by A. M. Irvin
My brain recoiled. My heart withdrew.
Then I saw his face.
“Nora! You don’t understand! Please!”
I shivered in the hot, stifling room. Sweat and fear mixing together on my skin. Joy that came from a remembered face. A brutally, beloved face. And eyes that always saw what I wished they wouldn’t.
Dead eyes.
I began to shake uncontrollably.
“What happened to me?” I rasped, my voice gone. Ineffective. It didn’t matter in this place. In this hell.
The what plagued me.
And his face.
Dead, green eyes.
Smiling, angry mouth.
Grasping fingers pulling me closer. Hateful, horrible words slamming against my skull.
I remembered him.
As if I could forget.
Don’t forget, Nora. Never, ever forget.
But what about me?
What happened to poor Nora Gilbert?
I hadn’t run fast enough when the monsters chased me.
I had thought I was so smart. One step ahead.
When really I had always been two steps behind.
Not so smart after all.
Poor, poor Nora Gilbert.
The Past
Six Months Earlier
I avoided mirrors.
I made a point not to look at my reflection.
But today was different.
Today I looked.
I wiped the steam from the surface and slid my wire-framed glasses up my nose. Wrapped in a towel, my hair still dripping from the shower, I looked.
And looked.
And hated everything that I saw.
I ran a finger over the angry, raised skin above my lip. I felt sick the longer I stared. They had all lied. It didn’t change anything. I was still ugly. I was still a freak.
It changed nothing!
In a way, I had grown used to the split in my lip exposing my teeth and gum. Two halves that would never join together. Separate pieces of one face.
My cleft palate had been a part of me. A hated part, but a part nonetheless.
I had grown used to the averted eyes and cruel taunts.
This scarred skin was meant to make me feel better about myself. It was well-intentioned dishonesty.
I didn’t feel better.
I didn’t feel normal.
I felt incomplete.
I barely made it to the toilet before the contents of my stomach came up. I shuddered and heaved and then collapsed onto the floor.
There was an impatient knock and I barely had time to cover myself with the towel again before she was standing there in the open doorway. Cool beauty and stern disapproval.
“What are you doing, Nora? You’re making a mess! Look at the water on the floor!”
My mother’s voice was shrill and annoyed.
“I’ll clean it up, I promise,” I told her weakly. I couldn’t rejoice in the way my voice no longer lisped or slurred. I couldn’t focus on this small, yet important victory. It didn’t matter. Particularly to Mother.
“Get up off the floor this instant!” she demanded. So cold. So unfeeling.
I knew better than to ignore her. Mother wasn’t making a request. Her words were painted with thinly veiled threats.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and got to my feet ever so slowly. Wrung out and exhausted, I was unable to meet her eyes. I knew what I’d see.
Disgust.
Revulsion.
Blatant Abhorrence.
I ran my fingers along the scar again. It was supposed to make things better.
Lies.
All lies!
It didn’t change the way she looked at me. There was no love. There was none of the parental affection I had longed to find in my mother’s eyes.
Nothing had changed.
She still hated me.
I would always be the child she wished she had aborted.
I was the miscarriage her body denied her.
I was nothing.
It didn’t matter that doctors had pulled the skin of my lip together. It didn’t matter that the ugly girl was supposed to be all fixed.
In Mother’s eyes, I was still horrible.
“Stop touching it! The skin is still healing!” Mother hissed, smacking my hand away from my face. Her nonchalant abuse made me flinch.
“It looks so awful,” I whispered, knowing I shouldn’t say it out loud. Knowing I should never, ever give her any of the deep, dark secrets of my heart.
Because she was always ready and waiting to crush me. To bleed me dry.
“No, Nora. You looked awful before. You are decidedly less awful now. Ugly. But not awful.”
Bile rose in the back of my throat again. I dug my nails into the palm of my hand and squeezed, hoping the sharp pain would make me feel better.
It didn’t.
Awful.
Ugly.
“Get dressed. You have class. And I don’t have time to wait around for you.” Mother slammed the door without another word.
With shaking hands, I braced myself against the sink and forced my eyes to return to the mirror.
Look, Nora. Look at who you are . . .
The woman staring back was hideous. A woman no one wanted to look at. An ugly woman.
A woman who should never have been born.
A woman no one would ever miss . . .
“You’ll have to walk home today,” Mother said, pulling up in front of Blackfield Community College. I kept my head bowed, my long, blonde hair falling in my face. I hoped to hide behind it. To disappear.
After getting dressed, I had tried to cover up the scars. I secretly raided Mother’s makeup drawer and used her concealer. Today I hadn’t lingered the way I normally would have over expensive lipsticks and eye shadow that I would never wear.
I blotted the detestable flesh with cream and tried to blend it in. I rubbed and rubbed hoping that it would make the evidence of my shame disappear. It didn’t work. If anything it only drew more attention to the site of my former deformity.
“That’s fine,” I mumbled, staring at my hands.
“Sit up! And get that hair out of your eyes!” Mother shouted, her voice piercing my eardrums.
I tried to do as she insisted, but I couldn’t show my face. Never my face . . .
Particularly to her.
“I didn’t pay good money to have you fixed just so you could cover yourself up!”
“It didn’t fix anything. I’m still the same as I always was,” I whispered, hoping she didn’t hear me. When would I learn to keep my thoughts to myself? Particularly thoughts that had the power to injure me. But the words wouldn’t stay inside where they belonged.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, Mother.” I felt her hands in my hair. Fingernails gouging my scalp as she yanked and pulled, tying it back away from my face. She bunched my hair into a sloppy bun at the nap of my neck.
I was bare. On display.
Awful.
“I don’t know what your problem is, Nora. It’s better than what I used to see when I was forced to look at you.” She did nothing to hide her shudder of revulsion. “Don’t forget what you were like before.” She said it with so much venom, so much hatred, that I knew she’d never forget. I had no doubt that my face, my horrible, hideous face, haunted her nightmares.
“At least I can bear to look at you now.”
Her words were knives. Sharp and deadly. Straight to my gut. Buried deep where the wounds wouldn’t show.
But I didn’t flinch. I stopped showing a reaction many years ago.
I got out of the car, my bag heavy on my shoulders, my chin tucked into my chest. I hurried away from my mother and her cruelly honest words.
The wind on my face made me flinch. I hated the feel of air on my exposed skin. I slipped around the side of the closest building and loosened my hair from the elastic band. I ripped and pulled, only feeling better when my face was once again hidden behind the curta
in of pale strands.
Once I was comfortable, I made my way to class.
No one spoke to me.
I spoke to no one.
I didn’t make eye contact. I knew better. No one noticed me anyway.
No one but him.
“Nora!”
My insides lurched and heaved. I was both frightened and delighted. Conflicted, complex emotions ate away at me.
No one ever saw me.
But he saw me each and every time. I couldn’t conceal things from him. He wouldn’t let me.
I stopped and waited for Bradley Somers to catch up. He jogged across the grass, and I wished I could smile at him. Just once. A deep seeded hope defeated and obliterated.
Then I remembered that I could smile.
Now . . .
I hesitantly stretched my lips into an expression I had never used before. Skin pulled taut over my teeth. Upwards. Upwards.
It hurt to smile.
So I stopped trying. I covered my lips with my fingers. Hiding the skin. Hiding the scar.
Bradley stopped once he was by my side. His torn jeans revealed bloodied knees, and I noticed when he pulled the bill of his cap down over his eyes his knuckles were scrapped and raw.
A new cut on his face looked infected and oozing. He wasn’t taking care of himself. He never did.
Bradley was my friend.
My only friend.
He was so much more than that.
It was a relationship born out of loneliness between two people who couldn’t be more different. We took from each other what we needed. We left nothing behind for anyone else.
He drank me dry. I ate him whole.
We were dysfunctional. We were dangerous to each other.
Bradley scared me. He worried me. He was at times cruel and mean. I was silent and unyielding. But in my dark, dark world, he was all I had. In his faux perfection, I was the only real thing he could see.
And he’d never let me go. I would never walk away. That wasn’t an option for two souls like Bradley and me.
Our hold on each other was painful. Neither of us happy.
But we were united in our wretchedness.
“I came by your house last week. After the surgery,” he told me, trying to look into my face. His need to see me had always been disconcerting. I positioned myself away from him.
“I know. Mother told me.” We walked across manicured grass. Not in the sunlight. But in the shadows. It’s where we were most comfortable.
Bradley and me.
Cold and lonely.
Together.
“You could have called. I’ve been worried about you.” He sounded concerned. But there was something else mired in his anxiety. A thread of accusation.
Steady, Nora.
Steady.
Keep things calm . . .
“I’ve been tired, Bradley. I’ve been sleeping a lot.” It was the truth. I needed to sleep. It was the only place I didn’t completely lose myself.
“Can I see?” he asked, his voice softer. A gentleness he reserved for times like this. When it was only us.
Just for me.
He bent down, moving aside my hair. He was close. Too close.
No!
Bradley, with strong fingers on my chin, lifted my face into the light. I shivered, clammy and ill.
He stared at me. At my lip. At the scar. At skin that was once split in two in a permanent, gruesome grimace.
I was supposed to be fixed.
I knew that Bradley could see how false that idea was.
His green eyes hardened and his handsome face darkened.
He was so, so handsome.
Beautiful even.
With dark, unkempt hair and eyes that often flashed with rage. His face was just right with a straight nose and full lips. Lovely and horrible like hemlock. I wanted to touch him but knew better.
Even with the cuts above his eyes and the infected sores at the corner of his mouth from the tobacco juice that dripped continuously from his lip, he was still good looking in a rough and tumble sort of way. He drew you in and then broke your spirit. It was his true talent.
Once upon a time I had wanted nothing more than to look at him. Because he didn’t mind my staring. He seemed to enjoy my attention.
But things had changed.
Our relationship had become decidedly more complicated.
He dropped my chin as though I had burned him.
He said nothing.
“I’ll walk you to class.” He took my bag, but I pulled back.
“You don’t need to.” We were used to this song and dance.
Bradley shook his head, ignoring my protests. Forcibly he took the bag from my shoulder, even as I tried to hold on to it. I didn’t know why I felt the need to fight him on this.
But I did.
It was the only fight I could muster towards anything.
Something so unimportant.
We were locked in an inconsequential battle that I could never hope to win.
Bradley gave my bag a tug, and I felt my fingers loosen and let go, relinquishing it to him. He held it tightly in his grasp, not giving an inch. He never would. That wasn’t who Bradley Somers was. He wasn’t a man who gave in or lost control.
Ever.
He protected me.
He was my savior when I hadn’t asked for one.
I shivered.
“Are you in pain?” he asked roughly, sounding so, so angry. It was an anger I could understand.
It was for me.
It was for him.
It was for so many things.
Bradley was my friend.
He forced on me his harsh, uncompromising friendship. I took it greedily as any starving woman would.
Bradley loved me.
The ugly, horrible, disgusting parts of me that disturbed everyone else.
Bradley was indiscriminate in his love.
Foolish in his affection.
Overpowering in his regard.
And I was grateful for his idiocy.
Sometimes I wondered whether he wanted to possess me.
Perhaps he wanted to own my soul.
I gingerly touched the still healing scar above my lip, fingers retreating as soon as they made contact. I felt nauseated. Dizzy. Overwhelmed. Hating what I knew was there. Hating what had been erased.
I nodded.
“A little. I took some pain relievers before I left the house.”
Bradley gripped my bag, and I wondered for a moment whether he was going to throw it. “Why did you let her do this to you? Why, Nora?” he seethed. Softly. So quietly.
“You know why,” I answered him. I felt tired. And it didn’t have anything to do with the pain meds. I was exhausted with the truth.
Bradley grabbed my upper arm and tugged me towards a copse of dead trees just on the edge of campus. I shivered and shook. Cold and frigid from the inside out.
I was scared to look up into his face. Scared of the fury I knew would be there. Unsure if it were directed at me.
Or elsewhere.
“I can’t take it, Nora. I can’t stand by and let her do this to you anymore. Not now.”
Bradley dropped my bag onto the frozen ground and took a hold of both my arms, holding me firm and unmoving in his grasp. He pulled me closer. I didn’t have a choice.
With Bradley, choice was always taken from me.
I felt entirely too helpless.
I hated him for that.
I loved him for it just as much.
“Why does this have anything to do with you, Brad?” I asked softly, staring at our sneakers, toe to toe, almost touching. Bradley’s feet were so much larger than mine. He could stomp on my toes and break bones if he wanted to. Just as his huge hands could snap my arms in half if he had a mind to.
“Don’t call me that, Nora! Never call me that!” he hissed, leaning down so that I could feel his hot, harsh breath on my cheek. I glanced up at him through my lashes. I could see the Skoal he ha
d tucked into his bottom lip. A small dribble of saliva beaded at the corner of his mouth, eating away.
He leaned away briefly and spit on the ground. I tried not to make a face, but my revulsion was obvious.
“I thought you quit,” I said, sounding critical.
Bradley let go of me long enough to wipe his mouth with a tissue he kept tucked in his pocket. “I’m trying, Nora. I told you I would. Don’t you believe me? Isn’t my word ever enough for you?”
I was used to Bradley and his constantly fluctuating moods. Up and down. Like a roller coaster. He could make you smile and laugh, and in the next breath, make you cry and scream.
He could be amazing.
He could be the most terrifying thing in the world.
There was no predicting which way his wind would blow. I had learned to batten down the hatches and wait for the storm to pass.
“You’re hurting me, Bradley,” I murmured, calling him the only name that he ever wanted to hear.
Brad was the name his father called him. It was a name he detested. I only used it at certain times. When I demanded the control he took from me so naturally.
He relaxed and looked contrite. Ashamed. “I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry,” he pleaded, his green eyes sad.
I backed up a step and he dropped his hands. My skin throbbed from his fingers, and I knew there would be bruises later.
“I know you are.” I gave him the smile he had always wanted. The one I had never been able to give him. But now I tried.
For Bradley, it meant everything.
My cracked, broken heart thumped wildly and just like that my friend, my Bradley, erased the pain.
There was a twisted beauty in what we were to each other.
He lifted his hand and almost, not quite, touched my lip. “I just hate how she’s trying to change you. I wish you wouldn’t let her.”
“She knows what’s best, she always does,” I argued. It was a lie. But it was easy to tell.
He adored my disfigured, ruined face. But he adored it more before.
When I had told him that my mother had scheduled an appointment for me to see a plastic surgeon in order to discuss reconstructive surgery to correct my cleft palate, he had demanded that I fight her. He had wanted me to tell her that I wouldn’t go.
“You don’t need to fix anything, Nora!” Bradley had stated emphatically. As though it were obvious.
I didn’t tell him that I would do anything if it meant a chance to feel normal. I would sell my soul so that I could look in the mirror and see something beautiful. I had thought that maybe, with the surgery, I’d have my chance.