Scars Like Wings

by Erin Stewart

“Oh, come on,” I say. “I can either laugh or cry about it, and I’m about all cried out.”

‘Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.’

If you don’t laugh, you cry, right?

If you don’t laugh, you cry, right?

Yeah, life’s a real kick in the pants.

I don’t need people to understand me. I don’t need to answer questions or make friends or be an inspirational mascot.

I tilt my head back to restrain the building tears.

But I will not cry. Not here.

I try to calm my racing heart as I continue down the hallway, reminding myself that I don’t need these people any more than they need me. I force my head higher, but what I really want is to crawl into one of these lockers to escape all the eyes. Their stares tell me I’m different, sure, but they reveal an even deeper truth: I’m less.

By the time Uncle Glenn picks me up at the end of the day, my body aches from my full day of “being normal.”

Plus, the whole point of therapy is to pinpoint the pain, dissect it and stick it under a microscope. Why would I want to feel the hurt more clearly?

Forgetting is no accident—it’s survival.

“You know the most basic cowboy rule? If you get thrown from a horse—” I complete the well-worn adage often used in our family: “You get back on.” Glenn nods. “Unless you land in a cactus. Then you have to roll around and scream in pain for a bit. I hope you know, kiddo, that’s okay, too.”

Tragedy isn’t cheap.

Insurance companies aren’t too fond of coughing up cash for co$metic $urgery.

When a wound’s that deep, it’s the healing that hurts.

“Nah, wrong room. Thought this was the modeling callbacks.”

“Hate to bring attention to the charbroiled elephant in the room, but—”

“I don’t know if you can handle it, Wheelie,” I say.

“Crispy cripple!”

“The names don’t even bother me. Rubber and glue and all that,” she says. She points to the box of cards on my desk. “Those are the offensive ones.” She puts her hand to her chest and does a high fake voice. “ ‘Inspiration!’ ‘Your story is so inspiring!’ ‘You’ve inspired me to live to the fullest!’ Well, great, I’m glad my terrible personal tragedy could help you get your crap together.”

What do you call someone who didn't mean to survive? Who sometimes wishes she hadn't?

“That’s what I’m saying. Life is just easier without constantly being reminded of what I am.” “Who you are.” “Same thing.”

"Hold on. For your parents." Mom. Dad. They need me to stay.

“I’m just saying maybe look up once in a while,” he says. “Who knows what you’re missing.”

Pain always pain. Then sleep beautiful sleep.

I want someone to know I’m shooting for a star, even if it’s a small one.

Cora handles “down days” behind closed doors, her grief locked up tight.

I’m thinking about the boy on my right with hazelnut skin, who did.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know—” I shrug. “I’m used to it.” “You shouldn’t be.”

My life, my friends, moving on without me.

“So Dr. Sharp will be the last man to ever see you naked? I hope it was as good for him as it was for you.”

The guilt of the healthy. The first time my old friends visited me in the unit, I felt it. I was burned. They were not. A river of guilt between us.

What if you can’t escape the scars?

God took a permanent marker and already went to town.

“It’s like the universe dealt us this horrible hand in life and it’s our duty to scream back: ‘Well played, craptastic cosmos, but you haven’t met me yet.’ ”

I’m surprised I can even get my sentence out when the only word bouncing in my head is we, we, we, we.

“Nobody said you weren’t wanted.”

Follow the path. Click the shoes. Go home. If only life were so scripted.

‘Everyone deserves the chance to fly,’

‘Courage cannot erase our fears.’

‘Courage is when we face our fears.’

Always healing, never healed.

A familiar darkness creeps into my chest.

The blackness never actually left; I just keep it at bay. So it won’t drag me under. The darkness is easy. Quiet. Numb. If I stay too long, I’ll never leave.

The only way to survive was to go somewhere else in my head, to separate from my body.

He shoved me headfirst into a life where he couldn’t protect me from pain.

“You’re not ugly,” he says, still examining the bell. “And you are not your body.”

I am every bit my body. We’re kind of a package deal. Okay, maybe more like a hostage situation, but still—inseparable.

I hold my breath, afraid even the slightest wind may knock the universe off-kilter and stop whatever is happening here.