Cora stops at the front desk to haggle about unpaid surgery bills while I meander down the hallway of the burn unit, looking at artwork from some Hospital Arts Initiative to bring beauty to dying people. I don’t even realize I’ve wandered into the regular hospital atrium until a little girl clinging to her mother’s skinny jeans emits a high-pitched scream.

Her chubby little finger points at me.

At my face.

The woman flushes red as she mutters an apology and yanks her child away by her arm. The girl continues to wail and crane her neck back toward me as her mom scurries away. A man in a pleather armchair shifts his eyes quickly back to his newspaper, but I can feel him watching me as I inch my way back to the hallway, trying to act casual.

I wait inside the safety of the burn unit, where people are used to faces like mine. The man with the newspaper steals glances at me from down the hallway, making me wish Cora had let me bring my headphones so I could turn on my music and tune out everything—and everybody—else. Instead, I turn to a 3-D art display called Starlight Reflections hanging in the window, and pretend to be immensely interested in the broken pieces of glass shaped like little stars, each five-pointed mini mirror shooting rainbow fragments of light across the hallway.

The cascading Milky Way of tiny mirrors distorts me, reflecting a Picasso reality in the shards that hang together as if one touch will send them splintering to the floor. I find myself in the glass, my red bandana framing my fractured face.

For a second, I allow myself to believe the broken glass is to blame for the broken girl.

Once I step away, my face will be fine.

Normal.

That’s what the committee wants. Go back to high school. Be normal again.

I know better.

Normal people don’t terrorize small children.

Normal sixteen-year-olds look in mirrors. Is my lipstick on straight? Is my hair doing that swoopy thing in the front? Their reflections reassure them, and if they don’t like what they see, they fix it.

For me, mirrors are a reminder.

I’m a monster.

Nothing in the world can fix that.

2

Cora spends the next week in a tizzy of back-to-school shopping, convinced that my successful return to normal teenage life hinges on whether I carry a backpack or an over-the-shoulder messenger bag.

The night before my official “reintegration,” she spreads a lineup of bags on my bed. Bold-printed tote bags, floral canvas backpacks, and nylon crossbodies stare up at me.

“What are the kids using these days?”

I shrug. “I’ve been wearing hospital gowns and pajamas, so I may not be the best style source.”