Scars Like Wings

by Erin Stewart

  I pause.

  “Not great, actually. Kind of why I’m here.” I hold out the burn-camp brochure. “I want to get a phoenix like hers. But not my whole back or anything.”

  Gabriel leans against a vinyl reclining chair, his chin propped on his fingers, his eyes searching my body. If he’s shocked by my scars, he doesn’t show it. He just keeps scanning me, inch by inch.

  “I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Piper, then,” he says finally. “You don’t need a tattoo.”

  “You’re not much of a salesman,” I say.

  “Hear me out. Everybody comes in here, picks an image off that wall to tell the world who they are. Express themselves.” He reaches out to me, but stops right before he touches my skin. “May I?

  I nod. He grabs both my hands, seemingly unfazed by them, and holds my arms out wide.

  “But you? Your scars tell your story.”

  “And what story is that?” I say.

  He looks right at me with true-blue intensity.

  “That you’re stronger than whatever tried to kill you.”

  Even though I can barely feel his touch through my numb skin, shivers squiggle through me.

  “Forget the ink,” he says. “You’re already a walking piece of badass art.”

  Asad rolls his eyes behind the guy. I ignore his mockery, although I have to admit this guy is out there. I stand mesmerized for a minute until Asad waves his hand between us.

  “So are we doing this or what?”

  “Yes, yes, we’re doing this,” I say. “This tattoo isn’t just about me; it’s about Piper. She needs to know I’m on her side, no matter what.”

  Gabriel studies the bird on the paper again and pulls a pen out of his man bun.

  “Okay, but if we’re doing a phoenix, we’re not doing this sad sketch. We’re gonna do it right.”

  Like magic, he transforms the bird with ink, turning the small image into a masterpiece.

  “I love it,” I say.

  He vanishes behind the beaded curtain again for a minute and comes out with a woman whose arms are covered shoulder to wrist with colorful ink.

  “Technically, I’m still an apprentice so the boss-woman’s gotta babysit me,” Gabriel says. The woman smiles and shakes my hand, her eyes roving over my scars in a way that feels like when Tony looked at me after my audition, a kind of wonder mixed with—respect?

  Gabriel ushers me to a reclining chair, where he pulls up on a wheeled stool just like the one Dr. Sharp uses. Between the antiseptic smell and vinyl chair, I almost feel like I’m back in his office, about to go under the knife again.

  But like I told Cora, this time, I choose the scar.

  Gabriel spends a few minutes trying to find a good piece of skin as his canvas. I’m too nervous and excited to even care when he and the woman scrutinize every inch of my exposed body. We narrow it down to a spot on my ankle right between where the scar-free skin of my feet bleeds into the roughness of my calves.

  “I can do half the bird in the ankle, kind of flying up into the scars,” he says. “Like it’s rocketing through them.”

  “Let’s do it,” I say.

  I lean back in the chair as he props my ankle up and draws an outline of his creation on my leg. When I approve, the boss-woman gives a nod and Gabriel gets to work. Asad holds my hand.

  “Oh, it’s not so bad.” I unclench all my muscles as the little drill nips at my skin like a series of tiny rubber-band snaps that sting and fade, sting and fade.

  “After what you’ve been through, I’m sure this is a walk in the park,” Gabriel says. He talks while he draws, asking about how I like Crossroads and how I got burned. Even though I’ve never met this guy before, I talk, too. When I tell him about Piper, he pauses.

  “That’s rough. She’s a cool girl.”

  I love him for using the present tense.

  Before I can stop myself, I’ve basically told him everything about my life. About the fire. How I’m in The Wizard of Oz, and how it’s my first time onstage since the scars and how much I’ve missed singing and all things Broadway.

  He tells me the only musical he’s ever seen is Cats, but he loved it. He keeps working, his lips moving slightly and I realize he’s singing softly beneath the whir of the drill. When I recognize the tune, I join in, and we sing the final chorus of “Memory” together.

  Asad shakes his head.

  “Cats? Seriously, dude?”

  Gabriel shrugs, eyes still trained on my ankle. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for the classics.” He smiles up at me. “Killer voice, by the way. That auditorium won’t know what hit ’em.”

  I fight the urge to flick my eyes away from his.

  “Thanks. You too.”

  Gabriel holds his rubber-gloved hands in the air triumphantly like he’s about to launch into an encore: “Voilà!”

  He points to my skin, where he’s captured a phoenix in midflight, her wings stretched out on either side, blazing red and orange and yellow just like Piper’s. Straight as an arrow, her head and beak point fixedly at my scars.

  Gabriel reaches out his hand for mine to help me up, and when I’m on my feet, he spins me beneath his arm slowly.

  “She conquered her demons and wore her scars like wings,” he says as I complete my rotation. “Piper’s lucky to have a friend like you.”

  “I’m pretty lucky, too.”

  Before we leave, Gabriel writes a number on a business card.

  “I added my cell. Call me if you have any inflammation or questions or if there are any local high school drama productions I shouldn’t miss.” He winks at me when he hands me the card. “I promise not to break into song.”

  Outside, I stop to admire his handiwork one more time in the dusky light.

  “Piper’s gonna love it,” Asad says definitively. “The perfect way for you to welcome her back.”

  “Okay, so what about you?”

  Asad laughs as he opens the car door for me. “Yeah, right. My dad just barely started acknowledging me again after the convo about doing curtain calls rather than being on call. A tattoo will not help.”

  “No, I mean about Piper. Are you planning to declare your undying love when she gets back?”

  Asad closes the door before he answers, walks around the front of the car, and when he gets in, he stares at the steering wheel a minute.

  “Someday, maybe. I think you were right—what Piper needs right now is a friend.”

  I raise my hand over the center console between us.

  “Friend zone for life! Welcome to the club.”

  Asad doesn’t hit my palm. He points to the tattoo parlor, where Gabriel waves to us through the glass.

  “Hello? Were you not in there just now? That hippy-dippy tattoo guy was totally flirting with you.” He bats his eyelashes at me. “Let me twirl you across the strip mall, my lady.”

  I reach across the center console to punch him in the shoulder.

  “He was just being nice.”

  Asad starts the car, reaching his arm behind my seat as he backs up.

  “If you didn’t know that was flirting, then you’re as wacky as he is. I’m not saying it has to be that dude because hello—man bun—but someday, some guy is going to rip you out of the friend zone, kicking and screaming.”

  “Like a blind guy?”

  “Maybe.” Asad laughs. “Or maybe just someone who loves your scars because they’re part of who you are.” He smirks as he turns back to the wheel. “You’re a walking piece of art, remember?”

  I wave to Gabriel through the window as we pull away. I tuck the card with his number in my purse where I won’t lose it. As we drive home, I turn my calf to admire his artwork.

  The phoenix tail stretches out below the powerful bird in curly tendrils the same flaming color
s as the wings rocketing up toward my scars.

  I’m not jumping on the scars-are-awesome bandwagon, but this time last year, I would never have believed any part of me could be so beautiful.

  May 22

  A story.

  A shield.

  A star.

  What are these scars?

  Am I this skin?

  All trapped within?

  A broken body.

  A broken girl.

  Or is there more to me than this?

  This patchwork quilt

  of shame and guilt.

  For once, I'm starting to believe,

  Beneath this skin,

  There's still a me.

  Of ash,

  Of smoke,

  Of scars—

  A girl.

  Her wings

  In waiting

  To unfurl.

  48

  With zero warning, exactly twelve hours before facing down my first postfire audience, Piper returns.

  On the morning of the play, as Asad and I leave earth science, I see her at the end of the long science hallway, her face twisting in pain with each scoot-step of her walker.

  Piper makes her way slowly through the crowd, her eyes glued to the linoleum as everyone turns in the same not-so-obvious way as on my first run of the hallway gauntlet. Stares. Whispers behind hands.

  Rumors about the Girl Who Took the Pills. The girl who is walking, painfully slow, right back into everything she tried to escape. Because I didn’t fix it.

  When Piper stops at her locker, she balances on one side of the walker to rip off the two straggler cards that have managed to hang on for her less-than-triumphant return. A few feet ahead of us, Kenzie also watches Piper’s glacial approach. I nudge Asad when I notice the cell phone in Kenzie’s hand. He shakes his head.

  “Forget about her,” he says. “It’ll be a big scene.”

  A searing flame of anger shoots through me as I think of Kenzie’s texts, every nasty word.

  Everyone hates you

  I grab my own cell from my backpack and pull up the number that’s been torturing Piper.

  “A big scene is exactly what I want.”

  I head straight for Kenzie, but she’s moving away from me now, threading her way down the hall. She pulls a blue envelope out of her backpack and hands it to Piper.

  “…from all of us,” I hear her say. “We were so worried about you.”

  I grab the card before Piper can.

  “You were so worried about her?” I say. “You can drop the act, Kenzie.”

  She stares at me, speechless.

  “We all know what kind of a friend you’ve been,” I say.

  Wildfire itching pours over my body as Kenzie turns to me, along with half the hallway. Another day, another me, I would have run away with my tail between my legs. But not today.

  Not when Piper needs me.

  You know you should have been driving

  “What are you doing?” Piper hisses to me through gritted teeth. “Everyone’s staring.”

  “Let them,” I say.

  Around us, I can feel bodies closing in, trying to listen. A few boys start chanting, “Fight, fight.” Kenzie shifts her weight uncomfortably.

  “This isn’t my fault,” she whispers. “I didn’t do this.”

  “You didn’t do what?” I say. “You didn’t cause the accident? You didn’t try to blame it on Piper? What exactly didn’t you do?”

  Kenzie’s eyes widen, nostrils flaring. She shakes her head. “I didn’t make her—”

  “No,” I say. “You didn’t give her the pills, but you did walk away from the accident, and you’ve been walking away from Piper ever since.”

  Kenzie turns toward Piper, who wobbles on unsteady legs.

  “You were the one who hated me first,” Kenzie says. “Every time I see you in that chair, I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. What was I supposed to do?”

  I move between them, the fire inside me roaring so loud, I can hardly hear myself think. Asad stands next to Piper, reaching out to steady her.

  “Ava, stop,” Piper says. Her voice is tiny, almost a whimper.

  I step toward Kenzie.

  “You were supposed to be her friend. You weren’t supposed to text her that she’d be better off dead.”

  Kenzie recoils from me like I’ve punched her in the gut as a wave of whispering surges through the crowd. “I didn’t do that,” she says. “I swear, Piper, I wouldn’t.”

  “Just like you didn’t send that picture of me?” I say.

  Kenzie glances around the crowd, down at the floor, anywhere but at me. She doesn’t answer.

  “That’s what I thought,” I say.

  I start dialing.

  I feel a hand on my arm and turn to see Piper, eyes pleading, face white.

  “Let it go,” she says. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Why didn't you just die that night?

  “Yes. It does,” I say. “And so do you.”

  I press send.

  My phone rings, and my eyes—all eyes—are on Kenzie’s pink cell, waiting for it to light up.

  Beside me, Piper makes a choking sound as she twists backward, reaching into her backpack.

  A familiar ringtone of synthesized piano breaks the silence, turning my insides to ice. I look toward the phone—not the one sitting dead silent in Kenzie’s hand but the one that’s halfway out of Piper’s backpack, ringing in time with my own.

  Maybe you still should

  49

  Piper silences the phone, but it’s too late.

  “I told you to let it go,” she hisses under her breath.

  A hundred other pairs of eyes watch me, but mine are stuck to Piper. She looks again like the fragile girl in the hospital bed. And now I’ve pulled back her curtain in front of everyone.

  “It was you?” I whisper.

  The crowd melts away one by one. No fight today, folks. Just a broken girl in the middle of a hallway, trying to disappear. A few people loiter, watching, whispering, waiting to see what happens next. Kenzie stares at Piper, and I wait for some triumphant display or Kenzie-style verbal judo. Instead, Kenzie reaches out to Piper, placing her hand on the walker.

  “I had no idea things were so bad,” she says. “If I had known—”

  Piper swats her away, and as she does, Kenzie tilts her head toward the ceiling, trying to stop a tear that escapes defiantly, streaking down to her neck along a jagged pink line I’ve never noticed before. A scar, the same still-healing hue as Piper’s, slices from her jaw to her collarbone.

  When she catches me looking, Kenzie flips her hair back in front of her shoulder, hiding the scar no one can see, the one she let make her ugly anyway.

  Piper yanks her walker away from both of us, teetering unsteadily. Dr. Layne’s words ring in my head: you can let people in or you can let your scars push people away. Piper pushed Kenzie away. Kenzie pushed back. And they both ended up alone.

  Now Piper’s cutting me out, too.

  She glances up at me with empty eyes, and when she does, a realization settles on me: I can’t fix this.

  No more than I can fix the scars on my face.

  But there’s something I can do.

  I turn so I’m next to Piper, keeping my steps in line with hers.

  “You’re making it worse. Just go away,” she whispers, her voice tight. “I don’t need you to stand up for me.”

  “I’m not. I’m standing up with you.”

  Piper lifts one hand from her walker, wobbling to the side as she pushes me away from her.

  “Just go!” Her words ring loud even above the noise of the hallway. “Everyone is looking at us. You hate that. So Just. Walk. Away.”

  “No.”


  Piper’s face flushes red as she stops again, midstep, and raises her hands wildly in the air.

  “It’s a freak parade, then! Hey, everybody. Step right up to see the show.”

  Half the people around us turn away in embarrassment. The other half can’t look away.

  “The burned girl and the psychopath, for your viewing pleasure!” she yells.

  “It won’t work this time,” I say. “You can’t cut me off before I leave, because I’m not leaving.”

  Piper groans and continues to scoot-step her way down the hall, edging her way through clusters of people who jostle her and her walker. When she veers into the bathroom, I veer, too.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she says.

  She turns to me inside the bathroom, yelling so loud that a terrified freshman drops her paper towel on the floor and scurries between us to escape.

  “What do you want, Ava? An explanation? Is that it? I lied, okay? I sent those text messages so you’d stay away from Kenzie. Congratulations—you were right! I’m possessive and needy and jealous, and I couldn’t stand the thought of you being friends with her.”

  “I don’t—”

  “And then, guess what.” She cuts me off. “I liked it. It felt good to put down the truth of what everyone thinks.”

  “You think everyone wishes you were dead?”

  She pulls away from me when I try to touch her shoulder.

  “I know they do.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “And you’re stupid. Didn’t you hear what I said? I lied. I used you. I am a crazy, pill-guzzling maniac, and you should get as far away from me as possible.”

  When I don’t move, she maneuvers her walker into the handicapped stall and slams the door, locking it tight.

  “Go away!” she yells through the barricade. “You can’t fix me!”

  I sink onto the tiled floor next to an overflowing trash can and pull my knees to my chest.

  “I’m not trying to fix you,” I say. “I’m trying to tell you I love you. Scars and all.”

  The kind of love I thought died with my parents. The kind I thought was gone forever when I saw my face.

  Love without fine print.