Hurt

Her eyes scream at me like truck brakes. They say the words that the skin and flesh of her face can’t anymore. I think she was burned. Her skin is warped, and everything from her forehead to her neck looks like melted plastic. Stretched. Twisted.

I look down to her hands, and they’re gone too. An insult to injury, Mom would say. In their place are hooks. Not like pirate hooks though - they’re rectangular, with rounded corners. More practical. Less spectacular.

I think about it, and I hope she wound up this way through a good cause. I mean, I hope whatever sacrifice she made was worth it. Maybe something like out of the movies - saving her infant daughter from a chemical fire, or maybe pulling three people to safety out of a burning building.

I want her to be ok with whatever ruined her life. I want her to be able to wake up in the morning, look at herself in the mirror, and not hate what she sees.

She turns away from me, and I know I’ve hurt her. I’m sorry for staring; she’s sorry for going out in public, for looking the way she does, for surviving whatever horrific accident disfigured her. We’re both sorry and I’m so mad at myself for staring.

I am 13 years old, first learning the agony of empathy. And I finally understand what Mom means when she says “There but for the grace of God go I.”