Cecelia Ahern - Perfect

Cecelia Ahern

Perfect

For Yvonne Connolly, the perfect friend

PERFECT:ideal, model, faultless, flawless, consummate, quintessential, exemplary, best, ultimate; (of a person) having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be.

PART ONE

ONE

THERES THE PERSON who you think you should be and theres the person who you really are. Ive lost a sense of both.

TWO

A WEED IS just a flower growing in the wrong place.

Theyre not my words, theyre my granddads.

He sees the beauty in everything, or perhaps its more that he thinks things that are unconventional and out of place are more beautiful than anything else. I see this trait in him every day: favoring the old farmhouse instead of the modernized gatehouse, brewing coffee in the ancient cast-iron pot over the open flames of the Aga instead of using the gleaming new espresso machine Mom bought him three birthdays ago that sits untouched, gathering dust, on the countertop. Its not that hes afraid of progressin fact he is the first person to fight for changebut he likes authenticity, everything in its truest form. Including weeds: He admires their audacity, growing in places they havent been planted. It is this trait of his that has drawn me to him in my time of need, and why he is putting his own safety on the line to harbor me.

Harbor.

Thats the word the Guild has used: Anybody who is aiding or harboring Celestine North will face severe punishment. They dont state the punishment, but the Guilds reputation allows us to imagine. The danger of keeping me on his land doesnt appear to scare Granddad; it makes him even more convinced of his duty to protect me.

A weed is simply a plant that wants to grow where people want something else, he adds now, stooping low to pluck the intruder from the soil with his strong hands.

He has fighting hands, big and thick like shovels, but then in contradiction to that, theyre nurturing hands, too. Theyve sewn and grown, from his own land, and held and protected his own daughter and grandchildren. These hands that could choke a man are the same hands that reared a woman, that have cultivated the land. Maybe the strongest fighters are the nurturers because theyre connected to something deep in their core, theyve got something to fight for, theyve got something worth saving.

Granddad owns one hundred acres, not all strawberry fields like the one were in now, but he opens this part of the land up to the public in the summer months. Families pay to pick their own strawberries; he says the income helps him to keep things ticking over. He cant stop it this year, not just for monetary reasons but because the Guild will know hes hiding me. Theyre watching him. He must keep going as he does every year, and I try not to think how it will feel to hear the sounds of children happily plucking and playing, or how much more dangerous it will be with strangers on the land who might unearth me in the process.

I used to love coming here as a child with my sister, Juniper, in the strawberry-picking season. At the end of a long day we would have more berries in our bellies than in our baskets, but it doesnt feel like the same magical place anymore. Now Im de-weeding the soil where I once played make-believe.

I know that when Granddad talks about plants growing where theyre not wanted, hes talking about me, like hes invented his own unique brand of farmer therapy, but though he means well, it just succeeds in highlighting the facts to me.

Im the weed.

Branded Flawed in five areas on my body and a secret sixth for good measure, for aiding a Flawed and lying to the Guild, I was given a clear message: Society didnt want me. They tore me from my terra firma, dangled me by my roots, shook me around, and tossed me aside.

But who called these weeds? Granddad continues as we work our way through the beds. Not nature. Its people who did that. Nature allows them to grow. Nature gives them their place. It is people who brand them and toss them aside.

But this one is strangling the flowers, I finally say, looking up from my work, back sore, nails filthy with soil.

Granddad fixes me with a look, tweed cap low over his bright blue eyes, always alert, always on the lookout, like a hawk. Theyre survivors, thats why. Theyre fighting for their place.

I swallow my sadness and look away.

Im a weed. Im a survivor. Im Flawed.

Im eighteen years old today.

THREE

THE PERSON I think I should be: Celestine North, daughter of Summer and Cutter, sister of Juniper and Ewan, girlfriend of Art. I should have recently finished my final exams, been preparing for college, where Id study mathematics.

Today is my eighteenth birthday.

Today I should be celebrating on Arts fathers yacht with twenty of my closest friends and family, maybe even a fireworks display. Bosco Crevan promised to lend me the yacht for my big day as a personal gift. A gushing chocolate fountain on board for people to dip their marshmallows and strawberries. I imagine my friend Marlena with a chocolate mustache and a serious expression; I hear her boyfriend, as crass as usual, threatening to stick parts of himself in. Marlena rolling her eyes. Me laughing. A pretend fight, they always do that, enjoy the drama, just so they can make up.

Dad should be trying to show off in front of my friends on the dance floor, with his body-popping and Michael Jackson impressions. I see my model mom standing out on deck in a loose floral summer dress, her long blond hair blowing in the breeze like theres a perfectly positioned wind machine. Shed be calm on the surface but all the time her mind racing, considering what is going on around her, what needs to be better, whose drink needs topping off, who appears left out of a conversation, and with a click of her fingers shed float along in her dress and fix it.

My brother, Ewan, should be overdosing on marshmallows and chocolate, running around with his best friend, Mike, red-faced and sweating, finishing ends of beer bottles, needing to go home early with a stomachache. I see my sister, Juniper, in the corner with a friend, her eye on it all, always in the corner, analyzing everything with a content, quiet smile, always watching and understanding everything better than anyone else.

I see me. I should be dancing with Art. I should be happy. But it doesnt feel right. I look up at him and hes not the same. Hes thinner; he looks older, tired, unwashed, and scruffy. Hes looking at me, eyes on me, but his head is somewhere else. His touch is limpa whisper of a touchand his hands are clammy. It feels like the last time I saw him. Its not how its supposed to be, not how it ever was, which was perfect, but I cant even summon up those old feelings in my daydreams anymore. That time of my life feels so far away from now. I left perfection behind a long time ago.

I open my eyes and Im back in Granddads house. Theres a store-bought cold apple tart in a foil tin sitting before me with a single candle in it. Theres the person I think I should be, though I cant even dream about it properly without realitys interruptions, and theres the person I really am now.

This girl, on the run but frozen still, staring at the cold apple tart. Neither Granddad nor I are pretending things can continue like this. Granddads real; theres no smoke and mirrors with him. Hes looking at me, sadly. He knows not to avoid the subject. Things are too serious for that now. We talk daily of a plan, and that plan changes daily. I have escaped my home; escaped my Whistleblower Mary May, a guard of the Guild, whose job it is to monitor my every move and assure that Im complying with Flawed rules; and Im now off the radar. Im officially an evader. But the longer I stay here, the higher the chance I will eventually be found.