I smile at myself in the mirror. My perfect reflection smiles back at me. My eyes sparkle, my cheeks glow, my lips shine. My hair bounces on my shoulders as I giggle. So beautiful. My fingertips brush my smooth skin, passing over my velvet lips and eyelids and into my hair, silky and warm and heavenly.
I stare at myself, transfixed, and start to notice a spot on my cheek, marring my perfection. Just a little red area, but as I watch, the skin seems to bubble and the spot swells up, coming to a head and then bursting and then opening into a hole through which my perfect teeth shine merrily. I open my mouth to scream and my lips stay stuck together. They fall off my jaw into my lap. I put my hands down to pick them up, put them back on, but my hands are gone. Where my delicate fingers once lay are shining, scarred stubs of wrists. I look back up at myself in horror only to find that my mouth and eye sockets have merged somehow and what used to be a face is now a gaping, raw hole…
The light is so bright. Why is the light so bright? I was sleeping, you idiots. Getting my beauty sleep, ha-ha… Turn them off, give me some peace, why don't you. "Maggie." Some stupid bitch is calling my name. Keep calling- these eyes are staying closed. "Maggie, your mother is here." I open my eyes. They rove around the hospital room before resting on her. She looks awful. Her hair looks greasy and her face is puffy and her eyes look dead to the world. I guess I should say something. "Hey, mom." She smiles weakly at me. She hasn't adjusted very well to the "new me"- the one with no hands, no feet, no skin on her face. She hasn't gotten used to my no-lipped smile or my nose-less profile. She can't seem to meet my eyes, the one part of me that didn't change in the accident. I stare into her eyes. I dare her to return my gaze. She doesn't. Her eyes have wandered down to the bedspread and her head is tilted down, away from the world. The nurse (bitch) puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. Her mouth curves into a smile again but her eyes aren't wrinkling the way they should. I decide to try again. "How are things back at home?" I haven't been home in six months. The last time I saw my house was when I left for prom in May. It's almost winter now, but I don't feel the cold. "We're fine. Your brother made the football team at school this year- the only sophomore on varsity." Her voice has pride in it, pride that quickly falls below the surface as she looks up at me. Her eyes focused somewhere behind my head, she says softly, "We miss you, Maggs." Her face is blank. I look for the sparkle in her eyes and find only a sharp light like tiny crystals of methamphetamine. I pretend to fall asleep and watch as she quietly gets up and leaves, being careful not to look at me.
This is how it's been since May. Prom was the greatest night of my life- I looked like a movie star, or at least that's what my boyfriend told me. Alan used to be the biggest thing in my life. He cared so deeply about me it used to stun me sometimes, used to stop my breath in my chest when I looked into his eyes. We danced the whole night, grinding to the fast songs and swaying to the slow songs. When I was with him, it didn't matter that half the school thought I was a whore. It didn't matter that the girls would giggle or retch when I passed and that the guys would either look or not look at me, but always pointedly. I would forget the fights I'd been in and the friends I'd lost and just bury myself in his warmth. When prom was over, we made our way over to the Hilton on Central, where a huge party was in full swing. The details have grown hazy since, but I remember having one drink, then two, then three. I remember watching Alan get a little silly as alcohol flooded his tender teenage sensibilities. And I remember getting in the car, buckling myself into the passenger side as Alan took the wheel.
I woke up two months after prom, woke to skin as tight as shrink-wrap and bones as brittle as clay. Alan's car had collided with a truck on a midnight run from the farms out in the sticks into New York, and had burst into flame on impact. Alan had flown through the windshield and had died instantly after hitting the side of the truck with his head. I was slammed back into my seat and burned for two minutes before emergency workers could open the car enough to recover my tattered body. They thought I was dead too. No such luck. My corpse underwent twenty-three reconstructive surgeries after the crash, but even then they couldn't save my nose, my hands, my mouth. They couldn't save my feet or breasts or lungs. My eyes are intact, but badly scorched. The lenses I wear to see are about a half-inch thick. Needless to say, I avoid mirrors.
I didn't at first, though. When I first woke up I couldn't move, and the nurse broke the news in stages. The first time I asked what had happened, she talked about my feet. "We weren't able to save them, hon." "What's that supposed to mean?" Except my lips were missing and my tongue a stub, so it sounded like the ravings of a drunk mute, and I had to repeat it several times. The nurse was kind, and worked her way up from my feet to my face, at which point I demanded a mirror. I would spend hours looking at my tight, shiny skin, the holes that served as my nostrils, the nubs of cartilage that used to be ears.
