Scars Like Wings

by Erin Stewart

Piper laughs, not like ha-ha funny, but more like an isn’t-life-a-kick-in-the-pants, cut-you-open-and-squeeze-lemons-in-the-wound kind of way.

Everyone has their inebriation of choice.”

I didn't want to give up. I wanted to fight— So I started with this: I would not be wheeled out in the middle of the night, an anonymous face under a white sheet. I would walk out on my own two feet.

Pain is pain.

Life is not a musical.

I laugh. “Right. Just two carefree crippled girls out on the town. What could possibly go wrong?”

It doesn’t matter, I tell myself.

Stop making me feel.

Piper pumps her fist into the air. “Disability bonus!” she shouts above the noise in the hallway. “Score!”

What if I could crawl out of my skin, shed it behind me like these disgusterous guys like it’s no big deal? Do they even realize the incredible gift of starting over?

“For every species on the planet, finding this community is not a luxury; it’s an essential element of survival.”

Through Asad’s eyes, everything looks different—better.

“But you’re more than your body,” he says. “Just like everyone else.”

“People can be cruel and ignorant, as you all clearly know. But the way you react reflects not just on you, but on all of us. You should certainly stand up for yourself, but in an appropriate way.”

Everyone would be better off without you.

Questions aren’t bad. It’s the silent starers that get old.

“I always stay until they kick me out.” He jerks his head toward the exit sign. “Once we go through those doors, the magic ends.”

Our demons may be smaller, but that doesn’t make the fight—or the bravery—any less real.”

“As a kid, she thought it was magic how the flowers would shoot up as soon as the snow was gone. She’d forget they’d been under there working like the dickens all winter, growing toward the light.”

The claustrophobic darkness pins me in.

She squeezes my hand. I squeeze hers back. But I don’t say anything—not because I can’t, but because I don’t have to. Best friends never do.

Amazing how one week can change everything.

Glenn was right: spring is a tease, and winter is never going to end.

I don’t even try to stop the darkness that swallows me. I sink into it slowly, swimming in it, letting it envelop me in its familiar nothingness.

Just like the black holes Dad used to tell me about, the weight of my own gravity tugs me inward.

“You called in professional help? I’m fine.” Cora flicks the switch on my wall, making me blink as she floods the room with light. “No,” she says, more forcefully than normal. “You’re not.”

My voice rises along with my panic at this all-too-familiar conversation where people dole out truth morsels so I don’t flip out—so I choose to live despite the pain.

“I think maybe no one is as fine as they’re pretending to be.”

I should have been fighting the darkness with her. We could have fought it together.

“Except the flames do hurt it. They completely consume it. The magic of the phoenix is not that it’s unharmed, but that it’s reborn.”

“Moving on doesn’t mean forgetting,” she says. “It just means letting go of the hurt.”

“But the hurt is all I have left,” I say. “When it’s gone, so are they. I’m alone.”

“You decide how your scars change you here.

Even if I chose life in a moment of panic, how do I keep choosing it now?

“I’m not gonna sit here and pretend to know why God lets things happen to good people like you and your folks, but I know this: God puts people in our path, and my path crossed yours that night,” she says. “Your story is part of mine now, and I know that’s how he wants it—our hearts all jumbled together.”

“There’s always beauty in the ashes. Sometimes we just can’t see it yet.”

“What if she hates me?” Dr. Layne stands up and reaches down to help me to my feet. “Be there anyway.”

Did Cora feel the way I do holding Piper’s hand? Like there’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be.

I wonder if that’s the burden she felt so acutely last night when a bottle of pills looked a lot like relief.

“It’s hard watching someone you love in pain. You’d take their hurt in a heartbeat, but you can’t. It’s their pain.”

I want to tell them I’m scared. I want to tell them about the darkness and that I don’t want to stop fighting.

“It’s a good reminder: Everyone has scars. Some are just easier to see.”

I’m not jumping on the scars-are-awesome bandwagon, but this time last year, I would never have believed any part of me could be so beautiful.

Love without fine print.

“I didn’t want to die, you know,” she says. “Not really. I just didn’t want to live anymore.”

I hold her shaking shoulders on that tiled bathroom floor as we both stop fighting the tears.

She breathes heavily, and reaches out for my hand again. “I’m scared,” she whispers. I steady her with my arm around her waist. “Me too.” I open the door, and we walk out. Together.

“You okay? You’ve got that ‘help, I’m drowning’ look going on.”

“Life is not a musical, Ava, but it is your life. No one can cast you in a role unless you let them.” He catches my eyes with his. “So what part do you want to play?”