Perfect

by Cecelia Ahern

  “Yes.”

  “I mean, after last night … are you okay?”

  It was my first time and I’d told him; he was gentle and understanding, constantly making sure I was okay. And though he never said, I know it wasn’t his. Those institution boys have a reputation, at least that’s what Mona told me. And I’ve a feeling she’d known—that she was at least a part of creating that reputation. Not with Carrick, though, I’m sure that nothing ever happened between them.

  “Oh, that. Yes, I’m fine, thanks.” I blush and he smiles.

  The smile transforms his face. I’m so used to seeing him tense and stern, but his smile makes him look younger.

  “How did you know that Professor Lambert owns Vigor?” he asks, studying me curiously.

  I laugh. “Carrick, you’re the one who keeps telling people that I have magical powers, and then when I get something right, it surprises you?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “I recognized the company logo. I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it when I first arrived, but then it clicked. I’d seen it in his office. And it’s typical of his sense of humor, too, to invest in that kind of company.” I laugh.

  He frowns. “What do you mean?”

  “Carbon is a waste that pollutes. So Vigor finds a way to use it as a resource.”

  “Yes,” he says, still confused.

  “And they’re using Flawed to do that. We are the carbon.” I chuckle. “The thing that nobody wants. Turning a problem into a solution. It is textbook Professor Lambert. He gave me some advice, and I didn’t understand it at the time, but I do now.” I change my tone. “Bill and Alpha told me that you were placed with them after you left the institute.”

  “Neighboring homes, the Institution calls them,” he says angrily. “More like halfway houses where they monitor your every move. Out of one prison, into another. Their job is to help you slide into society under their care. But really it’s to keep an eye on you so they can report back to the institution. If I’d known that Professor Lambert had anything to do with the plant, I would never have gone there.”

  “You think that Bill reported you to the Guild?” I ask, surprised.

  “I’m not on as close terms with him as you are, obviously,” he says, removing his hand from mine and gripping the steering wheel, face closing back up again.

  “I only met Bill once,” I say quietly. “Alpha was my math teacher, the only teacher willing to homeschool me after my school politely asked me to leave for the good of their reputation.” I can’t be bothered to hide the bitterness in my voice.

  He looks at me, gentleness back on his face, concern for all I went through after we parted ways.

  “Carrick, tell me what happened to make you not trust them,” I say softly.

  He takes his time, the anger evident as he retells the story. “I was in their care when I was searching for my parents, it had only been a day, I’d barely started looking around for Mom and Dad, then all of a sudden I was hauled into Highland Castle. There were photographs of me visiting the last place I’d been taken.”

  “Photos? That’s all? That doesn’t prove that you were trying to find your parents,” I say, annoyed. “Since when does taking a trip down memory lane make you Flawed?”

  “The guy I spoke to at the house, who’d rented us a room thirteen years ago, made a statement to the Guild,” he says, resigned.

  “Still, Carrick, that’s nothing. Since when is asking questions—”

  “I wasn’t going to deny it, Celestine,” he says angrily, then takes a moment to calm down. “Besides, I enjoyed admitting exactly what I was doing. I didn’t find my parents, but it was as damn close to a success as I could get, just to see the look on their faces when they’d realized they’d failed.”

  I examine his profile, adoring his commitment, his strength, even his stubbornness, even if all of those traits got him into trouble. He’d rather be right than safe, and for that we have much in common. “But I don’t see why you blame Bill,” I probe.

  “Alpha practically works for the Guild, running her charity to help counsel Flawed people’s families, so it wasn’t difficult to draw my conclusions.”

  “That’s what the charity is on the outside; she’s actually using it to gain support for the Flawed cause. She uses it as a way to gather everyone together. She is trying to end F.A.B. institutions. She was trying to get me on her side, and bring you with me,” I explain.

  Carrick absorbs this. I see that he is having the same crisis of trust I am. Nothing is simple when you’re Flawed, you become a pawn in many peoples’ games. As much as I feel for him, I’m comforted that what I’m experiencing is not unique to me.

  “Bill told me that if you’d stayed with them longer they would have helped you to find your parents. That was their intention all along, but you were with them less than twenty-four hours. You never gave them a chance to prove themselves to you.” I say this as delicately to him as possible, trying to judge his mood before continuing. He doesn’t respond, two hands tight on the wheel, looking straight ahead, an intense look on his face.

  “After you were taken to Highland Castle, your parents were brought to Vigor to live safely. Then on your release, you were given a tip as to their whereabouts. When you think about it, I’m sure Alpha and Bill were the ones who orchestrated your being reunited with your parents. I mean, how did you find out about Vigor in the first place?”

  He still doesn’t answer me: He’s silent and lost in thought as he tries to figure it all out, moves the pieces in his mind that he was once so sure of. Carrick ran away from Alpha and Bill to find his parents. If he’d just stayed with them, he could have found them and not have been branded. It’s quite possible that his loss of freedom was all for nothing. I don’t push the conversation about his parents any further, but there is something I can’t avoid anymore.

  “You knew about Art becoming a Whistleblower, didn’t you?”

  He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, concentrates on the winding road inclining up the steep hill.

  “I thought you knew,” he explains. “It’s been in the news.”

  My granddad must have known and kept it from me.

  “When we were in bed,” he continues, “and I mentioned him, I thought that you knew he was a Whistleblower. But then you defended him. I realized you had no idea.”

  And I’d accused Carrick of sleeping with me to get to Art. Why can’t anybody trust anybody? I sigh.

  “Sorry if I should have told you then,” he says gently. “I’d timed mentioning him so badly in the first place, I didn’t want to do any more damage.”

  “It’s okay. I’m not angry.” I pause. “Actually I don’t think I’ve ever felt more angry, but I’m not angry with you.”

  Now that I’ve opened the doors, the anger suddenly pulsates through me. The image of Art wearing the Whistleblower uniform makes me feel ill. It was never a career Art would have pursued; he wanted to study science. A job in the labs of the very facility he just raided would have been his dream. Becoming some eccentric scientist with his big mop of hair, he who would try to find a cure for the cancer that took his mom away. We had a plan. A very specific, much-talked-about plan. Humming University for his science degree and my mathematics degree. Art and I were supposed to be together. But instead, I’m Flawed and he’s a Whistleblower. The hunted and the hunter.

  His decision to become a Whistleblower is personal. It’s a slap in the face, a kick in the stomach; it’s telling me that he supports his dad, that he agrees with the Guild’s decision. It’s him saying, I believe that you’re Flawed, Celestine. Flawed to the backbone, just like my dad believes. I support the pain he put you through, you deserve everything you got. And when I find you … What then? What’s he going to do to me?

  Carrick is looking at me anxiously.

  But as angry as I feel, I just can’t suddenly hate the person I once cared for so much. I can’t switch it off that quickly. I’m not a robot; I want to try to u
nderstand. What is Art thinking? Why is he doing this?

  “Maybe he’s pretending,” I say suddenly. “Maybe he became a Whistleblower to help me.”

  “How would he do that?” Carrick’s voice is flat.

  “I don’t know.” I rack my brain. “Maybe he’s just using it as a way to find me. Maybe he’s like Marcus and Kate, one of the good guys.”

  As soon as I say it, I believe it. I sit up in my seat, full of hope. I look at Carrick, though, and his soldier face is back. He’s angry, closed off.

  Juniper and I got mood rings as gifts one year from our parents. They worked through the measurement of your temperature. If you were hot, they were red; if you were cold, they turned purple or blue. When they were sitting on our bedside tables at night, they were black. Carrick’s eyes remind me of those mood rings. I’ve spent so long trying to figure out what color they are, and now I know why. Their color seems to represent whatever mood he’s in, which is why they appeared black when we were in the Highland Castle cells, why they were hazel with green speckles when we slept together, and now … well, now he won’t even look at me.

  He pulls the car over, stops it right on a dangerous curve, as if he doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. Anyone coming around the corner won’t have enough time to see us, will hit us. He gives me a fright. He looks at me angrily, dark brown eyes now, no green, no light.

  “You’re deluding yourself if you think he’s pretending. Today we watched him take Evelyn away from her mother. Your granddad is still sitting in a cell in Highland Castle; don’t you think Art knows someone who could pull a few strings? He was part of a team that was searching for you in a state-sponsored facility. You want him to rescue you, Celestine? Is that what it is?”

  “No!” I snap.

  “Because I’m right here, actually putting my life on the line, helping you.”

  “So am I!” I yell back.

  He glares at me, anger steaming from him, and I match his stare, feeling the heat rising inside me and burning. He looks like he’s going to say something else, but he thinks better of it, pulls the car off the curve, and continues to drive up the mountain. We don’t say a word to each other for the remaining forty-five minutes. In fact my neck gets sore just from looking out my window, away from him.

  I’m fuming. It takes a long time for the rage to slowly simmer, and when it does, it’s not him that the anger is directed at—it’s myself. Because I know he’s right. Art isn’t trying to help me. If he was trying to he would have by now.

  PART TWO

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THE ENTRANCE TO Raphael Angelo’s house is a good five-minute drive from the front gate. With an engraved wooden plaque announcing it as THE GRAVEYARD, my hopes aren’t exactly high. The house suddenly comes into view. It’s an enormous wood cabin with large panes of glass that reflect the forest behind us. It’s almost as if the few bricks we can see are a mirage, floating in the center of the forest, as though the house is trying to camouflage itself. I get out of the car and stretch my legs, feeling anxious. I don’t know what to say; I need help, but after the argument with Carrick, I can’t ask.

  “So who’s going to talk?” I ask quietly. “We need to make a plan.”

  “Bit late for that now,” he snaps, avoiding my gaze. He walks straight to the door and presses the doorbell. Stubborn as anything. I rush to catch up and the door opens before I get there.

  The man who answers is a little over four feet tall.

  He looks from me to Carrick and back to me again. “Well, my life just got interesting. Come in.”

  He opens the door wider and leads the way farther into his house.

  We walk through a large entry with a wooden staircase to an open-plan kitchen with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a rambling garden and the forest beyond. The interiors—walls, floors—are timber, all of varying types, colors, and grains. The cabin is light and bright, modern and classy. It is also manic. Everywhere I look I see children. From teenagers all the way down to a baby in a high chair, some with dwarfism, some not. They scatter when we walk in and gather at a long timber table beside more floor-to-ceiling tinted windows. They’re covered in paint.

  “Ash, I told you not to eat the paint,” Raphael says. “Aspen, share the brushes with Elm. Hazel, the paint water is not for drinking. Little Myrtle is working on a masterpiece.” To us, “Myrtle makes everything look brown. I think it’s a skill.”

  I look to the wall he’s pointing at, a section for each child. Ash, Aspen, Elm, Hazel, Cedar, and Myrtle. Myrtle’s are entirely brown.

  “They’re all named after trees,” I say.

  “Ding!” He makes the sound of a game show bell.

  A woman laughs and makes her way past us and to the table to restore order.

  “This is my wife, Susan. She is a saint.” She bends down to give him a long kiss as she passes. “A genius and the reason for my success. Susan, kids, this is Celestine and Carrick. Say hi.”

  “Hi,” they say in unison.

  Carrick and I glance at each other, noting he knows both our names.

  Susan grins and waves us off.

  We follow Raphael. Carrick’s eyes are more green than brown now, his innocence shining through as he studies the place with curiosity. We enter a room with a desk, and we both look around in awe. It’s no regular home office. Everything has been built for Raphael’s height, apart from the couch for us. Raphael sits in his chair; we sit on a couch opposite him.

  On the floor is a rug made from the sewn-together outfit of a cowboy, a flattened rubber face, and a cowboy hat. I step over the boots, trying not to trip on the spurs. Over the fireplace is a human head, fake I hope, with antlers. It’s of a gray-haired old man who’s smiling with a gold tooth. The couch we’re sitting on, I realize, has been made to look like white skin with freckles.

  “Nothing animal here,” he says, watching our reactions. “Irony. Go on, take it in. I’m vegan. Don’t believe in the murder of animals for food, fashion, or interior design. Everything here is faux, including the leather chaps on the rug. I call it Wayne.” He pauses. “I know, I know, a vegan little person. Dining out is difficult, but more so for my sister. She’s a celiac. That’s a joke,” he says, not breaking a smile or taking a breath. “I don’t have a sister.” He stands and goes to a cabinet for a whiskey. “I’d offer you both one, but you’re Flawed and the rules say you cannot drink alcohol. Here’s some water.” He throws us each a plastic bottle from a fridge and we catch them.

  Carrick views the water suspiciously.

  “Don’t worry. It’s not a trick: No animals were harmed in the packaging of that water. So here’s the thing. I love movies.” He reaches over and pulls out a drawer displaying hundreds of DVDs. “I watch around three a day and I know the score. Aged cop is about to retire, but he solves one last case and gets shot. Aged thief takes on one last job before retirement. Goes wrong and he gets caught. It’s inevitable. You attract your fears, art imitates life, life imitates art, and so on, and even though it will concern my wife, Susan, greatly—”

  “Do it or I’ll leave you,” she shouts from the room next door.

  “Even though it will concern my loving wife, Susan, greatly, I will consider taking you on. In my story I won’t get shot or caught. I’m a lawyer who has never lost a case, so for me, the movie is that I come out of retirement, and then I lose.”

  I look at Carrick finally.

  “But that’s the worst-case scenario. I never lose, don’t intend on doing so now. I assume you have no money; you’re on the run, which makes it difficult for you to hold down a job and pay me, and even if you were working, no Flawed job could afford you my fees. It also puts me in a precarious position and makes this even more difficult than it would have been had you not become evaders, but that’s okay. I’m used to complications. I suggest representing you both separately, no offense, Carrick, and I noticed you were surprised I knew your name, but I read the news, follow the court proceedings, and while you
didn’t get anything close to the publicity of your neighbor here, I managed to read a few sentences about your little debacle. An honorable if stupid one.

  “Celestine’s the star here. Every power couple has one member who’s less successful—it always causes cracks, but suck it up, some people figure out ways to work it out. I’m assuming you’re here because I am the only lawyer in the history of the world who has had a Flawed verdict overturned. I don’t know how you found that out, it was strictly confidential, no paper trail whatsoever, but you can tell me that later. It was an outcome that didn’t even benefit your dear friend Mr. Crevan. So how did I do it?”

  He pauses, then smiles.

  “I was right. And right wins every time. Along with hard work, perseverance, ridiculous amounts of money, threats, trickery, and somebody leading the case who has the time to be bothered to care. When I care, I care.

  “Every week I receive dozens of requests from Flawed to take on their cases, and I don’t. I am the fantasy, dream lawyer of many, not because they know of my verdict overturn, but because of my reputation in the courtroom. I am the giant of the Flawed litigation world. Ironic, isn’t it?

  “That’s why I’m here; retired, young, and safe in the mountains away from it all. I’m not quite sure how you found me, but I’m impressed. I can see from your face, Celestine, that you don’t believe me about being safe in the mountains, you frowned when I said it. Well, you’re right, there’s the issue of your friend Crevan. I’ve decided it would be best for us if he and I keep our distance. He’s a sore loser to say the least. But he knows where I am if he wants me. He makes sure to let me know of that.”

  Raphael leans forward and looks at me properly for the first time since I arrived. “As for you, you’ve managed to evade him. Which is a curious thing, for two reasons. How you’re doing it, and why he wants you. And I want to know why, of course, but I can’t let that be the deciding factor in whether I take this case. I can deal with not knowing.”

  He sits back and taps his chin in thought.