Flawed (Flawed, #1)(47)
I shake my head. “I don’t follow politics. I’m seventeen. All of my friends couldn’t care less about it, either. We’re not even allowed to vote until we’re eighteen.”
She looks at me in surprise, studying me as if she can’t believe a word I’m saying, trying to figure me out. “Well, politics is following you, Celestine.”
I mock her by looking behind me to check. I realize I’ve replaced monosyllabic answers with sarcasm, but it’s far more rewarding.
“So you didn’t work with Enya Sleepwell? Meet with her? Before the incident on the bus?”
“What? No!” I reply.
“Some people think you were trying to be a hero,” she says. “That you still see yourself as a hero, that you’re perhaps above everybody else. That your apparent selfless act does not make you Flawed, or at least that it puts you on a different level from the other Flawed. I think you wanted to be different, stand out, were tired of being in the middle of the road, normal girl, boring girl, abider of rules.”
I bite my lip to stop myself from snapping at her, which is what she wants.
“Do you think you’re a hero, Celestine?”
I sigh. “If I was such a hero, that old man would be alive now. Nobody seems to be considering the fact that a man is dead. A man died because an entire bus full of people failed to help him. Do I think I’m a hero? No. I failed.”
She frowns, slightly confused. “But you succeeded in raising your issue to a higher platform. Everybody is now talking about the ‘aiding a Flawed’ rule. An overwhelming number of people want it stricken from the rules.”
I’m surprised to hear this. If it’s gotten rid of, will that mean I’m not Flawed anymore? How can they undo my scars? They can’t. Never.
She looks at her watch, then at me eagerly. “When can we meet again?”
I shrug. “I’m here every day after school. Don’t plan on going anywhere.”
“A popular girl like you? I’m sure you have plenty of offers. I heard you were offered a perfume deal.”
I snort. “What, Eau de Flawed? Who would be bothered to buy that, and why on earth would I want that? You really don’t know anything about me at all, do you?”
“I just wanted to introduce myself today. Let’s meet again tomorrow,” she says eagerly, picking up her briefcase. “If you’re not the boring teenager who was fed up with her life and did something as a cry for attention, then I suggest you talk to me or that will be my story.” She holds out her left hand this time. I reluctantly reach out and shake it with my unbranded hand.
I stay in my seat, fuming, thinking back over our conversation. “By the way, I don’t have five brands.”
She freezes at the door, pivots ever so delicately on her peach pumps.
“Pardon?”
“You said I am the most Flawed person in history, with five brands. Crevan gave me six.”
THIRTY-THREE
PIA IS STILL staring at me. She hasn’t blinked once. I know the press hasn’t reported my sixth brand for some reason, which surprises me. I assumed Crevan would want the whole world to know. If she doesn’t know, she can’t print it. And while Pia’s not knowing gives me comfort, I also want her to know that she doesn’t know everything, that even her basic knowledge of me is wrong. She tried to put me out when I walked in. I’ll put her out when she leaves. If Crevan has lied to her, her little, solid world will be rocked, and I want to see the look on her face for my own gratification. Saying it is worth it for the reaction.
“He what?” she says, shocked, her cool demeanor completely gone. “In court, he distinctly said five.”
I make a decision whether to continue. It will probably come out sometime anyway, better that it’s from me. And even if she prints it, it’s true. Crevan can’t blame me for that. My heart pounds as I say it aloud. “He came to me in the Branding Chamber. He asked me to repent. I wouldn’t. So he ordered a sixth on my spine. Without anesthetic. Said I was Flawed to the very backbone.” I decide not to mention that it was him who branded me. Best to save my revelations.
“He … what?” She can barely speak. “But that’s not allow—I mean, it’s never been…”
She knows she can’t say much more about it. Question and doubt Judge Crevan? In the company of a Flawed? She’s not that foolish.
“Talk to your buddy Crevan about it.” I leave her standing in the doorway in shock.
It’s the first time I smile in almost a week. When the lows are so immense, the victories are small. But they are there despite it. You just have to know them when you see them, little pockets of light and hope hidden away in the darkness.
When I return to my bedroom, I find Mary May has been rummaging through my table beside my bed. I look around my bedroom in surprise. My wardrobes are open, clothes have been pulled off the hangers and left on the floor, and my shelves have been rooted through and left untidy. She’s sitting on my bed reading my journal, which is sitting on her lap, my private diary. I want to cry right there. I haven’t written in it since before the trial, I haven’t had the energy. It feels like a different life, but they are my private thoughts, silly things, embarrassing things, but things that were important to me at the time of writing them. My secret thoughts, and she’s sitting right there stealing them.