Cover

Dedication

To Kyle.

You've made my life.

1

One year after the fire, my doctor removes my mask and tells me to get a life.

He doesn’t use those exact words, of course, because he’s paid to flash around lots of medical-degree terms like reintegration and isolation, but basically, the Committee on Ava’s Life had a big meeting and decided I have wallowed long enough.

My postburn pity party is over.

Dr. Sharp examines my skin grafts to make sure I haven’t inadvertently grown batwings in my armpits since our last monthly pat-down. Scars can be screwy little suckers, and since my body is 60 percent screwed up, it takes Dr. Sharp a full twenty minutes to check me over. The tissue paper covering the vinyl exam table crinkles beneath me as my aunt Cora watches attentively from the sidelines, scribbling notes in her gargantuan “Ava’s Recovery” binder while her eyes follow Dr. Sharp.

He removes the bandana from my head and then my clear plastic mask, his fingers grazing my scars.

“Everything’s healing beautifully,” he says, without even a hint of irony. The coldness of his fingers registers above my eyes but fades as he moves to the thicker grafts around my mouth.

“Well,” I say, “you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a p—”

“Ava!” gasps Cora, who is not only my aunt but also the self-appointed CEO of the aforementioned committee on my life.

Dr. Sharp shakes his head and laughs, revealing two deep dimples on either side of his smile, which only makes him even more like one of those McHottie doctors on TV who bang each other in the on-call room between saving lives. I blame his smoldering eyes and strong jawline for the butterfly swarm in my stomach every time he touches my grafts. It also doesn’t help that I’m keenly aware he has seen me naked approximately nineteen times. Sure, it’s on an operating-room table, but naked is naked, even covered with gauze and nineteen surgeries’ worth of scars.

But we never address that awkward elephant in the room, just like I never mention the fact that he once literally took a chunk of my butt and stretched it across my face to make a new forehead.

Dr. Sharp hands me a small, salon-style mirror so I can admire his handiwork.

“No thanks,” I say, giving it back.

“Still having trouble looking?”

“Unless I grew a new face overnight, I already know what I’m going to see.”

Dr. Sharp nods while typing a note into my chart, and I sense a forthcoming committee meeting about my resistance to reflective surfaces. It’s not like I haven’t seen my face. I know how I look. I choose not to keep looking.

With a dimply smile, Dr. Sharp holds up my plastic mask.