I’m vile. So fucking vile.

I groaned and shook. But this time it was sobs coming out of my mouth. I curled up in a ball and pitied my existence for the millionth time this year.

My heart hurt. My chest ached. My body felt weak. My life sucked.

So I cried. Even though it didn’t make me feel better, I cried.

*****

I spent an hour cleaning up my mess. It would have probably taken ten minutes if I actually gave a fuck. Then I took a shower and sat curled up on the tile floor. The water pounding down on me was cathartic. I liked to imagine the water had a healing power and could take away all my ugly.

I stood up on numb legs after and stepped out. I didn’t glance in the mirror once as I dried myself off and headed back to my bedroom. I threw an overgrown sweater on and baggy pants. I tied my hair up and slipped into my beaten up sneakers. Then I grabbed the keychain off my desk and threw my backpack strap over my shoulder.

The day was still young as I moved through the still house. I grabbed my lunch from out of the fridge and slipped out. I put my hood over my head and ambled down the sidewalk. It was a chilly morning. Crossing my arms over my chest, I stared down at my feet as I walked. Despite the early start, cars were motoring down the roads speedily on my way to the bus stop.

I saw the same few people waiting when I got there. I felt their momentary stares, but never was there a word spoken. It was okay like that. Strangers weren’t very friendly, and that was exactly what I liked about people these days. They kept to themselves and were too concentrated on having their eyes plastered to their phone screens.

I didn’t even have a phone anymore. That was my own personal choice, and one that Mom forever scolded me about. There was an irony to that.

However, I wasn’t some electronic boycotter with a message to send. I did have an MP3 player, and it was my most treasured item I carried with me wherever I went.

When the bus came bounding our way, I slipped the headphones into my ear and blasted Everloving by Moby. Oh yeah, this was the shit.

I took a seat on the bus and pulled my enormous sunglasses (ones that made me look like a life-sized bug) from out of my bag. I put them on and stared out the window. I watched the world go by. Watched the countless faces through car windows alongside the bus. The tired, angry looks of some. The bored, discontent looks of others. All so generally unhappy.

What they didn’t realize was I’d give anything to trade places with them.

*****

The morning was painful. The classes went by at a dismally slow pace.

College sucked.

I kept my face down, my hood over my head, my eyes on my notes as I scribbled away. Halfway through History, I opened my sketchpad and continued filling in my latest creation’s face. I sketched the soft curve of Mum’s chin, the distinct lines of her high cheekbones, the crinkles around her eyes. I omitted a lot of wrinkles because, well, I didn’t want to remind her she was fifty three. What kind of fucking daughter would I be if I did?

“Well done, Miss Landon,” said Mr Finch before placing my essay in front of me.

I didn’t respond to him as I glanced numbly at my mark. A-

Whatever.

He moved along and I continued filling in the contours of her face. My lips curled up slightly at the mole on the corner of her mouth. She always hated the look of it. Always wished it wasn’t there. Of course she conveniently stopped complaining about it after the incident.

When class ended, I hurried to the nearest handicapped restroom. No, I wasn’t handicapped, but I didn’t want to go to the female restroom and surround myself with chicks who spent minutes on end re-drawing their make-up, hiding their ugly I would have given the world to have.

So I locked myself up and did my thing. Then I washed my hands and finally looked at myself in the mirror for the first time in four days. Avoiding my reflection was a norm for me. My record was ten days.

I swallowed as my eyes danced around my face. I grabbed the sketchpad out of my bag and flipped to the page I longed for to be real. I placed it against the left side of my face, right down the middle where my sketch beautifully illustrated the perfection I used to be.

When it got too hard to breathe sometimes, or if my morning round of puking was especially brutal, I did this. I looked whole this way. I wasn’t ruined. I wasn’t disgusting.

I was me again.

A tear fell out of my eye as I threw the sketchpad back in my bag and looked at what I’d become. At all my ugly. The marred features always felt like a physical slap to the face. The still pink scars ran deep and thick. Jagged and impossible to see past.

Scarface.

I spat at the mirror. “Disgusting,” I told my reflection on my way out.

*****

“Pick a card,” Emily pressed, flashing the splayed out cards in my face.

I batted her hands away so I could watch the television. “Not right now,” I told her irritably.

“Oh, come on. Screw Jeremy Kyle. Watch me.”

“I like Jeremy Kyle,” I replied. “Their shit lives remind me that mine isn’t so bad.”

She sighed and threw the cards on the night table before crashing on the bed next to me. Chewing her gum loudly, she watched the show for a few minutes. Then she pulled out her phone and started her texting regime, with fingers that looked like they had little motors on them.

“Do you want to go see a movie?” she then asked. “It’d be nice to catch up with you somewhere that’s outside of your fucking house.”

“We can see one in here. Look at all the movies on my shelf.”

She glanced at my bookshelf where the very bottom shelf was occupied with movies I hadn’t watched in a millennia.

She grunted in disdain. “Fuck, there’s like one inch of dust on those things. It’d be like recovering a fossil digging around for something to watch.”

I laughed, and she smiled widely. “See, I can still make you laugh, skank. You’re still human after all.”

“Yeah, well, I certainly don’t look it,” I muttered under my breath.

Her smile dropped from her face. An uncomfortable silence ensued before she said, “I’m going to grab something for us to watch from your mother’s collection. They’re more up to date, which is kinda sad because you’re meant to be the hip one and all. Did you want me to grab some more pieces of pizza on my way back?”

“Not hungry,” I replied.

She sighed heavily and walked out. She knew better than to try and shove food down my throat the way Mom did. My appetite was non-existent, so it wasn’t like I was trying not to get fat. I didn’t give a shit about my body anymore.

When she returned, she popped in a sappy romance movie and feasted on a box of pizza.

“You know,” she said after a few silent minutes, “other people have it a lot worse than you, Claire.”

I knew that. I told myself that every day. But it didn’t make me feel better.

She looked at me sprawled out on my bed with the covers up to my chin and continued. “Some people have burns on ninety percent of their bodies. Or have lost their limbs in some horrible accident. And you know what? They’re still living their lives. They’re doing what makes them happy. They don’t bunker down in their house like a survivor on doomsday.”

“I’m trying to watch the movie, Em, so can you shut up?” I retorted.

“Your scars aren’t even that bad.”

I scoffed in disbelief. “I look like I’ve been mauled by a bear.”

“If you actually tried with your appearance – like nice clothes and make-up – then you wouldn’t feel as bad as you do right now. A lot of it can be hidden.”

“But they’d still be there.”

She shook her head, looking defeated. “I don’t understand you! You don’t like the sight of them, and you know with good make-up you can reduce their appearance, yet you don’t want to because they’d still be there?”

I didn’t reply.

She let out an annoyed grunt and turned the television off. “We’re talking! I’m not having a fucking couch potato friend who is more interested in fiction than her own friend!”

“I’m not more interested in fiction.”

“If you’re not watching television, you’re reading on your stupid Kindle. You’re a filthy reader too.”

I made a face. “Filthy?”

“You think I don’t know about all those smutty novels on there? Fucking BDSM shit. Rich billionaires with mommy issues who suddenly have an interest in clumsy, too-stupid-to-live-heroines.”

I laughed out loud as she continued. “You know the reality would be so much different, right? I mean, these fucking women shriek when they’re having sex. Shriek, Claire. And then they squeal, and squawk during their orgasms. What does a squawk even sound like? And then they stare into the eyes of their muscular men while fucking. I’ve never looked into a man’s eyes as we screwed. It’s just awkward. Like, ‘what are you looking at? The goodies are down below. Stare at that instead, you weirdo.’”

I was bent over laughing, tears streaming down my face. “Shut up, Emily! Seriously.”

She grinned ear to ear. “It’s true, though. So stop with that rubbish and actually live a little, yeah? Make your own smut stories out of your real life. You used to jump the hottest men. I swear. Remember the guys at last year’s Royal Show? Oh, my God, I’ll never forget them lining up to you like that. You’d have thought you were the ride instead.”

Still laughing, I looked back on that day. “It was such a cold day.”

“Yeah, and I ended up paying for everything, asshole.”

“It’s not my fault someone pickpocketed me. I bet you it was that granny that snarled at us too.”

Now she laughed. “Maybe it was that hot guy you were sitting next to.”

My heart squeezed at the memory of Stranger. I thought of him often. I didn’t know what to call him, so Stranger sort of just stuck. Fuck, he had been a sight to behold, but I thought more about the conversation we had than anything. I’d never had such a bizarre encounter with someone before – and even after.

“No, it wasn’t him,” I said with certainty on a dreamy sigh. “But he was extremely sexy, wasn’t he?”

“The sexiest.”

I swallowed my disappointment at having not seen him again. I really thought I would. That he was interested in me enough to reach out.

When cards interrupted my vision, I groaned in irritation. “God, Em, I don’t want to pick a bloody card!”

“Yes, you do. You know somewhere inside of you there’s still that crazy, rebellious babe. The sooner you pick a card, the sooner she’ll return to me.”

I looked at Emily’s determined face. When she was stubborn like this, nothing in the world was going to stop her from having her way. So I sighed dramatically and picked a random card. I turned it over and read her writing, noting already that the marker she’d written with looked awfully fresh.

Party this Friday with your best, most beautiful friend =)

I glared at Emily. “Your desperation is just sad.”

“What does it say?” she asked innocently.

“Don’t look at me like that. You know what it says because you planted this card.”

She gasped, insulted. “I did not!”

“Then show me the other cards in your hands.”

She moved away and quickly put the cards back into her purse. “You know that’s against the rules. We’re not meant to look at the cards.”

“And making a whole batch with the same dare is against the rules too.”

She stuck her tongue out at me. “You have no proof. You picked the card, you read the card, and now you must do as the card says or else the Dare Card Gods above will smite you to death and subject you to an eternity of grovelling to a million Emily clones.”

“And if I prefer that to this?”

She rolled her eyes. “We’re going to go out this Friday, and we’re going to have a lot of fun. I promise. Once you’re over this stupid fear of showing people a few little facial scars, then you’re going to be yourself again. I just know it.”

Emily was too optimistic. Too glass half-full type of person. She thought any problem could be rectified easily with a little persistence. Which made this whole situation difficult, because I knew my life would never be the same again. It wasn’t just the scars – and they were far from little as she just stated – it was to do with who I was. I knew myself before the attack. I’d had an identity. And while I wasn’t very proud of that identity, it was all I knew.

Now I was just lost. So scatter-brained with life, I sought refuge by escaping in everything. From studying, to sketching, to reading those smutty books she laughed at me for. It kept my mind off life. And the truth was, I wasn’t ready to confront the world just yet. But then again, when would I ever be?

Maybe I needed to be pushed out of my comfort zone. Maybe to stop being afraid, I had to confront my fear.

Chapter Three

Haven’t Forgotten You

The house was a tomb. It was so freaking cold, it was warmer outside than inside.

After another round of puking in the morning, I washed myself and sat down in a lawn chair in the backyard. Directly under the sun and feeling its heat, I did a bit of sketching before turning my Kindle on for a light read. It wasn’t long before last night’s lack of sleep caught up to me. I fell into a light doze, until the sound of the front door slamming shut jolted me awake.

“Claire,” Mum called. “Where are you?”

“Backyard!”

She opened the sliding door to the yard and stepped out. She looked exhausted after a night shift in her nurse’s uniform and her chestnut hair in a messy ponytail. Her face looked a little rundown, the bags under her eyes dimming the green of her irises. She stopped in front of me with a few bags of groceries in her hands and said, “What are you doing today?”