Cecelia Ahern - Flawed

My first reaction is to step away. I have recognized the problem, and now I know the solution. If I step away, then there will be only two. But that is a bad move.

“Stop! Stay right where you are!” The man shouting at me is a policeman.

I step back into line.

“Don’t move, Celestine,” the man on my right says gently. “It will be okay.”

“You know me?”

“We all know you.” He smiles.

“Don’t talk!” the policeman yells again.

“We’ve got a wild one,” the man on my left mutters to us both.

“Back away from the desk, the three of you,” he says, panicking. “I need to see you.” He is getting himself worked up over nothing. He is young. He is alone. He is making a stupid mistake.

Despite the fact that we are Flawed, and I am in the middle of them, I feel somewhat safe between the two men. I feel protected. They are young, in their thirties, and they are well built. Strong. One has an F on his temple, the other I can’t see; it could be his chest, hand, foot, or tongue. Perhaps their age and strength are what panics the police officer all the more. They look like they could do some damage. Wide jaws, broad shoulders, big hands. They remind me of Carrick. Soldiers. I have never stood between two Flawed before, and now I know why we are not allowed. It gives us strength. Security in numbers. They don’t want us to feel safe. They don’t want us to have power.

“We were just standing in a line,” I finally say, annoyed by the crowd that has gathered to watch this. I feel like an animal in a zoo. I need to get back to Granddad, who is waiting for me in the car, bleeding. “I’m buying cotton balls.” I lift the package up to the police officer. “Nothing dangerous is happening here.”

A few people snigger at my joke.

The police officer’s face reddens. “There are three of you standing together. This is against the law.”

“It’s not a law,” I say, and the two Flawed men look at me in surprise.

I’m more surprised that the police officer doesn’t know this.

“It’s just a rule that an organization enforces with punishment. It’s not law . You can’t put me in prison for standing beside these two men. You are a police officer, not a Whistleblower. Your job is to work with communities to protect and serve.”

“Yeah, protecting us from you,” a man shouts out from the crowd.

“No,” I disagree. “Your job is to protect and serve me ,” I say to the policeman. “I am a part of this community.”

“I won’t serve you, Flawed ,” he snarls, like I’m diseased.

He is a police officer—a member of a force I once trusted, admired, felt protected by. I think of the people who have hissed at me on my walk here today, the children who have been pulled out of my path. I think of the lack of eye contact. The anger rises. Nothing makes sense.

I am a girl of definitions, of logic, of black and white.

“HARP!” I shout at the police officer, feeling the anger fully within me now. I learned this at school. I learned all this. Why doesn’t he know these basic principles that I was taught, that he was surely taught, too? Why doesn’t anybody in the real world do what we’re taught? “ H is for honesty,” I say, hearing the tremble in my voice, not from fear but from anger. I try to control it. “Being honest and ethical and adhering to the principles of fairness and justice. That’s what a police officer must do. A is for accountability. Accepting individual responsibility and ensuring public accountability.”

There is a rumble in the crowd. I continue, not moving my eyes from his.

“ R is for respect! Having respect for people, their human rights and their needs.”

Members of the crowd start to mumble in agreement. The police officer steps closer to me. He lifts his receiver to his mouth and calls for backup.

“Watch it now,” the man to my left says quietly.

The police officer is standing right before me now with a sneer on his face.

“Let them go,” somebody calls from the crowd.

“Yeah, they’re not doing any harm. They’re just shopping.”

People begin calling out their opinions, which I see panics him some more. Beads of sweat break out on his forehead. He is beginning to lose control. He is badly outnumbered.

“She’s the girl from the TV, the famous one,” someone calls out. “You can’t arrest her.”

“The girl who has five brands.”

The police officer narrows his eyes as they wander over me, and it registers with him who I am. He looks afraid of me.

“She’s the most Flawed of all,” someone else shouts, and others call for him to shut up. The people in the crowd are beginning to argue among themselves.

The police officer lifts the baton from his hip belt.

“Whoa, now,” the man to my right says. “What are you going to do with that?”

“You keep quiet,” he says, sweat on his upper lip now.

“She’s just a child,” a woman calls out. “For the love of God, would you all leave her alone.”

Her desperate cry introduces a whole new wave of emotion.

“And you”—he looks at me menacingly—“need to keep your mouth shut. Understand?”

I take a deep breath. I’m not finished. It would be logical to at least finish what I was saying before the inevitable happens. Granddad will know something has happened if I’m not back outside in three minutes. He will know to start the engine and get out of here. Whatever he did in the past will give him that gut instinct.

“Professionalism,” I say, finally, gently, just to the police officer. “Providing a professional policing service to all communities.”

He looks over my shoulder, and I twist my body around to see what he’s looking at, but there’s nothing behind me. By the time I realize he was trying to trick me, he brings the baton down and hits me across the back of my legs. I crumple and go down. The antiseptic bottle smashes as it hits the ground.

It’s almost as if there is a second when everybody takes a moment to make a decision, to pick a side, to figure out who it is one really is. And then the riot begins.

SIXTY-THREE

THE FEET I see standing around us, once observers, are now in on the act. They suddenly take flight, and they are everywhere. Some are on me, trampling me, some are doing their best to block for me, but every time I try to get up, I am swiftly brought back down to earth again. With a bang, with a knock, winded, I lie on the ground, hands covering my head, waiting for the black spots in my vision to clear. I feel hands trying to pull me up, hands trying to push me down. I can barely breathe. Then I hear the whistles. The Whistleblowers have arrived, and I see black leather boots descending on the scene. Some people run away, more people hear about what’s happening and join in. I see fists flying, blood spraying. I don’t even know who is on whose side anymore. At one point, when I manage to see straight, I think I see Enya Sleepwell standing at the door of the supermarket, watching. But I have been knocked on the head too many times, and I know I’m seeing things. I give up trying to fight, trying to stand, and, instead, I lie down as I feel another blow to my head as a boot steps backward, not knowing I’m there, and I feel the leather on my cheek. Then it’s all a blur.

I hear noises and then I hear nothing. A buzzing in my ear seems to block out most of the sound. I’m on the ground, and then I’m floating, and I wonder if I’m dead, if this is what it’s like to rise toward the light. But the light is only the strip lighting of the supermarket, and I realize I’m alive, but I’m flying. Then I feel hands around my body, large, comforting, safe. Those hands place my arms around his neck. I feel flesh. My head rests on a chest. I feel flesh on my cheek. I focus on the chest and see an F , just like mine, below the clavicle, where a T-shirt has been ripped in the fight. A Flawed man is carrying me. He smells good, of clean sweat and something else I can’t place, but I feel safe. He carries me like I’m a baby, and I cling to him, turning my head to his chest, my head resting beneath his chin to block out the light that hurts my eyes. As we move, I run my fingertip over the F on his chest, which makes us stop moving. I have never felt anybody else’s scar. It feels like mine. Five of mine, but not like the final one on my spine. The one that was done without any anesthetic, which made me jump and the sear moved, smudged. I see his large Adam’s apple move as he gulps at my touch. I allow my finger to rest there on his chest. Even though he’s a stranger, the feel of the brand is comforting, like my own skin.