The Face I Was Supposed to Have
“I couldn’t live with the guilt,” Michael sobbed. “I kept tabs on you for years. I watched you get bullied. I watched you suffer because of what I did to your face. When I finally approached you, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I just wanted to give you a good life to make up for it. I fell in love with you, Emily. I swear to God, I love you.”
“You love me?” I screamed, the sound tearing through my recovering vocal cords, sending a shock of pain through my skull. “You didn’t love me! You kept me as a pet to manage your own guilt! You spent eight years telling me I was beautiful, telling me I didn’t need surgery, not because you accepted my flaws, but because you were terrified a real surgeon would open up my face and find the evidence of your crime!”
“Emily, please—”
“That’s why you took down the mirrors!” I realized, taking a step back, staring at him with pure revulsion. “You didn’t take them down because I was swollen. You took them down because Dr. Harris actually fixed me! My face is finally normal, and you couldn’t stand to look at it, because it means your control over me is gone!”
“Sign the damn papers, Emily,” Richard interrupted coldly, tapping an expensive pen against the NDA. “Five million dollars. You were a nobody from a trailer park before Michael married you. Take the money and secure your future.”
I looked at Richard.
I looked at the NDA.
And then, a deep, terrifying calm washed over me.
“I want to see my face,” I said quietly.
“Emily, don’t,” Michael begged from the floor.
I ignored him.
I walked past the two confused lawyers, down the hallway, and into the kitchen.
Michael had missed one mirror.
A small, decorative reflective tray I kept on the kitchen island to hold our mail.
I picked it up.
My hands were trembling violently.
I looked into the reflection.
My face was heavily bruised, yellow and purple around the eyes.
There was a cast over the bridge.
But even with the swelling, even with the tape… I could see it.
The monstrous, jagged bump was gone.
The severe deviation that had caused me twenty years of bullying, twenty years of hiding, twenty years of crying myself to sleep, was completely gone.
Dr. Harris hadn’t just removed the metal; he had restored the underlying bone structure.
For the first time in my entire life, I saw the face I was actually supposed to have.
I put the tray down.
I pulled my cell phone from my sweatpants pocket and dialed 911.
“What are you doing?” Richard demanded, storming into the kitchen.
“Hello, yes, I need police at my residence immediately,” I said clearly into the phone. “I have two men in my home attempting to extort me and bribe a medical professional regarding a felony hit-and-run.”
“You stupid bitch!” Richard roared, lunging forward to grab the phone.
I didn’t flinch.
May you like
I grabbed a heavy kitchen knife from the butcher block on the counter and pointed it directly at his chest.
“Step back, Richard,” I said, my voice echoing off the granite countertops. “Or I’ll give you a facial reconstruction of your own.”
