Still, I appreciate the latter’s assumption that there is still love for me at all, despite the fact that they find the very notion bewildering. It would never happen to them, not to someone they love. Impossible. I am poison to some of these people, but I am merely entertainment to others. I learned that from the way I hear some laugh when he drives away and they get back to whatever they were doing, having found the entire thing fun. My life is drama at its mightiest.
I recognize some of their voices. They are the gossip reporters, the news anchors, the familiar voices of my past. And now they’re talking about me. Only it doesn’t sound like me, not that person, just this revved-up version that I don’t recognize. They analyze and dissect my own behavior with more thought than I’ve ever given it myself. I’m too weak to care about it and too embarrassed to listen to it properly. It is wafting in my ears and mind, and quickly out again. I would rather sleep.
There is a television in my room, but I haven’t turned it on, nor have I turned my phone on. It’s for the part of me I lost, the invisible part of me that I never knew was essential. The part I gave away to become nothing.
So far, technically, being Flawed has not altered my life. I haven’t been anywhere, haven’t done anything. I have stayed in this bed, and yet I don’t feel the same at all. Not because of the physical scars and ache, either, but I feel different to the bone. Just what Crevan had intended.
There’s a knock on the door, and I know that it’s Mom. I’ve developed a way of knowing who’s there, of recognizing the different styles. Dad’s is tentative, hesitant as though he’s afraid of disturbing me; Mom’s is all business, like she belongs in the room. She doesn’t even wait for a reply and enters. I turn over on my back to face her, feeling the pain in my spine as I do so.
“Your dad has worked out a way for people to visit. He blacked out the windows of his Jeep. So he can meet visitors at the station, then drive them directly into our garage without anyone seeing.
The garage has direct access to the kitchen, so nobody has to set foot outside the door.
“So if there’s anyone you want to see…”
“Art,” I say simply. Probably the first word I’ve uttered in days. It would be romantic if it weren’t for the circumstances.
She looks down at her hands, the dread clear on her face that I’ve asked about him. I thought he would have visited me by now. I’ve been waiting. Listening. Each time I hear the doorbell, I hope it’s him, but it’s not, it never has been.
“Nobody knows where he is,” Mom says, finally. “After your verdict, he went home and packed his bags and took off.”
“I bet Crevan knows where he is,” I say groggily, my tongue still heavy in my mouth. My throat is dry, and the words don’t come out easily. My tongue feels huge in my mouth. It is this that has been the most difficult sore to deal with as it blisters and scabs.
“No. He’s pretty much going out of his mind trying to find him.”
I smile. Good.
Mom hands me a glass of water with a straw.
“Are people ashamed to visit me? Is that why they’re going through the garage?”
“No.” She pauses. “It’s for privacy. So you can come and go in privacy.”
“I don’t plan on going anywhere.”
“School.”
I look at her in surprise.
“Next week. When you’re healed. You can’t hide in here forever.”
I strangely hope I’ll never heal, so I never have to leave.
“Besides, they won’t let you stay in any longer. You have to face the world, Celestine.”
I wonder whether she will apply this to herself, too. She looks tired around her eyes. She hasn’t left the house for as long as I have been home, no visits to her clinic for a pick-me-up, though she will probably want an entirely new face after the scrutiny she has come under. I wonder how all this will affect her work, if she has been dropped from any of her portfolios. It would be naive to think not. No one can be discriminated against for having a relationship with a Flawed family member. They are not responsible for the actions of their loved ones, but still, people always find a way to get around that. My mom’s life is just another life I’ve ruined.
“Mary May is your Whistleblower. She has stopped by every day, she has been thorough in what we and you are allowed to do. She is … meticulous in her work,” Mom says, and I detect nerves. This woman must be some force of nature. “She has insisted on seeing you every day, but I’ve held her off,” Mom says with a determined look in her eye, and I know it couldn’t have been an easy task. “You’ll meet her in a few days. She’ll run through the rules and then stay with us during dinnertime. She wants to observe that we are abiding by the rules for the first few days. And you will see her every day after that. Each evening she’ll do two tests.”
“Angelina told me,” I interrupt her, not wanting to hear about the invasion again.
“She won’t be in your life apart from that.” She tries to make the daily invasion not sound as bad as it is. “You need to eat something,” she says, looking at my tray filled with food. “You haven’t eaten for days.”
“I can’t taste anything anyway.”