He withdraws his hand. “No one told you?” The laughter has gone out of his voice. His mouth twists and he exhales. “We had to shave it,” he tells me. “Not all of it—” he says at the panicked look on my face. “Just some—the left side—pretty much the entire left side.”

I try to raise my hands—what is the mark of insanity?—repeating the same action again and again. Still, I can’t get used to not having control of my body.

He sighs and strides out of the room. I’m still trying to imagine what I look like when he returns with a small compact mirror, which he holds a few inches in front of my face.

It’s worse than I expected.

The entire side, from the crown of my head down to my left ear, is shaved. The brown hair on the right remains but is scorched and matted, about five inches shorter than I remember. I might look like a punk rock chick if it weren’t for the bandages patchworked from my left cheek to the back of my skull. There are red gashes, where flecks of skin are missing from the tip of my nose and chin.

I’m hideous.

Worse—ridiculous. Green eyes overlarge with surprise, alien-like in my face.

I’m laughing so hard, I’m crying.

Dr. Fisher studies my reaction. When the tears start, he hands me a tissue, realizes I can’t do anything with it, and dabs my eyes.

I’m mortified by my vanity.

“Physical changes are hard,” he says softly, reading my thoughts. “Sometimes they’re more of a shock than anything else because they’re visible reminders of what happened.”

His kind voice grates in my ear. Get out, I think, wanting to lick my wounds in private.

I close my eyes and breathe so deeply I taste blood.

How long do I sleep? A minute, an hour, a day? Time’s marked by unusual intervals: Danae flicking my fluid bag with her fingernail, a metal cart rattling down the hall, and irregular bursts of laughter. Who knew there’d be so much laughter in a hospital?

A door swings open. I hear voices, but they’re muffled again when the door falls shut. Every inch of this place—from the lacquered floors to the concrete ceilings—reflects noise. I hear murmurs and whispers, muffled sobs, and imagine the tips of fingers wiping away tears. I think if I close my eyes, I can follow these sounds through the hall into the waiting area and out the front doors, but I always find myself trapped in my bedroom, the walls aflame, and laughter echoing throughout the house. The laughter turns to whispers. I want to scream. But my mouth won’t open. It’s melted shut.

There’s a rhythmic tap on my door.

I squeeze one eye open and hope it’s not still leaking.