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Back Scars Like Wings Save as PDF
Chapters (55)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
  9. 7
  10. 8
  11. 9
  12. 10
  13. 11
  14. 12
  15. 13
  16. 14
  17. 15
  18. 16
  19. 17
  20. 18
  21. 19
  22. 20
  23. 21
  24. 22
  25. 23
  26. 24
  27. 25
  28. 26
  29. 27
  30. 28
  31. 29
  32. 30
  33. 31
  34. 32
  35. 33
  36. 34
  37. 35
  38. 36
  39. 37
  40. 38
  41. 39
  42. 40
  43. 41
  44. 42
  45. 43
  46. 44
  47. 45
  48. 46
  49. 47
  50. 48
  51. 49
  52. 50
  53. Acknowledgments
  54. About the Author
  55. What’s next onyour reading list?

From across the room, my reflection assaults me again from the glass of Sara’s doll cabinet, where Barbies with perfect skin and anatomically impossible waistlines mock me.

I rip off my wig and throw it at the mangled girl in the glass.

Looking at her now, I feel the same way I did the first time we met: Who could ever look at a face like that?

Who could ever love it?

March 30

I knew my face was bad.

How could I not know?

The way people looked at me.

The purply-pink swirls on my body.

I knew.

So I didn’t look.

For a month.

Until Cora and the doctors say it's time.

In the mirror,

a stranger.

A stitched-together face.

Some nightmarish Tim Burton character.

Scabby and raw

and unrecognizable.

White patches,

Pink patches,

Wrinkled patches like a melting candle, frozen in time.

Skin tugged tight here,

Loose there—

A skeleton/zombie hybrid.

Like a fun-house mirror,

Everything is slightly off-too big, too small,

too not me.

Fat, puffy pink caterpillars for lips.

Pointy, upturned nostrils with a whisper of cartilage clinging for dear life.

No eyelids to hide the wet pink innards.

No eyelashes.

No eyebrows.

No ear.

"That's not me."

"Look in your eyes," Cora says.

Trapped deep within the monster,

a familiar blue stares back.

23

Piper isn’t at school Monday to commiserate. I text her while walking the hallway alone.

Where are you?

Home

Sick?

Bad day

Understatement of the century. Every day is a bad day

Talk at group

Minus two friend points

Put it on my tab

I squeak by on the math test I didn’t study for and eat lunch without Piper, her weird lunch partners staring at their phones the whole time. Asad waves to me from his table of crew buddies, all laughing and talking like normal people. I skip drama club, partly because I don’t want to face Kenzie’s wrath about Asad’s chivalrous curtain-bombing, but mostly because I know Tony will ask me about the audition. I’m definitely not doing it, but I can’t seem to bring myself to say no, either.

Piper doesn’t show up to group, leaving me to suffer alone through Dr. Layne’s lecture on the power of pain. When she asks us to think of our most painful moment, my mind shoots straight to “the tank,” aka the torture chamber. It’s not really a tank but a sterile room in the burn unit where nurses hose down patients and peel dead pieces of skin from tender, charred flesh. The technical term is debridement.

The layman’s term is hell.