Beneath the Scars

“Then I woke up. It was all gone. I had no future. It all changed in one instant. I changed. Everything I knew…everything my life was built around was my face. My looks. My entire life was because of how I looked.” He sneered in disgust and looked down at his hands, as if he was surprised to see he was holding something. “My fucking face. God damn it, I hated my fucking face!”

With a roar, he threw the sculpture across the room, the glass hitting the wall and shattering into thousands of tiny shards. I covered my mouth to stop the startled gasp, my body trembling in the face of his sudden rage. He started shouting.

“I wasn’t Adam Dennis the famous actor anymore! I was a scarred, ugly man who needed help! But I had no one who wanted to help me! I had surrounded myself with people just like me—cold and uncaring—and when I really needed someone there was nobody I could rely on.” His voice broke and he stopped shouting, his chest heaving with exertion. He stumbled to the chair, almost falling into it. His head fell back, eyes shut. All I could do was stare, waiting for him to speak again. When he did, his voice was quieter and laced with sadness. “I was useless to anyone in my life; I held no value to anyone. I was in pain, and for the first time in my life I was scared. I had no one—not a single person to help me. My agent was distant; he knew my career was over, so I was of little use to him anymore. He played his role, but we both knew what was going on. The studio was in protection mode; too busy disclaiming any responsibility for the tragic accident on set that injured one person and killed another. All they wanted to do was throw money my way, and sweep it all under the rug and forget it. Forget me.”

“That’s what was said?”

“It was a closed set. They concealed it up as best they could; twisted the situation to serve their purpose. Her family didn’t want what happened to be known. I didn’t want the extent of my injuries out there. They paid money to the right people and covered it up. There were rumors and innuendos, but frankly, I was too ill to care much about that. I was in too much pain.

“Did you know, Megan,” he murmured, his voice almost robotic, “if you’re burned enough you get cold?”

My chest constricted as tears filled my eyes. “No.”

He nodded, his eyes distant and unseeing. “It felt endless: pain, burning, cold. I shook all the time. My skin was on fire, but I shook all the time from the cold. Odd, isn’t it?”

“Zachary—”

He kept talking, his voice an empty drone, as I cried without a sound, my tears running down my cheeks, unheeded.

“It was a cold that came from inside—nothing could warm me up. Every time I would start to wake up it was the first thing I felt. As though I was trapped in a burning iceberg. I didn’t think it would ever end.” He paused, a rough exhale of air leaving his lungs. “I thought I’d go mad before it was over. I wanted to die.

“Maybe it would have been better if I did.”

My heart ached at those words. I couldn’t even comprehend his pain.

He looked past me. “I struggled daily, just to make it through every day. Get past the physical pain and work through the mental part of it. They did what they could for me medically, although my head was in such a bad place I refused some of the treatments. My career was over—I knew that. I had a couple procedures to help with the scarring, but they were extremely painful and didn’t make much difference in my opinion.”

I wiped my face, my voice raspy when I spoke. “You didn’t have anyone, Zachary? Anyone you trusted?”

“I was still stupid enough I thought I did, but the people I was unwise enough to think of as friends, couldn’t be bothered with me. I was utterly alone…except for one person.” His voice was deep with weariness. “One person stayed. A staff member I had never paid much attention to. She was there, and helped me over the next few months. I was so grateful.” He snorted in disgust. “I acted like an idiot, I was so grateful; like a fucking stray dog someone takes home instead of kicking. That was what I had become—a stray dog nobody wanted. I trusted her, I believed everything she said. Until—” His voice trailed off.

“Until?” I prompted gently.

“Until she had enough pictures, enough of a story built up—she sold it to a magazine.” He shook his head. “Once I was no longer of use to her, she left too, taking away the last bit of trust I had in humanity.”