My neck.
My arm.
I screamed.
My mother screamed too.
Then she grabbed me with both arms and carried me outside.
Neighbors were coming out of their houses.
Someone called 911.
Someone threw a blanket around me.
Someone kept saying, “Stay awake, sweetheart.”
I remember looking up at the sky.
I remember seeing stars.
And I remember thinking something strange.
The stars looked completely normal.
That was what confused me.
How could the sky look normal when my entire world was burning?
Then everything went black.
I woke up in a hospital.
My mother was sitting beside me.
She looked exhausted.
Her eyes were swollen from crying.
When she saw me awake, she grabbed my hand.
“Baby.”
I tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
My throat hurt.
My face hurt.
Everything hurt.
I lifted my hand toward my cheek.
My mother stopped me.
“Don’t touch it.”
“Why?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Because you’re healing.”
I didn’t understand.
Not then.
Over the next several months, I learned words I had never heard before.
Skin graft.
Burn treatment.
Scar tissue.
Surgery.
Recovery.
I learned that healing didn’t mean forgetting.
I learned that some pain disappears.
Some doesn’t.
And I learned that people look at you differently when your face tells a story they don’t know.
