Then he tosses the envelope at me. When he’s gone I pull myself up and open it. The blood pounding in my ear is deafening and my vision is blurring with tears, but even in the shadows of my stoop I can make out the details of the crowded Indian restaurant in the photograph. There are a bunch of those faux gold diva lamps everywhere, pictures of Shah Rukh Khan almost kissing Kajol, innumerable hanging talwars and images of dancing Hindu gods, and, at a distant table in the back, sitting with a big guy in a deep red turban that matches his shirt, nearly out of focus but with a circle drawn clearly around her face with an X cut through it—like crosshairs—is Charlie.

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It turns out that the earlobe is a pretty vascular area. As I inspect myself in the bathroom mirror I can’t help but think about its similarity to the lips; both are filled with tender collagen and, under pressure, both swell prodigiously with blood. What was once a tidy, buttonlike hemisphere attached cheerfully to my ear is now an engorged wad of livid flesh that sags like an obscene tropical blossom. The skin is embrailled with the textured markings of the pliers’ teeth and it is so tortured by the passage of blood that I can see it twitch minutely with every heartbeat.

Not exactly inconspicuous.

I can’t conceal this from Charlie with makeup, as I do with the various puncture wounds that I typically incur. I’ve never had an injury like this before, so I’m not sure how to proceed. The only comparable bruising I can think of is a hickey, and even though I recall hearing in grade school that you can “brush them out,” after fifteen agonizing minutes with Charlie’s stout-bristled paddle, I reluctantly conclude that you cannot brush out a devastated earlobe.

Ruefully, I concede that I may have to ice it, a step I hate to take because it requires a trip to the freezer, which is where Charlie has stockpiled a cache of top tiers of wedding cakes. Apparently it’s a tradition for a newlywed couple to save this part of their wedding cake—the one with the action figures on it—for their one-year anniversary. For some reason, all of Charlie’s friends have entrusted her with the guardianship of these cakes. I’m not sure what it is about them that makes me so sad²⁸—all those soldierly figurines in glossy black and white, leaning in toward each other—but I can hardly stand to look at them. I haven’t told Charlie this—I’m afraid she would think it is dumb; even I think it’s dumb—but lately it’s gotten worse.

I try to shake it off by popping a couple of tabs of Hemofex, a branded schedule one blood agent to which I’m still pretty new, so it stings. Just like I want it to. Enabled by pill-courage, I plow into the kitchen and force myself to confront the freezer. As if about to dive into dangerous water, I hold my breath, yank open the door, focus hard on not focusing at all on the couples, and grab all the ice I can.