She’d had it as long as she could remember, always waiting below her left eye for when she looked in the mirror. Her mother said she wasn’t actually born with the mark, but it grew—not grew exactly, more appeared and bloomed—as she grew until about three years old. Her mother, ever the superstitious woman, took it to be a blessing, a symbol of great personal strength. She remembered it as a curse.
In elementary school, all the popular girls took it as an insult when she looked at them with that brown splot on her face. The boys took it as an opportunity to try and punch right on it to see if it would bruise. She would have called herself petite, but they all called her small and puny, so she realistically had no chance but to avoid the dark corners of the recess area where teachers’ eyes never ventured. She took to reading, becoming quite skilled at it well before her time. Books never seemed bothered by the mark.
She had no idea that anything could be worse than elementary school, but middle school proved her exceptionally misguided in that thought. The bullying continued, but as she neared 13 years old, she tried using make-up to cover it, augment it, minimize it, anything. She would wake an hour earlier to spend as much time as possible disguising the mark into a normal, blush-covered cheek. The world of young teenage womanhood was within reach, but none of them were fooled. They would wipe the make-up from her face with wet rags. The boys would do it with spit and a bare hand. She begged her mother to get it removed, or dyed or something. Her mother always refused. Too much of a hassle, she said, and more money than they could afford in years. The kids would grow up and leave her alone soon, she said. Just be patient.
Her life was not complete disaster. She made two or three friends, and she read voraciously. By high school, she was able to skip a grade, getting her one step closer to escape. And once in high school, she even had a boyfriend for a few weeks, until his teasing friends became more than he could bear and he stopped talking to her. But, then again, she hadn’t like him much anyway. There just had been no one else. Until there was.
College came, and she blossomed. Teasing abated; people in her college were far more understanding and cared less about physical appearance than aptitude and intelligence, and she exceeded everyone at both. Somewhere around her second year, a young man saw fit to take her dancing. She enjoyed his intelligence and creativity, and he loved her gentle, quiet nature. He made her laugh more in a few months than she recalled laughing her whole life. One day, he took a small marker, begged her to hold still, and began drawing on her mark. At first, she was frightened, certain he was mocking her. But she looked in the mirror at his creation, and found for the first time that she loved having that mark on her face.
It became a ritual. Every time that his painting became too stinted, or his drawing projects too difficult, he would doodle around with her mark. She would giggle as the marker tickled her face, and he would give her a glance of mock horror that she should move and ruin his masterpiece. He found ways of working his face-drawing into his actual art, much to her pride and his teachers’ confusion. She said she loved him, the first time she had said it to anyone.
Then it happened, as it always happens. It was no one’s fault; it rarely is. Someone had been driving on too little sleep. He had been texting to get directions. No one had survived the head-on collision. She refused to look in a mirror for three months. She lost 20 pounds. And then, one day, she met someone. And after that, another someone. The world continued to turn.
Now, she sat up in the operating room, after a seemingly brief surgery. Her fiancé had expressed concern at the mark’s changing color, unusual pigment around the sides, and she went to a doctor. The doctor said they should operate, just to be safe. A week later, they did. It’d be easy, the doctor said. You should be happy, the fiancé said. Isn’t this what you always wanted.
She was told to wear a bandage for several days. They hadn’t used stitches, but surgical adhesive, so there should be minimal pain and scarring. She walked into the bathroom, and pulled off her first bandage, stared hard at the reflection. It wasn’t fair to him, she thought, touching the wound with gentle, thin fingers. He always made it beautiful. She felt then that she no longer looked like herself. She would never look like herself again.
