Faceless

by Alyssa Sheinmel

  The first time I saw Adam, I thought the left side of his face looked like someone had chewed it up and spat it out. Now I reach out and trace his scars with my fingers like I’m reading Braille. And in a way, I am reading: Adam’s scars tell a story. “No.”

  He lets go of my cheeks, but I don’t back away. “Then why would you think that I’m disgusted by you?”

  I drop my hand. An if, then statement, the logic so pleasantly undeniable. Still, I shake my head, and a few tears spill over. “But you don’t want me—”

  Adam shakes his head. “Maisie … I have a girlfriend.”

  I shake my head. “You said you broke up with your girlfriend—”

  “With Caroline? Yeah, I broke up with her a long time ago. I heard she got engaged to someone she met in graduate school. She lives in L.A. now.”

  “But then, who?” I can still smell Adam’s cologne, taste his minty breath. “Someone else from Group?”

  Adam shakes his head. “Marnie.”

  “Marnie?” I repeat. “I mean, I knew you had a crush on her, but—”

  “What do you mean you knew I had a crush on her?” Adam interrupts. “Did she say something?” He looks so embarrassed that it almost makes me smile.

  “She didn’t have to. It’s obvious every time you say her name.” I break Adam’s gaze, looking at my lap instead. Quietly, ashamed of what I’m about to say, I add, “But Marnie’s so—”

  “So beautiful?”

  I nod.

  “I know,” he says seriously. “She’s the most beautiful girl in the world.” He presses his hands to his stomach, like just thinking of her sets a swarm of butterflies flying across his belly. The romantic kind of butterflies that I thought people like us didn’t get to have.

  “But …” I wipe away what’s left of my tears.

  “How did I pull that off?” Adam asks for me, grinning. “How did I get a gorgeous girl like Marnie to agree to go out with a freak like me?”

  “There’s no nice way to ask that question, is there?”

  Adam shakes his head. “Believe me, it took me a while to work up the guts to ask her out. But I figured, what do I have to lose? Worst-case scenario, she says no, right?”

  “And you’d have to find a new physical therapist rather than risk the humiliation of seeing her every week after having been so harshly rejected.”

  “Well, that, too,” Adam agrees, chuckling. “But … look, I know it’s super cheesy, but I meant what I said at Group the other night: You have to learn to love yourself before you can love someone else. Because it’s only when we love ourselves that we feel worthy of someone else’s love.”

  “You must love yourself a lot to believe you’re worthy of Marnie.”

  Adam laughs. “I guess I do,” he agrees. “And Marnie’s not scared of a little damage. Or a lot of damage, as the case may be.”

  “So all this time you were only being nice to me because your girlfriend asked you to?”

  “Of course not. I’m nice to you because I like you.”

  “You mean because you feel sorry for me.”

  “I mean I like you.”

  “What do you like about me?” I ask, and Adam makes a face, like he thinks I’m fishing for compliments or something. “No, I mean really. I’ve been trying to … I don’t know, figure out what kind of girl I am now, after everything that happened.”

  “That’s not a question I can answer for you.”

  I groan. “We’re not in Group now, Adam. I’m not looking for wisdom. I actually want to know. Marnie saw past your injuries to who you were, right? I guess I just need to know what’s there—here—besides my injuries. What else people might see.”

  Adam smiles his lopsided smile. “Well, you’re smart, but you know you’re smart.”

  “My grades suck.”

  He shrugs like grades don’t matter. “That’s because you’re tired. Not because you’re dumb.”

  I sigh. “What else?”

  “You’re funny.”

  “Sick jokes that no one outside of Group understands.”

  He shakes his head. “No. If people outside of Group don’t laugh, it’s because they have crap senses of humor. You’ve got a sharper tongue than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “I think my accident sharpened it a bit.”

  “Hey, who knows what those surgeons did to you while you were unconscious, right?”

  “Gross!” I wince, imagining them reaching into my mouth and shaving my tongue into a point. “Maybe I just felt the need to cultivate more of a sense of humor now that I look like this,” I add, gesturing to my face.

  “Maybe now you just say what you’re thinking,” Adam counters.

  “You don’t always have to be so wise,” I add, shoving Adam so hard that he falls off the bed.

  “You’re strong,” he adds, laughing as he hits the carpet. “Did I mention strong?”

  “Adam, be serious. I’m trying to figure out who I am here!”

  “Okay, fine,” he says, setting his mouth into a straight line and pulling himself back onto the bed beside me. “You’re—I don’t know, you’re determined.”

  “Competitive.” I sigh. “I’ve always been competitive.”

  Adam shakes his head.

  “No,” he says firmly, “not competitive. You’re not trying to beat the people around you. You’re just trying to do well, on your own terms.”

  I cock my head to the side, considering. I think Adam might be right. Maybe somewhere along the way, I stopped trying to make everything into a competition. Maybe Maisie 2.0 isn’t actually a loser, like I thought.

  After all, you can’t win at having had a face transplant.

  On Monday morning, Serena is waiting for me in the school parking lot. She looks relieved to see me.

  “What are you doing here so early?” I ask, closing the car door with my hip.

  She nods solemnly. “I was worried that I might not get to you in time.”

  “In time for what?”

  “I didn’t want you to find out from someone else.”

  Before the accident, I would have thought Serena was just being dramatic (which she’s always had a flair for being). But before the accident, I was just a normal girl, the kind of girl nothing enormous ever really happened to. Now that my life has been touched by an actual tragedy, the whole world seems more fragile. More susceptible. Serena no longer seems dramatic. Maybe she just understood what I didn’t know before: Bad things happen every day, even to normal people like me.

  “It’s about Chirag,” Serena says, and something inside of me collapses, like a balloon that’s been popped. Something happened to Chirag. Was this how he felt when he heard the news about me? Like he’d never be able to catch his breath again?

  One thing I know for certain: Breakup or no breakup, I will take as good care of him as he took of me. I will chauffeur him around town and I’ll never scold him for being grumpy or demanding or rude. And I’ll be kind—I’ll shower him with all the kindness I withheld every day since I got home from the hospital.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m ready. Tell me what happened.”

  Serena takes a deep breath and she doesn’t look at me when she says: “He’s taking Alexis Smith to prom.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t make me say it again,” Serena moans. “I know you heard me.” She looks like she’s actually in pain. So I say it for her.

  “He’s taking Alexis Smith to prom?”

  “Yes.” Serena nods solemnly. “Officially,” she adds, the same way I would.

  I burst out laughing.

  “What’s funny?” Serena asks.

  I shake my head. (Man, do I love being able to shake my head. I wonder if it will always feel like such a luxury.) I’m laughing so hard I can’t talk.

  “May-Day,” Serena says, stomping her foot, “why is this so funny? I dragged myself out of bed at the crack of dawn to make sure I’d get here in time to tell you.” She kicks the ground and mutter
s, “I don’t think it’s funny.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say finally, catching my breath. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t take getting out of bed early lightly.”

  “Hmmph.” Serena pouts.

  “It’s just, I don’t know. I guess—I mean, I knew they were going out, right? Of course he was going to take her to prom.” Just like of course he was going to take me a year ago.

  “I know. But I just thought …” Serena hesitates, biting her lip.

  “What did you think?”

  “I don’t know. I thought you still wanted to go with him. You know, since you didn’t get to last year.”

  Suddenly, all traces of my laughter disappear, my mouth resetting itself in a straight line. Serena’s right. Part of me did want to go to prom with Chirag, the part of me that still imagines dancing with him when I’m feeling sick or sad. I tried to imagine myself with Adam, but I couldn’t. I was still dreaming of going with Chirag, still hoping for that perfect night.

  “You don’t look so good,” Serena says.

  If someone said that to me in Group, it would be a joke. The whole circle would erupt into laughter. But here, in the parking lot of our high school, where some of my classmates still stare at me, even after all these months, even after they’ve had plenty of time to get used to the freak in their midst, I answer, “I don’t feel so good, either.”

  “Do you want me to take you to the nurse’s office?”

  “No.” I shake my head. “No, I’m okay.”

  As we head to homeroom, I can’t help wondering: Did he hold up a sign for her, too? Did it say I love you the way my sign did?

  I bet they’re going to rent a limo. He’ll wear a perfectly tailored tuxedo and she’ll—I don’t know what Alexis Smith will wear. She’ll be one of the only juniors at the senior prom and I’m sure she’ll want to show off. She’ll wear something slinky and short, maybe with sparkles down the back and her hair pulled into an updo. Nothing like the matronly nun dress I’d have to wear.

  If I were going. Which, obviously, I’m not.

  At home later, I rifle through my desk. There it is, the picture I tore out of the magazine over a year ago, still in my top drawer. I open up my laptop and start searching. Surely some site, somewhere, still has my dress.

  It takes me more than an hour, but I finally find it on an outlet site. It’s on sale—more than half off—because no one wants to wear last year’s dress to this year’s dance. Even the matching headpiece is on sale.

  I sigh. It wouldn’t matter if it were free.

  I close the page and check my email. There’s not much there but junk, which I set about deleting so quickly that I almost delete something else.

  An email from Barnard College.

  Barnard probably sends an actual letter in an extra-thick envelope when they accept you. They probably only send out emails for rejections.

  I guess the note from Dr. Boden wasn’t enough to make up for my slipping grades, my long list of absences and missed classes, the fact that “track superstar” was no longer part of my application. In the fall, I typed my admissions essay with a pounding migraine and I’m not even sure I had the wherewithal to use spell check before I sent it.

  Or maybe they just didn’t want a broken girl like me going to their perfect school. I mean, my scars may have faded, but they’re still scars. I might be able to make it through the day without needing a nap, but I still can’t stay awake past ten p.m. and sometimes I still sleep through my alarm. Maybe Barnard knew that some mornings, my mother still has to shake me awake.

  I stand up and back away from the computer. My heart is pounding and I’m flushed and hot, sweat trickling down the back of my neck. The way I felt when I woke from my coma.

  Okay, Maisie, get some perspective. This is a college rejection we’re talking about, not a life-altering injury.

  But it is still life-altering. I mean, it could be. I open my window and let in some air. I wait until goose pimples are blossoming on my arms and legs, even in between the thick scars on my left side. Then I go back to the computer and open the email.

  Instead of a note saying thanks but no thanks, I see fireworks. Like, cartoon fireworks. And there’s music, too. The graduation song. And after the fireworks is the word Congratulations! and then finally a note, promising that a package will follow in the mail, but for now, they just wanted to congratulate me on being admitted to Barnard.

  I got in.

  I thought I would be jumping up and down for joy, but instead, I’m kind of nervous. In fact, butterflies are dancing across my stomach. Maybe it’s because I finally have to tell my parents about Barnard, convince my mother to let me go, tell Serena I’m not going to Berkeley with her after all.

  No. That’s not it. I press my hands to my stomach, trying to quiet the adrenaline.

  I expected it to be a no-brainer: If I get in, I’m going. Thousands of miles from people who know my old face, from my parents’ shouts and slamming doors, from my mother’s badgering and my father’s sad eyes, the ones that miss his pretty little girl, that gaze at my childhood photos with longing. I wanted to be far, far away from all of it. Far away from Chirag and Alexis Smith.

  But now I’m not so sure. Without my mother’s badgering, who will make sure I get out of bed in the morning? Without my father’s sad eyes, without those photos, without Chirag—who will remember me as I used to be?

  Early Saturday morning, Adam shows up in running clothes.

  “Let’s go, Winters,” he orders.

  I shake my head, still drowsy. “You woke my parents.”

  “How was I supposed to know you people weren’t early risers? Come on, get dressed.” He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet on our stoop, blowing on his hands to keep warm.

  “No one should be that perky at this hour in the morning,” I complain, but I hold the door open to let him inside. I used to be a morning person, too. And the truth is, I woke up a few minutes before the doorbell rang.

  “Hey!” I shout, suddenly realizing. “I slept through the night.” Last night, I didn’t dream about my donor. I don’t remember dreaming at all.

  Adam stops bouncing long enough to step over the threshold and into the living room.

  “Do you think it means that I don’t care about my donor as much as I used to? I mean, maybe thinking what happened to her should keep me up at night.”

  “It might just mean your body is adjusting to your meds,” Adam suggests. When he sees the worried look on my face, he adds, “There are other ways to honor her, you know.”

  “I don’t really know,” I answer slowly, sitting down on our terra-cotta stairs.

  “Do you think there will ever be a day that goes by that you won’t think of her?”

  “Of course not.” Every time I look in the mirror, I see her, wonder about her. What was she like? Is her family okay? Will they ever know what they did for me?

  Adam says, “Maybe that’s enough. For now, at least.”

  “Maybe I could reach out to her family someday. Write them a letter or something.” I stop myself. “Not that I could send it. They chose to be completely anonymous.”

  “Maybe someday they’ll be ready to hear from you,” he says. “You can always write the letter now and wait to send it. I could help you.” Adam reaches for me and squeezes my shoulder. “Now, get dressed. I’ll wait for you.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t run.”

  “They told me the same thing. Didn’t stop me.” Before I can protest, he continues, “I’m not saying that you shouldn’t listen to your doctors. But you also have to live. You have to do the things you love to do. Otherwise, what did we survive all this for?”

  “Who are you, Yoda?” I ask. Chirag made me watch all six Star Wars movies, even though he said the first two weren’t nearly as good as the rest of them. “Seriously, Adam. I tried. It’s not just that I’m not supposed to. I really can’t.” Still, the bottoms of my feet itch to be out there. My feet weren’t burned i
n the slightest. They clearly don’t understand why the rest of my body is being such a bore. “I’m not a runner anymore,” I add solemnly.

  “What the heck does that mean? Come on.” Adam grins his lopsided smile. “We’ll go slow,” he promises.

  I hesitate. Adam is still bouncing on the balls of his feet, his calf muscles flexing with each spring. Moist air is spilling into the living room through the open front door; I inhale, smelling the early-morning scents I used to know so well: pine needles and coffee, grass and the wind off the bay. My heart starts beating just a little bit faster.

  “Okay,” I say finally, standing. “But if I hurt myself and get into trouble with your girlfriend I’m not above throwing you under the bus.”

  “Fair enough,” Adam replies.

  In my room, I dig through my drawers for my running clothes, then hug them to my body like they’re a long-lost friend. In the bathroom, pulling my hair back into a ponytail for the first time since my accident, I catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror. Today, it doesn’t surprise me. Right now, at least, it’s just what I was expecting to see.

  Adam sets the pace, and I follow. I don’t try to run alongside him, and I don’t try to pass. The fog is so thick that when he gets more than a few steps ahead of me, I can barely see him. I’m cold, my running clothes soaked through with mist and sweat. My feet feel weak. I wince with every footfall. The pain is different now, not as shocking as it was in November, but impossible to ignore. My left side is stiff, slower than my right. The muscles wrapped around my rib cage pound out a dull ache every time my left foot hits the ground. No, Maisie, they seem to scream.

  Stop it, Maisie.

  What are you thinking, Maisie?

  This was a bad idea. I can’t even breathe this hard through my new nose, so I’m panting through my mouth like a dog.

  Turn around, Maisie. Go home.

  No, Maisie. No, Maisie. No.

  But out loud, in between labored breaths, I manage to whisper the word “Yes.”

  We’re less than half a mile from my house when something clicks inside of me. My body—both sides of it—remembers this. I know how to do this: I know how to run.