The next morning I walked cautiously down the graveled alleyway that connected our two homes. The sun shone. Locusts hummed and gnats darted about the lawn. I climbed the fire escape and, inside, closed my blinds.

I went to the bathroom mirror and stared a long time at the disgusting thing.

I sat on my sofa.

I couldn’t see from the middle of my field of vision to the left. I couldn’t read. All I could do was blurrily watch TV.

It grew hot. I didn’t have AC. Friends called, others visited, and they were unable to mask their horror when they saw me. I talked only about him, about his heroism in getting me to the hospital, of staying there all night with me. He didn’t visit that first day; he was too busy. He had planned to leave the next day to do archival work elsewhere for a month. I didn’t ask him to reconsider because I knew I was not someone for whom he changed plans.

He came over to say goodbye, curled up on my sofa with me, smelling of nutmeg.  He was hung over and fell asleep with his mouth open.

When he awoke, he touched my cheek, south of my red eye, its pupil big and lopsided as a lentil. They had said that it may never retract entirely, the iris. In fact it was likely I’d never look quite normal again, whatever that means.

“I’ve left a permanent mark on you,” he said. And he loved this, I could tell. 

On a Monday afternoon in early September he texted asking if I could meet up. Recently, and somewhat begrudgingly, he had started calling me his girlfriend. We had finally gotten out of town, to the state fair, where we watched delightedly as retirees participated in a spelling bee, and sang a duet about being in love with a live band. And one evening just a week before, he had laid me down flat backed on his bed and kissed every spec of my skin.