Page 6 of Penn

“Hearth? Hey, you’re awake.”

Three

Penn

“Hearth? Hey, you’re awake.”

When she looks up, I can tell she’s been crying. I haven’t seen those eyes open in so long, and now there are tears in them and they’re red-rimmed. It breaks my heart. She reaches up to swipe at her tears.

“Penn?” That voice is another first-time-in-a-long-time. Too long. It’s music to my ears when she says my name.

“So you do remember my name.”

“You thought I forgot?” Hearth says.

I proffer a shrug. “I wasn’t sure.”

I take a few steps into her room, and she looks at me like she’s seeing a ghost. Long lashes frame her wide, serene, stunned eyes, made lustrous by the bright shock of the hospital lights. The first time I finally saw her eyes, not at the camp, butreallysaw them, was here, when I wasn’t sure if they saw me back. Couldn’t think much on that matter then, I was trying so damn hard just to get my heart to start back up again.

On any previous visit, I wasn’t sure if she would remember seeing me here. Now, though, I’m sure. She’sawake, awake. She’s clear.

The look she gives me stops me in my tracks.

“What is it?” I ask.

“You’re just like my mom.” She squints at me. “I can’t see my face on your face.”

I tilt my head. Maybe Hearth needs her glasses? “I don’t really know what you mean by that.”

“She hasn’t seen herself yet,” Hearth’s mom’s voice comes in from behind me. I turn to look at Stephanie over my shoulder.“But nobody owes you any pity,” Stephanie says to Hearth, in a soothing tone. “You’re gorgeous, sweetheart.”

Understatement of the century. Hearth’s face isn’tmarredby the softening, still-pink scars; it’s marked by them. Her skin tells a story. There’s a kind of magic in that.

Every mark is beauty, is art, is life. I don’t know how or why, I can’t fucking explain it. But Hearth’s face—it was breathtaking the very first time I saw it, and it’s insanely beautiful now.

Things were tense, the day I first met Hearth’s mom. But we’ve made our amends since then.

“Nice to see you, Stephanie.”

“You too, Penn.”

“Y’all know each other?” Hearth asks, confused.

“Honey, Penn’s been coming here for months.”

“He has? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You haven’t been awake much, until recently. I didn’t want to overwhelm.”

“I’m sorry,” I apologize to Hearth, trying to break the tension between mother and daughter. “I wasn’t sure how awake or aware you’d been. Sometimes, it seemed like you knew I was here?”

“Sometimes I thought I did.”

“Hearth, honey, it’s time,” a nurse comes in announcing. “We need to show you how to keep the skin clean.”

“I should go,” I say, taking a step back to give them some privacy.

“No, it’s fine,” Hearth says.

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