Muffled cries from the tank often filled the burn unit, so even when it wasn’t my turn, I could never forget the threat of it down the hall. The nurses hopped me up on morphine and let me pick the background music, as if finding the right soundtrack could make scouring off skin any less hellish. The only way to survive was to go somewhere else in my head, to separate from my body.

Olivia, the talkative girl with no scars, prattles about the pain in her past.

“We have to be stronger than the hurt,” she concludes. “Or we miss the whole point.”

Maybe it’s the memories of the tank, or the more recent pain of yesterday watching my new normal slip through my grotesque fingers, but something inside me snaps.

“What could you possibly know about pain?”

Olivia purses her lips, folds her arms across her chest, and looks to Dr. Layne.

“Ava, this is Olivia’s pain, not yours,” Dr. Layne says.

I hold my arms out so my toe-hand is pointed toward Olivia.

“This is pain.” My voice bounces off the nothingness of the room. I point to my face. “This is real. You don’t even have any scars.”

Olivia’s cheeks flush red.

“I have scars.” She stands and starts to roll up the bottom of her shirt, but Dr. Layne jumps up.

“No.” She lays her hand on Olivia’s. “Nobody has to prove anything. Not here.”

Olivia lets her shirt fall back over her perfect skin and sits while Dr. Layne beckons me out into the hallway.

“What’s going on, Ava?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s okay to be mad,” she says. “But hidden scars hurt, too, and Olivia gets to choose how much or how little she reveals about them.”

I kick the toe of my shoe into the wall softly, keeping my eyes away from Dr. Layne’s.

“That’s just it. She gets a choice. I can’t hide my scars. I can’t choose.”

I didn’t choose any of this, actually. My dad pushed me out a window. Doctors saved me without my consent.

“I get it.” Dr. Layne points to the rough side of her face, where her scars pull her lips downward slightly. “Trust me, I’ve been there. It took me a long time to accept this. To accept myself. But I got there. It just takes time.”

“I don’t have time.”

“Cora told me about the surgery,” she says. “And the play.”

“It’s not about the stupid play.”

Dr. Layne takes a step back, holding me at arm’s length.

“Ava. You don’t need that surgery to do the play, if that’s what you want to do.”