21

She reached behind herself and pulled up her shirt to expose her back. Just left of her spine, halfway up above her elbows, was a round scar the size of a quarter—a lot of surface area to fill with skin that’s been puréed away to mist—so there wasn’t enough tissue remaining to stitch together. The perimeter was slightly raised, circumscribing a distinct edge around a thin layer of inset, grafted skin that formed a crater in her back. She moved her hand to the left and tugged her shirt again, this time revealing two more scars on her side, both as large as the one on her back but slightly less severe. These looked more surgical; she said they put a bunch of tubes in her. She moved her hands forward to her stomach and slowly pulled up her shirt until it barely covered her breasts. She wore very low-cut, loose jeans that fell below her underwear. From beneath her jeans rose a thick red scar, delineated with staple marks about every half centimeter, detouring around her navel and continuing straight up the full length of her abdomen until it disappeared under her shirt and into her chest. I forgot to ask her the caliber.