I think about how good it felt to sing again, and how much I’ve missed that part of me. I think about sticking it to Kenzie, waging my own war for backstage crewpies and Piper and girls with bandanas instead of hair.

Mostly, I think about being someone other than the Burned Girl.

But then I think about what it would feel like to stand on a stage again, all those eyes staring at me, inspecting me. Might as well dream of soaring over rainbows. I can’t face an audience. Not with this face.

Dr. Sharp makes some computer notes as my brain wanders off the stage and back into this sterile exam room.

“You’re healing nicely,” he says.

Always healing, never healed.

“And how is reintegration going?” he says.

“Well, Doctor, the native species have accepted me into their ranks. I’d say the infiltration is a success.”

Dr. Sharp smiles and shakes his head. Cora puts her hand on my shoulder.

“She’s doing wonderfully. She’s even made a friend at support group.”

“Piper, right?” he says.

I nod, unsettled that Cora has clearly already given him—and probably the whole Committee on Ava’s Life—this update.

“She’s a live wire, that one. When she was in the unit, I had to keep reminding the nurses that there were other patients. She just kind of took over—everything.”

“That’s Piper,” Cora says from her usual position at my side, my recovery binder open on the desk. “But she did convince Ava to join the drama club.”

Dr. Sharp looks up from his computer screen. “Theater?”

“Stage crew,” I clarify quickly. “It’s not like I’m in the play or anything.”

Dr. Sharp searches my face in a way that’s different from his usual scar scan. Like he’s seeing past my skin.

“Do you feel your physical appearance is holding you back?”

“It is what it is.” I lift my thighs off the paper, and it crinkles beneath my shifting weight. Dr. Sharp scoots backward on his little doctor stool, folding his arms across his chest as he studies me.

“What if it wasn’t?”

Cora’s face tells me she’s as surprised by this question as I am. We both know I’ll have surgeries for the rest of my life to fix and remix my scars as they heal, but we were taking a break from the blade. The committee decided.

Dr. Sharp taps a pencil to his chin and screeches his stool toward me.

“It may be time to consider some more specific reconstruction.”

“Like plastic surgery?” I say, my mind jumping immediately to the collection of eyes and ears and “after” photos in my room.

Cora tenses, but Dr. Sharp looks only at me, like I’m finally part of the committee. Like I am the committee.

“Like reconstructive surgery,” he says.

I start talking quickly, barely able to catch my breath.