Today, they’re looking, but it’s definitely not because of the vehicle I arrive in. I tilt my head downward. I don’t want to meet anyone’s eye, don’t want to see them staring. I stare at Chirag’s legs, and follow them across the parking lot.
Without stopping, Chirag pulls a folded piece of paper from his pocket. I’m careful to reach for it with my right hand. His fingers brush against mine and linger there, like he’s considering whether or not we should walk into school holding hands like we used to. Quickly, I grab the page and pull my hand away from his.
“Your schedule,” Chirag says, gesturing at the page. “Your mom gave it to me.”
I shake my head. We usually get copies of our schedules in homeroom on the first day.
“The administration had to make some changes, so they prepared it ahead of time,” Chirag explains.
I look at my classes. No physics, no track practice. No more running until my lungs ache, no more relays with my teammates, no more ribbons and medals and cheers and applause.
I have never wanted to go home so badly. Not when I was nine and my parents sent me to sleepaway camp for one miserable month. Not when I was fourteen and went to the pool only to discover that last year’s bathing suit had worn so thin it was almost see-through and everyone pointed and giggled. Not even when I woke up from my coma and discovered I was in a strange hospital, in a strange bed, and I could barely move.
I take a deep breath and follow Chirag through the school’s front doors. I squeeze my right hand shut tight, pretending that Chirag’s fingers are laced through mine.
Even with my gaze focused on Chirag’s legs in front of me, I can feel that everyone—people I’ve never spoken to, whose names I’m not even sure of—is looking at me. I move slowly, scared of losing my balance where everyone can see. Out of the corner of my eye, I see that mouths hang open, eyes don’t blink, hands are brought to faces so that my classmates look like they’re mimicking that painting The Scream. A few faces actually look disappointed; I guess I’m not quite the half-faced monster they’d been expecting. I wonder how many of them sat up late last night Googling “face transplants.”
I can’t believe I ever actually wanted to be the center of attention at this school. Serena used to strut down the halls and all the boys turned and stared and I actually envied all those whispers and glances.
Chirag is just a half step ahead of me. I close my eyes and breathe in the smell of him, thinking that it might calm me down, make me feel better.
The next thing I know, I’ve walked right into him.
“Oh my god, Maisie, are you okay?” he asks.
“Ow,” I say, though it didn’t really hurt; I just said ow as a reflex. I can perceive the pressure of his body pressing into my face, but not feel the texture of his shirt, the fibers of the fabric. He could be wearing something as rough as burlap or soft as cashmere and it wouldn’t make a difference. I’m tempted to turn my head so that it’s my mouth against his shirt; my lips and the cupid’s bow above them would be able to feel him.
I open my eyes. We’re outside my homeroom. That’s why he stopped walking.
Phantom giggles come from the kids around us. I back away a couple steps.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Did I hurt you?” He looks like he thinks that my face could fall off just from colliding into his gray sweatshirt. A few months ago, I’d have made fun of him for looking so scared.
“I’m fine,” I repeat, though I’m honestly not sure just how delicate this new face is. Maybe bumping into something could cause major damage. A familiar string of panic winds its way around my ribs. Chirag and I aren’t in the same homeroom. He’s about to leave me.
“I can come in if you want. The teachers will understand.” The gentle concern in Chirag’s voice makes me feel worse. “I can stay until Serena shows up, at least.”
“No,” I insist, shaking my head even though every bone in my body, even the new ones I don’t know very well yet, want him to stay. “I’ll be okay. It’s just homeroom.” I’ve sat in this classroom every morning since my freshman year.
Chirag leans down to hug me good-bye, but I duck out of reach, pretending to step closer to the classroom door. Bad enough he had to touch me when I bumped into him.
“See ya,” I say, turning my back on him.
“See ya,” he answers, and his voice sounds almost wistful, like maybe he was thinking about the way we used to kiss each other good-bye.
Serena breezes into class after the bell rings but before the teacher has gotten to her last name, Marcus, in roll call.
“Sorry I’m late,” she says, slipping into the chair beside mine. I’m sitting off to the left, about halfway back, the same place where Serena and I have always sat in homeroom. I considered sitting in the way back, but I thought that would stand out even more than keeping my usual seat.
“You’re always late,” I answer. The truth is, I can’t remember the last time she made it to class before the teacher had gotten to the S’s. “If only I’d been blessed with a last name like yours,” she used to say. With a name like Winters, she’d insist, she’d always make it in time.
Now, when Mrs. Martens finally reaches her name, Serena shouts, “Here!” so that the whole class erupts into giggles and cheers. Serena actually stands up and curtsies, and the boys all wolf whistle because she’s wearing a short skirt that shows off her tan legs.
Finally, Mrs. Martens gets to my name. “Winters, Maisie.” She says my name loudly and slowly, as though she thinks that my ears were damaged in the accident.
Didn’t the administration cover that in the letter they sent home?
Mrs. Martens looks up from her list, scanning the room for me. Everyone spins around in their seats to look.
“Here,” I say, my voice shaking, my head tilted down so that my hair falls across my cheeks. I don’t shout like Serena, but I don’t whisper it either.
“Of course you are, dear,” Mrs. Martens says, and she smiles a sad kind of I’m so sorry smile, the same way she looked at Colby Cuthbert when her father died of a heart attack freshman year.
I think I hate Mrs. Martens.
She pauses and then moves on to the only name after mine in the alphabet—Wohl, Jason—just in time for the bell signaling first period to ring. Everyone begins to get up.
“Maisie!” Mrs. Martens’s voice rises above the din.
“I’ll wait for you in the hall,” Serena promises as I walk to meet Mrs. Martens in the front of the room.
“There’s a change in your schedule, dear.” When she speaks to me, she focuses her gaze at the empty space just above my left shoulder. A lot of my teachers will do that this year, to avoid staring at my face. I wonder if they all had some kind of sensitivity training: Don’t look her in the face, it will just make her self-conscious.
Instead, it makes me feel like one of the gorgons from Greek mythology. Like they’re all scared that if they look too closely, they’ll turn to stone.
I hold my schedule out in front of me questioningly. It’s wrinkled from Chirag’s pocket. I wonder how long he had it in there. I wonder if it smells like him.
“Yes. You were scheduled for sixth-period physical education on Monday and Wednesday afternoons,” she says. Gym, I think but do not say. No one calls it physical education. “And, well, your doctors didn’t think you should attend that particular class.” I’d like to call my doctors and let them know that what happens in gym class hardly qualifies as rigorous exercise. Mrs. Martens continues, “So, instead of PE, I’d like to invite you to come to my studio and work on some art.”
Mrs. Martens’s art class is an elective popular among the slackers and the stoners. Anyone with actual artistic talent takes classes after school at the art institute in the city. She actually sounds excited, like my inability to go to gym class is good news. She probably thinks she’s going to be the teacher who helps me, like a teacher in a sappy made-for-TV movie, the one who helps the troubled student. She
thinks that in her studio—which is just a regular classroom—I’ll work on a sculpture of my face, all the new features jammed in with the old ones, and have some kind of breakthrough, sobbing in her arms when I see the finished product.
“I’d rather not.” I speak just as slowly as she does. “I mean, if it’s just an invitation, it’s optional, right?”
Mrs. Martens adjusts her glasses. “Of course, dear,” she says. She’s never called me dear before today. “You’re welcome to spend your P.E. period in the nurse’s office, resting.”
From the way she says it, I can tell that that was what the administration or my doctors originally proposed.
She continues, “Certainly, that’s better than sitting on the sidelines while your classmates exercise.”
She smiles again, one of those heart-attack smiles, like she has any idea what it would feel like to sit on the benches while everyone else worked out. “Great, thanks,” I say. I turn on my heel and walk slowly out of the room. My eyes are so distracted by the sight of the new nose, the rest of me cannot feel that before I even get to the classroom door, I start to go cross-eyed. I blink and concentrate on staring straight ahead, at Serena’s silhouette waiting for me in the hall.
I follow Serena to our first class, European History. Over the summer, we were supposed to read A Tale of Two Cities to get ready for our unit on the French Revolution, but of course, I didn’t read the book. Serena is trying to summarize it, but I can barely hear the words fishwives and guillotine over the sound of the whispers and giggles that follow us down the hall. Suddenly, spending forty minutes in Nurse Culligan’s dark office sounds incredibly appealing.
I wish it were time for gym class right now.
By lunchtime, I’ve received at least a dozen more heart-attack smiles, from teachers and students alike. I want to shout Stop smiling! each and every time, but that would probably just draw more attention, so I keep my mouth shut. If I told Chirag, he’d offer a reasonable explanation for the sympathetic smiles, the same way he did for the stares.
The fog has burned off and Serena is already sitting on one of the benches out in front of school. My friend Ellen, from the track team, and her best friend, Samantha, are sitting on the grass beneath her. We’ve waited three years to sit here; it’s kind of an unwritten law at Highlands High that only the seniors get to sit on these benches. Our first day freshman year, Serena and I sat here cluelessly and it wasn’t until the end of lunch period that a sophomore took pity on us and explained the angry stares we’d been receiving for the prior forty minutes.
I tighten my grip on my lunch bag; Mom actually packed my lunch this morning, something she hasn’t done since I was in elementary school. She wanted to be the one who packed my midday dose of pills. She probably didn’t think I could have done it correctly. As though I’m not intimately aware of each pill I have to take. I’m the one who tastes them on her tongue, who feels them in her throat, who gags in between gulps of water.
Serena’s face is tilted up to the sky, and she pulled the straps of her tank top down over her shoulders to avoid tan lines. Sam turns her face from the sun long enough to glance at me; I haven’t seen her, or Ellen, since before my accident. They each texted me after I came home from the hospital—Get well soon!—but I never wrote back.
“Hey there, May-Day,” Serena says, squinting up at me. “I’m starving. You?” Serena has called me May-Day for years. It used to make me think of spring, for flowers and sunshine. But now I think of the phrase’s other meaning: someone crying for help. M’aidez.
I shake my head. “I’m really not hungry,” I say carefully. “I think I’m just going to sit in the library for a while. Catch up on some reading.”
“What could you possibly have to catch up on? It’s the first day.”
“Oh, I don’t know, the last couple months of junior year?”
“Come on, Maisie, it’s not like they’re going to test you on something you missed.”
I’d love to sit down beside Serena and face the sky. I don’t even care about the risk of melanoma, but the doctors also said that my scars would be more pronounced if I got even the littlest bit of a suntan. I covered myself with SPF 100 before I left the house this morning, but that was hours ago. Now I pull my left sleeve down over my wrist, stretching the fabric until my whole hand is covered. Maybe I’ll wear long sleeves no matter the weather for the rest of my life. I should move to a colder climate.
“I can’t,” I finally say to Serena, barely able to get the words out. A shadow of understanding falls across her sun-stained face and she gets up.
“Ellen. Sam.” She turns from me to face our friends. “I’ve had enough sun for today. Let’s go sit in the shade.”
“Are you crazy?” Ellen says. “I was stuck inside a classroom all summer. I’m not missing a minute of sunshine.” Ellen’s parents made her take classes at a local university for the summer. They thought it would look good on her college applications. Not that she needs it; she’s kind of a genius. I bet she’ll end up at Harvard or Yale or something.
Ellen has yet to look at me. Suddenly, I want to check exactly how many miles are in between Harvard or Yale and Barnard.
“The sun isn’t good for Maisie,” Serena answers matter-of-factly and I swallow a shout of frustration. I can’t believe she just flat out told them that. Couldn’t she have told some lie, pretended that she was the one worried about skin cancer for once? I mean, it’s not good for anyone to sit out in the sun. You don’t have to be a freak like me to get melanoma.
“It’s fine,” I say, sitting down hard on the bench. “Don’t worry about it.” I’ll bring a hat tomorrow or something.
“Don’t be silly.” Serena is trying to sound like her usual cheerful self, but her voice sounds borderline shrill. She stands up and walks toward the school, to the shady benches by the front entrance of the building, where the freshmen sit. Samantha shrugs and follows Serena, looking reluctant but resigned. Ellen hesitates, stretching her legs out in front of her on the grass. Clearly, she doesn’t want to leave her patch of sunshine.
“Really, guys, it’s okay. We can stay.”
Oh my god, am I about to start crying over which bench I’m going to sit on for lunch? I glance at my watch; it’s twelve-fifteen. I’m supposed to take my pills at noon. If my mother knew I was fifteen minutes late—if she knew I’d spent nearly five whole minutes in the sun—she’d drag me inside kicking and screaming, pouring water and pills down my throat as she did so.
“We’re not going to jeopardize your health so that Ellen can get a suntan, Maisie.” I’ve never heard Serena sound quite so serious before. I stand up and follow her like a dog who’s been scolded.
Ellen groans as she stands up. Now she does look at me, a strained sort of scowl on her face. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s disgusted by what she sees or because she’s just pissed about leaving the sunshine behind.
“We can still sit there,” I say softly. “Maybe on cloudy days.” But my words are hollow; people stake out those benches from the first day of school and keep them all year long. We’re not gone five seconds before another group of seniors takes our place.
Once we’re settled on our shady bench, Samantha asks, “So what was it like?”
“What was what like?”
“Being in a coma. Could you hear things? Did you see a bright light? Your dead relatives?”
Ellen pretends to be fascinated by her sandwich, but she’s obviously listening, too.
“It wasn’t that kind of coma,” I say finally.
“How many different kinds of comas are there?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“But don’t you—”
Serena interrupts, “Jesus, Sam, can’t you tell that Maisie doesn’t want to talk about it?”
Defensively, Sam counters, “How am I supposed to know that she doesn’t want to talk about it?”
“Would you want to talk about it?” Serena asks. “Besides, just bec
ause she was in a coma, she’s not, like, an expert on them now.”
“Fine,” Sam says. She sounds disappointed. I feel like I’ve let her down. She and Ellen both watch as I take my pills, like I’m doing something they’ve never seen.
But then, I guess they never have seen anyone with a patchwork face swallow before.
I’m swallowing my last pill when Chirag walks up. Instinctively, my lips curl into a smile, and I have to sit on my hands to keep from holding them out for a hug hello. Old habits die hard, I guess. Actually, last year, we almost never sat together for lunch. He usually sat with his guy friends and I sat with my girl friends—but we’d always text each other to meet behind the school for a kiss before classes started again.
And last year, when he sat down beside me, he’d have put his arm around me and I’d have rested a hand on his knee. Now I just stare at the strip of bench in between us. It reminds me of seeing him in the halls before we started dating, when he was just the boy I had a crush on, the boy I wanted to touch but couldn’t. Back then, even when he and I were in the same classroom, it felt like he was a million miles out of my reach.
“So …” he says finally, “I’ll meet you out front at two-thirty.” Serena, Sam, and Ellen look away, pretending not to hear.
“What?”
“I’ll meet you out front at two-thirty,” he repeats, and I wonder if—like Mrs. Martens, like Eric—Chirag thinks that the accident affected my hearing.
“I heard you,” I say, “but why? I have class at two-thirty.”
“Didn’t you look at your schedule? On Mondays and Thursdays your last class is seventh period so that you can leave in time for PT. And on Fridays, too, so you can get to the hospital for your blood tests.”
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