Beautiful(24)

“I was a few feet from the bomb. A hell of a lot of shrapnel happened. They put me in a coma for three months, while they did most of the surgeries. They got a lot of the shrapnel out, but not all. And I’ve got some pretty nasty scars all over my body. I look like I got hit by a train. There’s no way I could still walk down a runway in an evening dress. People would run for the exits screaming.” She smiled as she said it, but he didn’t.

“And nothing touched your face? That’s amazing,” he said, and watched her eyes intently as he did.

“I have a few there too.”

“Is that why you’re wearing the mask?” he asked her gently, and she didn’t answer him at first. She thought about it, and then she nodded. He was her friend, and she trusted him. She had no one else left.

“You don’t need to see that. It still looks pretty rough. I have two more surgeries coming up, but some of it is as good as it’s going to get. I’m still getting used to it myself.”

“You don’t need to hide from me, Véro. We’re friends. I was a medic in the army. I’m made of pretty strong stuff. The mask must be annoying,” he said sympathetically.

“You get used to it. I went for a walk without it the other day, and several people looked as though they were about to scream. It’s only on half my face. The other side is fine. The right side took a heavy hit.”

“You don’t need to wear a mask for me. You can take it off if you want. I promise I won’t faint.” He smiled at her.

“I nearly did when I saw it,” she said, but she made no move to remove the mask. It was humbling to have him see how damaged she was now. She hadn’t touched her glass of wine. She hadn’t had a drink since the explosion and she wanted to be sober with him, although they had had some wild nights at parties they’d gone to. But those days were over for her now. It felt like her carefree youth.

He reached out and held her hand, and they sat there quietly, not talking, as she leaned against him. It felt good just being close to someone, and not having to pretend that she was better than she was. They sat there for a few minutes, and then she reached up and gently unhooked the mask looped around her ears. The left side of her face was toward him, the right side away from him.

“It looks fine to me,” he whispered to her, still holding her hand.

“That side is fine,” she whispered back. “It’s the other side.” And she turned slowly toward him, until he had the full view of what had happened to her. He didn’t say a word for a minute, and then he nodded. There were tears in his eyes, but he didn’t scream or react, or look horrified. It was heartbreaking to see what had happened, but he wasn’t shocked, just sad for her.

“I’m not fainting. You’re still beautiful, you know. Maybe a little more so, because you’re not so perfect. Now can I take you out to dinner, since you don’t have to wear that thing with me? Or we could both wear a mask and pretend we’re doctors on a date?” She laughed, but it was as though someone had released all the tension in her body. He was right. She didn’t need to hide from him. It was an incredible relief.

“You don’t have to pretend it’s okay. I know how ugly it is,” she said sadly. She had looked at it a million times herself.

“What’s ugly is that human beings do things like that to each other. That’s the ugly part. The scars are just proof that you were there. There’s no shame in that. You don’t need to apologize for it, or protect people from it. Anyone who can’t deal with it, that’s their problem, not yours. What are they going to do? Blame you for it? Fuck them if they do,” he said easily, and she laughed again. “And you can’t wear a mask for the rest of your life, unless you want to become a surgical nurse. You’re so damn gorgeous, with or without scars. Let them see your face. Just looking at you is a gift.”

“You’re crazy and blind, Douglas Kelly. How can you say that, with a face like this?”

“Because your face is still your face. You’re still you. That hasn’t changed. You’re not just a nose and a cheek and a chin. You’re you because of what’s inside you. That’s what people love. The rest is just very pretty window dressing, but it doesn’t mean a damn thing. How many gorgeous girls have you and I both seen who’re dumb as shit and mean as snakes, and real bitches? How beautiful is that, no matter how beautiful they are? I’d rather see your scars than look at them any day.”

“I’ve been trying to think it through and make some sense of it. It’s hard to do,” she admitted, and he nodded.

“That’s because doing that to another human being makes no sense. And we have this unreal image of what beauty should be. Women are supposed to look like they haven’t had a decent meal in ten years. They’re so anorexic they make me feel sick. And their faces have to look a certain way. They have to be the right color, the right size, have the right size breasts, whatever is in fashion this week, tits or no tits. It’s all bullshit and hype. The designers tell them what to wear, the experts tell them what they should look like. So they get a new nose, or a chin, or puff up their cheeks, or their asses or reduce their tits. Getting older is unacceptable so they get a facelift and seem like mummies or fill their face with Botox so they can’t smile anymore. Or they blow up their lips till they look like Donald Duck. I’m so tired of shooting all that artifice and crap.