The Scars We Bear

Two iced coffees and a box of chili fries later, we’re back on the street again, wending our way toward the bus stop, the pavement congested with school kids. It’s then, when we’re deeply involved in our conversation about the dress I’ll be wearing to Nachi’s bar mitzvah, that I walk into the road and see a gray BMW far too close to my face. I hear Yaffa’s panicked scream. There’s a long blast of a horn as I’m thrown into the air, and the world goes black.

***

I was unconscious for a while, my mother tells me, as I blink at the bright lights in the emergency room and reach toward my head which is throbbing rhythmically. “Don’t touch,” Mom tells me gently, holding my hands, “You’ve been given strong painkillers, and they’re going to stitch you up, but it’s quite a cut you’ve given yourself there, Dassa.” I groan. Stitches, I think, just before Nachi’s bar mitzvah, for crying out loud. And despite the fact that I know it could have been much worse, I feel incredibly sorry for myself.