Cecelia Ahern - Flawed

He whips the sackcloth from my head, and I’m grateful for the air but terrified by the look in his eye.

“You repent?” he asks.

I nod.

“Answer.” He raises his voice.

“Yes, I do.” I sniff.

“Say you’re sorry,” he says, pushing it.

“I’m sorry.”

“Say you were wrong,” he says quickly, and I can tell he is getting far more of an adrenaline kick out of this than the alcohol or whatever it was they were smoking.

“I was wrong.”

“Get down on your knees and beg me for forgiveness.”

I stall.

“Do it.”

I get down on my knees.

He stands behind me and finally removes the rope from my wrists. I immediately bring them to the front of my body and massage my wrists. They are cut, raw. I can’t look him in the eye.

“Say it,” he shouts.

“I don’t know what to—”

“Beg for my forgiveness. Hands together, in prayer, like you’re in a church. Do it.”

“Please,” I say, crying. “Please. I’m sorry, I was wrong. I repent. I just want to go home. I just need to get home.”

He smiles, as if satisfied, and throws my dress at me.

I fumble with my dress, finally relieved that it’s all over, wanting to hide my body from him as quickly as I can. He watches me from the open door. For someone who thinks I’m scum, he sure watches me long enough.

“By the way, Flawed, you have twenty minutes to curfew.”

He slams the door to the shed. The bolt slides across, and the keys rattle as he locks me inside.

FORTY-SIX

I HEAR NATASHA’S car drive away, and I look around the dark room lit up in one corner by the moonlight, searching for a way out.

“No,” I start to cry. For a moment, I give up. I completely give up. I huddle in the corner and cry. I am in a shed, on a mountain, who knows how far from my home. Even if I screamed, no one would hear me. But then I begin to think rationally. Natasha seemed to think I could be home in time, which means I’m near my home, and it clicks with me. We didn’t go far away at all. We drove uphill for some time. I am in a shed, surrounded by gardening tools. I know where I am. I’m in the community gardens on the summit minutes from my house. Although I know the gardens are closed at this hour and there will be nobody around to hear me, I try it out and scream anyway. I scream until my throat is raw and my voice is hoarse. I try everything, but from inside it sounds muffled. No one will hear me. I am not here.

I break down and freak out. I pull and push at the door, but it’s useless; it’s locked from the outside. I bang the wood with a spade, but it has no effect; I’m exhausted and don’t have the required strength.

There is a narrow window high up. I could squeeze out if lying flat, but to get up that high and get out at such an angle would be difficult. Then I would fall straight down on my head once out the other side. But it’s the only option I have. I have to work with it.

I take the spade and smash the glass. I clear the edges of broken glass as much as I can. I stack a toolbox, boxes of plants, and compost bags on top of one another to try to reach the window. I work out the logic, painfully aware that my time is running out. I pull myself up, line the window ledge with the sackcloth so as to protect my skin from the broken glass, and push my head out, thankful for the fresh air. That is enough to invigorate me. I can do this. I pull myself out, scraping my belly over the cloth, sucking in air, and hissing from the pain. I reach for the fencing to the left of the shed and hold on as I pull the rest of my body out through the flat window. I cling to the fencing for dear life, hands, fingers raw from grasping the wood. I dangle from the fence momentarily and then fall, feeling the sting in my feet on the pebbles. I sit on the ground for a minute to wait for the pain to go. I look around to get my bearings. I’m familiar with this hill. It is where I used to meet Art, not here by the gardens, but nearby. Despite my time being precious, I feel drawn to the spot where we always met. I will never in my life be able to be here at this time again, ever, and it is so close. And something, an instinct, is telling me to go there.

It is a one-minute sprint away; and when I arrive there, I know that it was the right decision. Two figures are in the place where Art and I used to be. So quickly replaced. A spot that I thought we owned now belongs to another couple. It looks like me and Art.

Because it is Art. And the girl with him looks exactly like me.

Me as I used to be, happy, beaming, smiling, laughing, looking like there is nothing wrong in her world. But I know it’s not me, because I am here. Barefoot, bleeding, bruised, and crying. Running for my life. Fighting for my life, but I don’t know why I’m bothering, because the last piece of hope and energy that I had for myself has been instantly drained from my heart, and I no longer care. My heart is empty; they can do what they like to me now.

The girl is my sister.

FORTY-SEVEN

ART IS THE first to look up.

I realize I’m crying.

His eyes, his eyes that I love, run over me in shock. For the first time since all this began, my heart breaks. I feel the pain in my chest instantly. I didn’t cry out for five of my brandings, but I cry out now. This is a pain more intense than anything so far. More than the pain of the brandings, more than the humiliation in the shed. This tops them all.

Juniper twists around to look in the direction he’s staring, and her face gives it away, too.

Caught. Immediately my tears stop and anger takes over.

“Celestine!” Art jumps up. “What happened? Are you okay?” He comes toward me, worried, panicking, but I know it’s not about what I’ve just witnessed. He’s worried about the state of me.

“Stop!” I yell, and he freezes.

“Oh my God, Celestine,” Juniper whispers, looking at me, hands going to her face. “What happened?”

“Celestine,” he says, taking steps near me again. I take steps back, which makes him halt again. “Are you bleeding? Where are your shoes? What happened? Who did this to you?” I hear the emotion in his voice, how it cracks with anger and pain.

Juniper joins him, and the two of them side by side again angers me intensely once more.

“Don’t you come near me ever again. Either of you. You both betrayed me once. I should have known you’d do it again.” I turn to Juniper. “You knew where he was hiding all this time?”

“Yes, but—”

“Up here?” I ask, shocked. I think of his hiding in one of the garden sheds and being cared for by Juniper, the very space I was imprisoned in and had to break free from. “I knew you were missing every night.” And then I realize. “I knew this was happening, but I just didn’t want to believe it.… You made me look like a liar.” I know now why I was acting so cruelly toward her. I think I knew this but wouldn’t admit it.

“No, Celestine, please, let me explain. I was just helping him!”

“Shut up! You’re both liars!” I shout, and he backs down and looks away, not able to defend himself.

“This isn’t what you think it is. She was just helping me hide out. We weren’t, you know…” He runs his hands through his hair, in complete turmoil.

“You both looked very cozy to me,” I say, looking from one to the other.

“It’s not like that,” he says. “I told you I can’t go back to my dad. Not after what he did to you.”

“What he did to me? Don’t you think you two had a part in it as well?”

This brings tears to Juniper’s eyes, and Art’s jaw hardens. I know it was a cheap jab, but I am so angry I want to hurt them both more than they have ever known, so that they can feel at least some of what I’m feeling now. I’ve wanted him every day, and every day she’s known where he is, doing who knows what. She could have told me, she could have got a message to him for me, she could have helped me, but instead she helped him.