Made for You Read Free Page B

were scared about that. You were out for a while, but you’re awake now and seem okay so . . . that’s good, too.”
    She’s still avoiding saying something though. I know her too well for her to succeed at it. For someone so eager to dive into confrontation with most people, she treats me like I’m in need of sheltering. I take a deep breath and ask, “ And? Just tell me.”
    “There was a lot of glass. That’s all. You got some cuts, like on your arm. The big injuries were your leg and your head . . . your brain, really, but it seems like they’ll be fine.” She holds my gaze as if staring at me will keep me from reading whatever secrets she wants to hide. I know she’ll tell me; she always tells me even when she doesn’t want to do so. Earlier this year, when Amy blabbed to everyone at school that I had slept with Robert, Grace tried to protect me. She shielded me from the things people were saying, but even then, she gave in after a couple of days and spilled. I don’t want to wait this time.
    “Gracie . . . what aren’t you saying?”
    She sighs and hedges, “You’re going to have some scars on your face. It’s not really that b—”
    “Mirror.”
    “Sweetie, maybe not yet.”
    “Mirror,” I repeat, louder this time.
    “Eva, let’s just wait until you’re feeling better, and it’s heal—”
    “Please.”
    I watch Grace dig through her bag and pull out the little silver compact that her grandmother gave her for her sixteenth birthday. For a moment, Grace holds it in her hand, squeezing it so tightly that her knuckles look like the skin has grown thinner there.
    She holds it out to me, and I don’t let myself hesitate. I’m not vain, not really. I’m not the most beautiful girl in the world, but I’ve always been pretty enough to not be jealous or insecure. I have dark blue eyes, a smallish nose, lips that look pouty, and cheekbones that are defined without looking razor-sharp. I’m not opposed to wearing makeup, but I’ve always been happy that I don’t need it.
    I gaze at the reflection in the glass. The girl I see now needs makeup badly. Red lines crisscross my face. Dark blue stitches highlight some of them. As much as I want to, I can’t look away from the tiny reflection of myself, and I’m glad that Grace’s mirror is so small.
    I reach up to touch the black-and-blue marks and cuts on my throat, but before I can, Grace grabs my hand. “No touching. The nurses said you shouldn’t irritate the wounds. We had to keep your wrists restrained at first.”
    Even as she tells me that I was tied to my bed, which is disturbing on some basic level, I can’t look away from my reflection. I dart my tongue out to touch the cut on my lip and promptly wince. I don’t hurt like I should, and I know that it’s because of the medicine coursing through my body. One particularly long cut runs from just under my eye to the side of my cheek where it curls under my ear and vanishes into my hair. That one has been stitched. Vaguely it registers that the ones deep enough to need stitches are the ones that’ll scar the most. Some of the others are only shallow cuts like the ones on my arm, so I think they’ll fade.
    The tiny cuts vanish under the top of my shirt, and I look at my arms again. I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt when I walked home. Maybe that protected them a little, or maybe it was just how I hit the ground or how the car hit me. All I know for sure is that it’s my face that took the worst of the impact. I glance back at the mirror, hoping for a moment that it isn’t as bad as I first thought. It is though. No amount of healing is going to make these all vanish.
    I close my eyes, and Grace takes the mirror from my hand. She doesn’t tell me that everything is okay or that it’s not as bad as it looks. She might try to hide things from me when she thinks it’s for my own good, but she doesn’t ever lie to me.
    The day of the accident was the last day I was pretty.

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