Page 46 of How to Walk Away

“You love it. Come on.”

Next, I angled the mirror ever so slowly toward my neck. Seeing my face better than expected made me hopeful that the rest might be, too.

But the skin grafts wereworse.

The side of my neck, from my jaw to my collarbone, was utterly unrecognizable. It was purple and gooseflesh-y and mottled like pepperoni. It was Frankenstein-esque. My face, if I didn’t scratch, would heal. But the grafts, even healed, as Chip had so tactfully pointed out, would look like Silly Putty forever. I would forever be a person that other people tried not to stare at in the grocery store. I would forever be someone who made other people uncomfortable.

Now a new feeling cut through my haze: resentment.

I knew what it was like to hate parts of my own body—what woman doesn’t? You “hate” that little bump of fat behind your knee, or that pointy little pinkie toe that doesn’t match the others, or that one crooked tooth. Anything about you that insists on being flawed despite all your attempts to get yourself perfectly uncriticizable is fair game for hostility.

But this was different. Those grafts didn’t even look human.

It was like some alien creature had laid itself down over my neck. Old dissatisfactions with my old self dissolved in the face of what it felt like to look at my shoulder. I’d “hated” my flabby parts before, and I’dthought things were “gross,” but I didn’t even know the meaning of those words until now. The sight of the grafts—puckered and gooey and shiny with Silvadene ointment—was so viscerally shocking, I felt a squeeze at the base of my throat like I might throw up.

I had to look away.

This was the feeling I’d been afraid of—but it was so much worse than I’d feared. It was like a part of the old me, sweet and vulnerable and shockingly innocent, had died. It’s one thing to think about in a theoretical way—we know we won’t last forever—but it’s quite another thing to see it happen. Part of me had beendestroyed. I squeezed my eyes closed and felt a wash of regret. Why hadn’t I ever even appreciated that curve of my neck before, or the smoothness of its skin, or the pattern of its pale freckles? What had I been thinking that night, wearing a strapless dress? Why hadn’t I been more careful? How could I have been the keeper of such a precious thing—my body!—and taken it so stupidly for granted?

“That could have been yourface,” Kit said then, peeking at my shoulder through squinted eyes. “You’re lucky.”

Luckyagain.

“That’s what people keep telling me,” I said.

***

WE DID NOTwind up watchingGreasethat night. The haircut and all that came after was more than enough for me. I did let Kitty set up my computer so I could check email—but then I shut it right back down again when I saw that Chip had posted a photo of me while I was still in the ICU, looking absolutely ghastly, to Facebook, of all places, asking for prayers.

“After a tragic accident,” he wrote, “the love of my life is fighting for survival in the ICU.”

“A tragic accident?” Kit demanded, when I showed it to her. “He’sa tragic accident.”

He’d posted the photo on his wall and tagged me. He’d also linked to a news clip and an article in the paper.

People were understandably alarmed. With every comment, Facebook sent me an email notification, so my inbox was flooded. People were “praying” and sending emoticons of hearts and kisses and angels. They made comments about how great I was and cheered me on. But the volume—there must have been a hundred—felt overwhelming to me.

I fixated on the photo itself, amazed that Chip had overshared so wildly by posting it. I didn’t even want to see pictures of people’spedicuresin my feed—much less bruised shots of tubes and vacuums and abject suffering. What had he been thinking? What was he trying to prove? In what universe would I want a picture of myself looking like a meatloaf posted for the world to see? I had barely summoned the courage to look in the mirror myself—and apparently, I was the last one to know. An ex-boyfriend had even left me a GIF of puppies and kittens licking each other.

This must have been how Neil Putnam at Simtex knew about my situation. The whole damn city seemed to know.

“I’m never going back to Facebook,” I said.

“Of course not,” Kit agreed. “Facebook’s for grandmas. Just follow me on Instagram.”

***

LATER, AFTER WE’Dfallen quiet for a while, and Kit was already starting to make slow, snoozy sleeping breaths, I had to wake her up.

“Kit!” I whispered. Then, with no response, a little louder: “Kit!”

She startled and sat up.

“Great news!” I said, still whispering.

“What?”

“I have to poop.”

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