Paul Griffin - Burning Blue

She appears at the bathroom door instantly, as if she’s been waiting just outside, and she has, of course. She pulls the tape away quickly.

Six weeks after the burn, and I haven’t yet dared touch it. I regard it as if it isn’t part of me, an invading species that will never quite overtake me, or at least not the rest of my face. How do I live with this, being branded? My mind drifts back to my horse riding lessons. That sweet little red roan with the omega seared into her left shoulder. Riding her into the Meadowlands with Daddy on a clear Saturday morning, letting her graze the salt hay and cordgrass. She looks back over her shoulder to me, as if to ask if it’s okay we’ve stopped.

“Is it okay?” Mom says, her eye on me, on It, what used to be my left eye. I clamp my good eye shut, but I easily picture what’s happening. I feel the pressure stream. Mom pushes down on the hypodermic syringe full of saline to flush the wound. I keep seeing it, over and over. The bottle’s nose. Coming up to my face. An explosion of liquid.

After the scrubbing comes the salve, a low-grade sting, then the dressing and the tape with its epoxy-like adhesive. Then comes the kiss to the top of my head, the hug that lasts a long time. She never says it’ll be okay. I’m grateful.

“Mom, how can I ever ask anybody to be with me now? To put up with the way people look at me or see me or can’t see me? The way I can’t see me anymore? Where did I go?”

“Easy now, Nicole. Breathe. You’re still here. You’re with me, and I love you.”

“This is crazy. I always saw myself loving somebody forever. Being there for him. Lifting him up when he was down. How do I do that now?”

“Honey, there are a lot of guys out there who. . No, there aren’t a lot.”

“Exactly.”

“But there are a few. The good ones. You’ll see.”

“I always saw myself with kids. How do I bring a child into my life now? Say I adopt as a single parent. How do I ask my kid to make eye contact with me? I read about it. It’s all in the eyes, the facial expressions, the thousands of tiny movements in the muscles around your eyes, your lips. The child reads them without knowing it. How is she supposed to feel I’m her protector when she’s reading a horror story? I mean, how are you doing this?”

“It makes me feel good to be able to do this for you.”

I tap her heart. “How are you keeping it together?”

“You’ll get past this. We’ll get past it. Find the good in this, Nicole.”

“The good ?”

“You and me. Us. You were running here, there, and everywhere before. Now we have this time together. And when we’re together, we’re stronger. I really mean that. I feel it. I feel stronger, seeing you overcome this. Being with you. You’re empowering me, giving me the courage to face it.”

“I don’t know how you can even look at It. You don’t even flinch.”

“I don’t mean the burn. I mean face the. .”

“What?”

She sees herself in the mirror. Suddenly she’s exhausted. She strokes my hair. “You’re allowed to cry for exactly three more minutes. By that time I want you in your Snuggie and in bed, and I’ll scratch your back.”

We hug and rock in front of the mirror for a while. My eyes are closed. When I open them, I catch Mom eyeing me in the mirror. She sees I’ve caught her and holds me a little closer, but she was staring at me for just a half second too long.

“What?” I say.

“Nothing,” she says. She winks and I try to wink, but it hurts too much.

She holds out her hand, palm up. The little blue pill. “You just seem so agitated, Nicole. Please, sweetheart.”

I pop it. For her, I swallow the Xanax dry. Anything to get out of this bathroom, to escape the sterile bandage smell, except it’s always with me, the faint scent of bleach. Still, I have to get away from the mirror. From that girl. Me. It.

Mom tucks me into bed. She cuddles with me and combs my hair with her fingers. The Xanax is starting to work. I think I only blinked, but my eyes are closed for hours. When I open them, Mom’s gone and the sun is strong. I haven’t dreamt a thing. Time just stopped.

It hits me: that look I caught Mom giving me in the bathroom the night before. Was it suspicion? My second thought is that Jay Nazzaro hasn’t called. I feel like an idiot all over again. I thought he felt it too, a connection, the possibility of deep friendship rooted in common experience: being afraid of the next attack, not knowing when it’s coming. But can you build a real friendship on fear?

I’m groggy as I head downstairs. Mom is in her studio. She left me a breakfast plate on the counter, steak and eggs. I slide it into the microwave and stare through the window, watching the carousel turn as the food starts to smoke. Suddenly the rain is back. . loud on the windows. I kept the umbrella Jay fixed for me. He knows what it’s like, people trying not to stare at you. They smile sweetly, but really they’re thinking, Freak . Maybe we could be alone together.

The microwave blips. I cut into the meat, overcooked, gray. The stringiness. The veins. I clench my jaw to keep myself from screaming. I try not to look at it as I cut it up and bag it for our neighbor Mrs. Gluck’s cat. On impulse I grab my phone. To hell with it. I check my recent Calls Sent for Jay’s number and tap it.

She wanted to go riding, as in horseback. I’d been on one of those miniature ponies once, the kind out in front of old-school drugstores. Two quarters get you two minutes of slow-motion bobbing. Other than that, the closest I’d come to a horse was when I stepped in a pile of hay-threaded crap left in the middle of the trail at Ramapo Mountain State Park. “Look,” I said, “you and Dave, I don’t want to get in the middle of anything, you know?”

“That’s a little presumptuous of you, don’t you think? If you don’t want to go-”

“No no, I want to.”

“Do you ride?”

“Sure.”

“The forklift.”

“You can ride the horse, I’ll chug alongside on my skateboard.”

“Yeah, no, the horse won’t like that. We’ll see what we can do.”

After school I met her at the stables. My horse was a big black Arabian with a half-moon shock of white for a bib. He ignored whatever I was trying to do with the reins and followed Nicole’s horse into the trails. After a few minutes of smashing my nuts every time the horse trotted a step, I had to ask Nicole if we could take a break. She showed me how to absorb the shock with my knees. I was doing squats for half an hour straight. I had no alternative but to come to the conclusion that horse riding sucked. On the upside, Nicole was wearing riding pants. She had amazing legs.

We came to a clearing and stopped. Nicole popped a pill. “Allergies,” she said. She dismounted and led the horses to a water trough. She whispered to them, and they bent their necks to nuzzle her. She laughed quietly into their ears as she fed them apple bits. I found this resilience almost disturbing. How does a girl who has just been burned in an acid attack find the will to smile? But when she got back onto her horse she grimaced. A very long hour later we were done. She led the horses to their stalls, and I went to the concession stand. We grabbed a picnic table at the edge of the eating area. Nicole squinted into the tree shade.

“Photographers?” I said.

“I left through the service gate. Didn’t see anybody following me.”

Two middle school buses were pulling into the parking lot. The kids were loud.

“Thought you were going to get some peace and quiet, did you?” I said.

“The trails were nice though, right?” she said.