Page 79 of Maybe You

He rolls himself off the bed and goes to the bathroom. A moment later, he appears with a wet washcloth. Instead of handing it to me though, he starts cleaning me up himself, wiping over my stomach and chest, efficient yet gentle, and it’s stupid, but I get a stirring of something weirdly affectionate inside my chest. It’s a bit of a change from the usual, where it’s more of a mix of exasperation and uncertainty.

Once he deems me clean, he drops the washcloth in the hamper before he climbs back into bed.

The room is dim and quiet, the only light coming in through the crack in the bedroom door. I have to get going soon, but the idea isn’t too appealing, so I procrastinate just a little longer.

“Can I ask you something?” Sutton’s voice is low.

I turn my head and send him a curious look.

“I’m not sure. What do you want to know that warrants you asking for permission first?”

“It’s about the scars,” he says.

“Oh. Yeah. Sure. Ask away,” I say, keeping my tone as light as I possibly can. The last thing I need is to be pathetic, so he’ll feel sorry for me. And anyway, it’s not that I mind. It’s just that I’m not used to anybody wanting to ask.

“Your scars have a pattern in some places,” he says.

I wait for something more before I figure out that that statement was a question in itself.

“They’re skin grafts.” My fingers automatically run over the side of my forearm as if confirming said pattern is still in place there. I clear my throat. “Umm… burns are classified by their severity. From first degree to third degree. When you have a first-degree burn, it’s pretty much guaranteed to heal on its own. Deeper second-degree and third-degree burns… It’s too much damage. So then you have skin grafts.”

He doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking at me, so after a little bit, I continue talking.

“If it’s a smaller area, they use just a piece of skin from some other part of your body.” I point to the lower left side of my face and neck. The scar there isn’t really that noticeable. I mean, it’s there, but it’s less in-your-face. “But that only works for smaller wounds, and burn wounds tend to cover large areas of the body, so they use something called meshed skin grafts. Basically they take skin from another part of the body, and then they run it through a machine that makes slits in it. It creates a mesh, so it can cover larger wounds, and then the skin grows back in. It’s actually pretty neat. You don’t really appreciate all the crazy advancements of medical science until a doctor puts you back together.”

He still doesn’t say anything, but there’s a soft click before the room is bathed in low light from the lamp on his bedside table, and he rolls himself on his stomach.

“Can I?” he asks.

I have no idea what he’s asking, but I nod anyway.

He takes my hand and examines the scar. Trails his fingers over it. Then looks up at me.

The funny thing is, he doesn’t have a look of sympathy—or worse, pity—on his face, he just seems curious.

“Does it have feeling like regular skin?” he asks.

“More or less. In some parts the nerve damage from the fire is too extensive, so then it’s just sort of numb. Some of the scars are really sensitive. Some are only sensitive occasionally. With some parts of my skin, I don’t feel anything at all.”

“So it evens out?” he asks with a small smile. His fingers are still tracing the scars on my forearm.

I don’t mind.

I thought I would.

But I don’t.

“Tell me how it happened?” he says next.

I don’t mind.

I thought I would.

But I don’t.

“Electrical fire,” I say. “It was an old apartment building, and we’d lived there my whole life. I was alone, asleep, and for some reason, I woke up. There was this weird whoosh sound and then suddenly the whole ceiling was on fire. I thought I was dreaming it at first. A terrifying dream, sure, but still just that. A dream. Only… I didn’t wake up.”

I take a deep breath.

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