TM #176 - Tell the story of one of your past scars.
There's a thin, corded white line that's about two inches long and runs vertical just below my hairline. It's all but faded now, and easily covered by make up. Or even better, bangs. A nice thick-cut side sweep cutting angularly from a side part over to the outside edge of your eyebrow. Even without all the camoflage, you have to look really hard to see it. Plus, you kind of have to know what you're looking for.
It seems so pronounced to me. Sometimes it feels like it's the first thing a person sees when they look at me. I guess it's because I know it's there.
This girl I went to high school with got in an accident. She had her learner's permit, and wasn't technically supposed to be driving by herself. But we all know that just because you're not supposed to do something doesn't necessarily mean you won't. Her dad had already bought her this car. She always complained that it wasn't a convertible, but he said he felt safer with her driving something that was completely enclosed. So he made her settle for a sunroof.
One day, she drove it into oncoming traffic. She made an illegal left turn because she didn't know how to read the signs yet and was still a little shaky on the traffic laws. She thought it meant no left turn on red, confusing it with the occasional legality of making right turns on red. So when the light turned green, she turned and headed right smack into a bus that was about a mile down the road and going full speed. As if that wasn't enough, she wasn't wearing her seatbelt. She'd spent a lot of money on this silk halter top at Forever 21 and didn't like the way the restriction of the belt wrinkled the material and left soft impressions of the outline of its shape.
So right through the windshield she went. Years later, when her face and bones and everything else that had led to her near-death had all healed, you almost couldn't tell it had ever happened. Plastic surgery really does do wonders. Anyone who knew about the accident pretended not to stare, but obviously they were all trying to find the marks that mapped the damage everyone had heard extensively detailed. (Something about her skin being pulled off by the broken windshield glass like cheese off of a pizza. I know, gross.)
She showed me, the scars. It was amazing that just to look at her, you couldn't really tell. But then once she ducked under the light and pulled me close to outline all of the tiny white lines that lined the frame of her fact, and I could see. There were tons of them, almost like her face was permanently etched with the memory of the threads that had sewed her entire face back on her and kept it there long enough to grow back into place. After that, I never had trouble seeing where she was scarred. I'd look at her, even from several feet away, and my eyes would focus immediately on the lines that were only visible to me because I knew to look for them.
Four years ago, I hit my head. Hard. I don't remember how it happened, but the crime scene guys, from what they could piece together, are pretty sure it was a head dive on the hard edge of a motorboat before toppling over into the water. They mostly think that because my wound lines up perfectly with the shape and density of the boat, but they never found any of my blood. The wound itself didn't take long to heal. A bunch of stitches and later some vitamin e capsules, and nobody even notices it.
But when I look in the mirror, it's the first thing that I see.
Lauren Santini
Original Character/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
640 Words
It seems so pronounced to me. Sometimes it feels like it's the first thing a person sees when they look at me. I guess it's because I know it's there.
This girl I went to high school with got in an accident. She had her learner's permit, and wasn't technically supposed to be driving by herself. But we all know that just because you're not supposed to do something doesn't necessarily mean you won't. Her dad had already bought her this car. She always complained that it wasn't a convertible, but he said he felt safer with her driving something that was completely enclosed. So he made her settle for a sunroof.
One day, she drove it into oncoming traffic. She made an illegal left turn because she didn't know how to read the signs yet and was still a little shaky on the traffic laws. She thought it meant no left turn on red, confusing it with the occasional legality of making right turns on red. So when the light turned green, she turned and headed right smack into a bus that was about a mile down the road and going full speed. As if that wasn't enough, she wasn't wearing her seatbelt. She'd spent a lot of money on this silk halter top at Forever 21 and didn't like the way the restriction of the belt wrinkled the material and left soft impressions of the outline of its shape.
So right through the windshield she went. Years later, when her face and bones and everything else that had led to her near-death had all healed, you almost couldn't tell it had ever happened. Plastic surgery really does do wonders. Anyone who knew about the accident pretended not to stare, but obviously they were all trying to find the marks that mapped the damage everyone had heard extensively detailed. (Something about her skin being pulled off by the broken windshield glass like cheese off of a pizza. I know, gross.)
She showed me, the scars. It was amazing that just to look at her, you couldn't really tell. But then once she ducked under the light and pulled me close to outline all of the tiny white lines that lined the frame of her fact, and I could see. There were tons of them, almost like her face was permanently etched with the memory of the threads that had sewed her entire face back on her and kept it there long enough to grow back into place. After that, I never had trouble seeing where she was scarred. I'd look at her, even from several feet away, and my eyes would focus immediately on the lines that were only visible to me because I knew to look for them.
Four years ago, I hit my head. Hard. I don't remember how it happened, but the crime scene guys, from what they could piece together, are pretty sure it was a head dive on the hard edge of a motorboat before toppling over into the water. They mostly think that because my wound lines up perfectly with the shape and density of the boat, but they never found any of my blood. The wound itself didn't take long to heal. A bunch of stitches and later some vitamin e capsules, and nobody even notices it.
But when I look in the mirror, it's the first thing that I see.
Lauren Santini
Original Character/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
640 Words