige color that could be anything from vegetable to chicken. For the main course there is meat and two vegetables. I try the smell and taste test that Carrick taught me as I try to figure out just what exactly this food is. There is a distinct smell of mint. Or the antiseptic. Perhaps the mint is coming from the meat, which maybe is lamb, but it looks more like dried beef than lamb. I lift the soup bowl to my nose and close my eyes and breathe in. That slight smell of mint. What could it be?

I can’t figure it out, and I decide I’m not eating this food. That would be a kind of victory on their part. Crevan was right about one thing: My chief feature is definitely stubbornness.

I long to be back in the kitchen with Carrick, sitting before the open fridge, blindfolded, feeling the tips of his fingers on my lips as he feeds me.

Pea and mint soup, I wonder, but then it would be green, not beige.

To think that this dry, overcooked, bad cafeteria food was the last thing I tasted before I became Flawed. Maybe it’s a good thing I can’t taste it now, though it hasn’t stopped Granddad from shoveling it into him and Raphael from picking at it. Granddad has worked his way through it and is even lying down for a snooze.

Carrick gets up from his bed and makes his way to the table, his hunger taking over, too. He sits down and dives into the soup, tasting it straightaway, unlike me, who has to figure it out.

My stomach rumbles and I sigh. Fine. Just get on with it.

But it’s as I’m spooning it to my mouth, as the spoon rests on my bottom lip, that I stall. My memory flashes to Crevan on the summit, that antiseptic smell that I thought was chewing gum. It reminds me of the hospital I woke up in after he stuck the needle in my thigh. It reminds me of how I felt when dragging myself along the floor.

I open my eyes.

They’ve drugged our food.

Granddad is lying down on his bed, eyes closed.

Raphael is slumped in his chair, head on his chest.

Carrick has his back to me and is dunking crusty bread in his soup. I jump up and start banging on the window, screaming.

He can’t hear me, of course, but I can’t think of anything else and so I continue, crying as I watch him eat more and more of it, my voice hoarse and my throat burning, my hands and fists throbbing as I pound on the glass.

I look around for the pen and paper but they’re gone, removed by the guards when they delivered the food.

Then I think of something. I need to cause a distraction. Make a scene. I pick up a chair and throw it. I pull the blankets from the bed and throw them on the floor. I topple the table of food. Anything I can pick up, I throw. I trash the room. Carrick must eventually feel vibrations or see the reflections in the glass because he turns suddenly and his eyes widen when he sees the state of my room. The guards open the door to the holding cells and grab their keys.

I run to the glass and mouth, “The food.” I shake my head. “Don’t eat the food.” I wrap my hands around my neck in a strangling way.

His eyes widen, he looks to his food and then back to me, understanding. He stands up to make his way to me but he goes in a diagonal direction. He wobbles on his feet. He looks to Granddad, then Raphael, and teeters some more. He looks back at me and his eyes have glazed over.

He looks over my shoulder and I see the pain in his expression as the guards open the door and come for me. It’s the last thing he sees before reaching out for a chair for support and falling to the floor.