The Story of My Face Read online

  To Joel, Hannah, and Emma—

  my sun, moon, and stars.

  And it took cutting back

  the prettiest parts of myself

  to finally realize that this shell

  does not define me.

  For I am so much more

  than the flesh and bone

  that case the beautiful tragedies

  of my heart and mind.

  ~Becca Lee~

  DUCK AND COVER

  The sun sits in a brilliant blue sky, making the snow sparkle. To the west, cows and hay bales speckle the rolling hills right to the foothills. Snowy Rocky Mountains rise in the distance. I used to want to live right in the middle of those mountains. Not anymore. A shiver comes over me, and not just because of the cold breeze that whips the air.

  Simon and I walk down the long driveway toward the township road. My boots squeak on the packed snow where Dad’s truck plowed a track on his way to work early this morning.

  “I thought you were my best friend,” I say.

  “I am your best friend, Abby. What could be worse than taking the school bus and facing everyone right off the bat?” His bushy brown hair and eyelashes are tinged with white frost.

  “Nothing is worse!” The scar on my thigh rubs against my near-

  frozen jeans. I stomp my foot, which does nothing to stop the irritation. Just when everyone thought spring had arrived, the weather turned icy. March in southwestern Alberta always keeps you guessing.

  “All the gawking, pointing, and sniggering will fizzle out in the twenty minutes it takes to get to school. Then you’re done,” says Simon. “I’m doing you a big favor. Besides, all the major players are on this bus—Serena, Briar, Grace, Liam…”

  I was really hoping to avoid Liam. Praying that he changed schools or went on the student exchange to Spain like he’d talked about or was abducted by aliens. Nice aliens, not the ones that dissect human bodies and extract organs.

  I thank every deity ever dreamed up that Mason drives his beat-up truck to school and no longer takes the bus. But I won’t be able to avoid him for long. Please, please, please don’t let him be in my drama class. My stomach suddenly feels like I drank a pitcher of sulfuric acid.

  I dig in my jacket pocket for the figurine my grandma gave me while I was in the hospital. A small wooden carving of a bear standing upright on its hind legs, arms outstretched, head thrown back. I take off my glove and rub the smooth surface with my thumb and then hold it tightly.

  The school bus heads down the road toward us. I breathe deeply, creating an icy fog and pull my scarf over my face. I try to quell the shakiness in my body. My heart beats a heavy-metal drum solo. I grab Simon’s arm, something to hold me up. As the bus pulls to a stop, I see a row of faces in the frosted windows, including Liam’s, peering out at me—the freak show.

  The door swooshes open. I push Simon’s tall lanky body ahead of me.

  “Simon, to what do I owe this pleasure? Jeep in the shop?” Kelly has been the same bus driver on our route since we started at Rocky View High in grade nine.

  “Just couldn’t stay away from you any longer, Kelly.”

  Her face opens into a big smile and she slaps her knee. The thick roll around her belly jiggles when she laughs. “Hey, Abby. Welcome back,” she says.

  “Thanks for the card you sent me,” I say quietly as I climb the steps and pull the hood of my jacket over my head as far as it will go. But it doesn’t cover enough of my face. I hide behind Simon as he makes his way down the aisle. Out of the corner of my good eye I can see people’s reactions—going wide-eyed like they’ve just seen a bad accident, doing double takes, craning to see more of me under my hood, talking behind their hands. I feel like puking.

  “Hey, girlfriend,” Serena says to me in a cheerful way that sounds as fake as her thick, curled eyelashes look. “What’s up?”

  Briar, Serena’s wannabe clone and my replacement, sits with her and waves lazily at me with her bright orange nails, barely taking her eyes off her phone. The disaster that is my face is old news to Briar. She already closely scrutinized me when Serena brought her over to my house last fall soon after I got out of the hospital. The whole twenty-two minutes and forty-two seconds they were over. Briar’s mouth gaped, her eyes opened as wide as anatomically possible, and her eyebrows raised so high I thought they’d disappear into her hairline.

  Grace is in the seat across the aisle.

  “Glad you’re back, Abbs.” Grace stands, her black corkscrew curls stuffed under her red hat. She searches my face with her dark brown eyes in a warm, gentle way and gives me a big hug.

  “Thanks.”

  I spot Liam sitting by himself and our eyes meet. I pull the scarf higher over my face. My heart pounds even harder. He quickly shuts his eyes, leans his mop of blond hair against the window, and listens to music I can hear coming through his earbuds. Probably Kongos or The Killers.

  Simon leads me to the bench at the very back of the bus and sits beside Jackson, his fellow computer geek. They bonded at nerd camp at the University of Calgary last summer.

  “Hey, Abby.” Jackson looks everywhere but right at me. His cheeks are round and red. He still has braces on his teeth.

  “Hi.” I sit.

  I keep holding tightly to the wooden bear. As Simon and Jackson natter on about programming languages, all I can think about is how much I dread walking through the school doors.

  ***

  Being on display in front of the whole school is far worse than the bus ride. I feel naked as crowds of students in the hallway, heading for class, jostle me. I try to be invisible under my hat and scarf, but a group of pesky grade nine boys points at me. They don’t even try to hide their disgust. People I’ve known since elementary school stare. When they finally clue in by mentally rearranging the puzzle pieces of my face, they offer feeble greetings.

  Mason and Dax are laughing and joking with a group of guys. In true Mason style, just for sport, he trips a poor unsuspecting grade nine boy, who falls flat on his face. Books and papers fly across the floor. His buddies laugh even louder. I have to stay as far away as possible from Mason for the next few months until school ends. Keeping my head down, I weave away through the swarm.

  Near the school office, the glass case still displays photographs of last spring’s drama performance, Saint Joan, by George Bernard Shaw. There I stand, center stage as Joan of Arc, my army of French compatriots behind me. My hand raised, beseeching Commander Dunois to lead the forces against the English. That night was pure magic. As soon as I was on that stage, the rest of the world fell away. Sounds weird, but I truly felt that night I embodied Joan of Arc. I swear I could even hear the voices of Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine, the angels who were sent by God to guide Joan on her mission. My lines flowed out of me as if I never had to memorize or rehearse them. I study another close-up shot of me. In spite of with the harsh shadows of the theater lights, my face looks normal, even pretty. I want to sit down right here in the main hallway and bawl my eyes out.

  I’m supposed to be heading for biology class. Instead I take a detour behind the stage of the auditorium. I try the door to the prop room. Locked. I walk around to the door at the other side of the stage and find the costume room open. Dresses, pants, shirts, flouncy blouses, ties, hats, shoes, and bolts of different kinds of fabric are stuffed on shelves.

  I look in the large oval mirror hanging on the wall: the two sides of my forehead sewn in a permanently puzzled look, the left side of my face sunken like a landslide, my crooked mouth that won’t close properly. I try on a smile, like I’ve done about a million times, but my mouth is al
l wonky and refuses to cooperate. One angry red scar starts on my scalp, continues down my forehead, and slices too close to my right eye, forming a thick scar over my eyelid. I can barely see out of this eye. I’ve been told to be thankful I didn’t lose it altogether. The scar continues right down my cheek. I take off my hat and look at the side of my head where the reddish-brown hair that used to be one of my better features is growing back in patches. I touch the little islands of hair on the back of my head. I take off my jacket and lift up my T-shirt. Three gashes: one on my left breast and two above, where the grizzly almost tore open my chest. I turn and look in the mirror at my back where there’s scarring from a skin graft.

  I sink to the floor and breathe in the musty smell. Tears well in my eyes and spill down my cheeks. Sobs start to shake my whole body.

  I make sure the halls are empty before I dump my jacket in my locker. My eyes and cheeks are still red from crying, and I’m now about thirty minutes late for biology class. I pull my hat down and position my scarf as high as I can over my face. I open the door. The class is suddenly quiet; even Mr. Jessop stops talking mid-sentence. Everyone stares at me. I find an empty desk at the back where I won’t be on display and sit down. I scan the class. Serena sits beside Liam, and I mean her desk is right beside his. She puts her hand on his arm, leans very close, and whispers something in his ear. He smiles weakly. I can see him blush from way over here. I wonder if she said something about me, or maybe that’s my paranoia coming out to play. Just in case, I tug my scarf as high as it will go without covering my whole face. Now that I’m deformed and therefore “undateable,” Serena’s moved right in. It’s poetic: the two people who dumped me have come together.

  “Serena, could you please tell Abby what we’ve been discussing,” says Mr. Jessop.

  “Umm…well,” Serena flips through her notebook, “we’ve been talking about different kinds of…sacca…sac-cah-arides.” She’s always been very brainy in the sciences. Liam’s obviously a distraction for her in this class.

  “Good attempt, Serena. Liam, what can you fill in for Abby?”

  Liam looks straight ahead at Mr. Jessop. “Saccharides are the unit structure of carbohydrates. We’ve been discussing the differences among monosaccharides, disaccharides, and polysaccharides.”

  “Thank you for that, Liam.” Jessop heads for my desk. “Abby, you’ll find the information starting on page sixty-four of the textbook, but you’ve got some catching up to do. Come see me if you need help.” Jessop hands me an assignment I did from home so I wouldn’t fall too far behind this semester. Fifty-six percent. Shit. Guess I’m really behind. I flip through my assignment to see where I went wrong. Pretty much everywhere.

  Jessop goes back to the front of the class. “Okay folks, for the last few minutes of class, pair up and go over the assignment that’s due Friday. Liam, I’d like you to pair up with Abby.”

  Best and worst bio students. I can tell from here that Liam is rolling his eyes. Serena turns around and shoots me an annoyed look.

  Liam drags himself to where I’m sitting as if an invisible force field is holding him back. The desk scrapes on the floor as he turns it around to face me, but he only looks down at the paper in front of him.

  “It’s pretty straightforward,” he says. I notice his fingernails have been chewed right down. “Examples of monosaccharides are glucose, fructose, galactose, and—”

  “Why haven’t you returned my texts and phone calls?” I burst out. I want to punch him and kiss him at the same time. “It’s been over seven months.” I’m loud. Others look over at us, including Serena. Including Mr. Jessop.

  Liam finally looks at me with his hazel eyes, blankly studies my face. What’s he thinking? On his forehead, a blond lock of hair curls in the shape of a question mark. My body tenses, braces for a verbal blow. He shifts his eyes, stares at a corner of the ceiling. I can almost see the pulleys and cranks turning in his brain, searching for the right words. Then he looks at me again with his mouth open.

  “It’s just…I…,” he garbles, then grabs the assignment, walks to his desk, and stuffs his papers and books into his backpack. Suddenly, inside my head, it’s like a stereo turned to max volume. I hear Liam’s frantic screams. “Help me. Someone help!” Like a crazy person, I put my hands over my ears, trying to drown out the sound that only I can hear. As I watch Liam leave the class, my heart sinks right down into my Doc Martens.

  Before next class, I head into the washroom and lock myself in a stall. I don’t even have to pee. I just sit on the toilet seat. I need peace and quiet to calm the furious noise blasting my brain. The washroom door swings open.

  “If I were her, I’d never show that face around school—ever.” I recognize Briar’s voice.

  “Geez, Briar,” Grace says, “give it a rest.”

  “She’s got a point,” says Serena. I peer through a crack in the stall. “Abby must know everyone’s talking about her. I mean, how couldn’t they?”

  I lift my feet off the floor and gently press my boots against the door, in case they look under. I hear the clicks of makeup cases and tubes of lipstick. Last year, Serena, Grace, and I would meet here between almost every class to touch up our makeup. And to gossip. Sometimes to say mean things about other girls.

  Serena continues, “She could have finished high school online. Why would she put herself through this?” She runs a comb through her long blond hair.

  My heart thumps so hard I can feel it throbbing in my ears.

  “Well, I think she’s brave,” says Grace. I look through the other crack and see her leaning against the wall.

  “That’s maybe one word to describe her,” says Briar, and she and Serena giggle.

  “Why shouldn’t Abby come back to school and graduate with her friends?” Grace asks.

  “Ah yes, grad,” says Serena as she twirls her hair into a bun and knots it on the top of her head.

  “Has Liam asked you yet?” Briar asks Serena.

  “Not yet, but I’m going to make sure he does.”

  I gasp, covering my mouth to mask the sound.

  “Have you even thought that maybe he has other grad plans?” Grace says. She knows Liam and I planned to go to grad together, and Liam always keeps his word. Even if he might not want to. Like when he promised his cousin he’d go to a BMX race with him the same weekend our hiking group planned a sweet backpacking trip to the Whaleback Trail in Yoho National Park. He stayed home and went with Ryan like he’d promised. And the time there was a party in Sundre, but Liam had already promised his mom he’d work the evening shift at Java Junction, the café she owns.

  “Other plans? You mean Abby?! You’re kidding, right?” Briar says.

  “Why not Abby?” Grace asks.

  “Seems a bit obvious to me.” Serena puckers her lips at the mirror and grabs her turquoise designer purse.

  “Ditto that,” says Briar, who takes Serena’s place at the mirror and mimics her exact same pucker.

  “I can’t believe you two.” I see a flash of black curls as Grace heads for the door. It whooshes as it opens.

  “By the way, when are we going shopping for grad dresses?” Serena asks. “There are some cool new stores in Kensington I want to check out.”

  They leave.

  And I feel like a boulder is crushing my chest.

  SCHULTZY

  I walk into the drama room and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror that covers one whole wall. For a brief hallucinatory moment I see my old face. I scan the room. Guess who’s in my drama class: Mason. Great. Just great. He and Dax sit across the circle of chairs and stare at me disgustedly, reminding me of what my face has become. Mason says something behind his hand and they both laugh. Tali, Zoe, and Tammy are chatting. I find a free chair beside Carter and Leon.

  “If it isn’t the drama queen herself, ” Leon says. He’s been jokingly calling me that since I
won the lead role in last year’s play. He played one of the male leads—Robert de Baudricourt.

  “Hey, Abby,” Carter says.

  “Hey, you two,” I say. Both sneak peeks at my face, trying not to be too conspicuous. I can only imagine how shocking it is.

  “Abby, what do you get when you cross a dyslexic, an insomniac, and an agnostic?” asks Leon.

  “No idea,” I say.

  “Someone who lies awake at night wondering if there is a dog.”

  “Ha ha, very funny,” I say.

  Carter jumps in. “What happened to the cow that jumped over the barbwire fence?”

  “Dunno,” I say.

  “Udder destruction.” When Carter laughs at his own joke, he bends right over as if he’s going to summersault off his chair. “Leon and I are starting an online joke bank. Got anything for us?”

  Mason hasn’t stopped staring at me. My brain jumps to an image of Venom from Spider-Man, with jagged patches for eyes, hundreds of razor-sharp teeth, and a long slithery tongue spitting poisonous slime at me from across the room.

  “Clean or dirty joke?” I ask.

  Leon and Carter look at each other. “Something in between,” Leon says.

  “In the spirit of winter weather in springtime, what’s the difference between a snowman and a snowwoman?” I say.

  They shrug.

  “Snowballs.”

  “Ha! Nice one.” Carter types the joke into his phone.

  Mr. Owen, Rocky View High’s drama teacher, hurries into the classroom. “Listen up, everyone.” He slaps some files and notebooks onto his desk. Owen rides everyone’s ass hard and doesn’t take any shit. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even like kids. But he’s the one who made me fall in love with drama my first year of high school. Way before he took a chance and cast me as Joan of Arc. After the performance, in his gruff roundabout way, he told me I didn’t suck too badly.

  “As most of you already know, drama week is a few short months away. For the night of the Graduate Drama Showcase, I’m giving one group of grade tens the opportunity to perform a short play before all of you take the stage. For you, the graduating class, instead of performing an ensemble play like we’ve done for the past few years during drama week, you will have a choice. You will write and perform either a monologue or a one-act play. Three to five minutes max for the monologues and eight to ten minutes max for the plays. Don’t be fooled into thinking shorter means easier because it’s not. Monologue folks will be on their own, but play people will choose a partner. You’ll both write, act, and direct each other in rehearsals.” I see a few people pair up. No one looks in my direction. Guess I’m on my own.