Everything I’ve told you is what my friend told me I’d said.
Apparently, I jumped out of the van at the airstrip before it had fully stopped. Did a cartwheel, supposedly, though I don’t think I’d ever done a cartwheel in my life. Ran over to the plane we’d jumped out of, which had just landed, and attempted to wrap my arms around the front of the fuselage in an awkward hug. Kissed it. And then I whipped around and stepped right into the plane’s prop, which was invisible because it hadn’t stopped spinning. It carved into me.
I guess I could have started the story here. Sorry. But I wanted you to know all of it. I wanted you to be there. For the whole thing. The whole thing I can’t remember.
What I do remember is waking up on December 4th, two days after the accident, in a hospital room with my parents, my grandmother, and my best friend around me.
What I wish I could forget is the feeling in my gut, in the very coil of my intestines, that I’d lost everything and that it was my fault.
The propeller had sliced diagonally down my face, taken my right eye, and separated my clavicle from my shoulder. I was so lucky. It could have been so, so, so much worse. If it had been going any faster, if I’d run into it at a different angle . . .
Exponential ifs.
The one bright side: when I came out of my first surgery, I spoke to the film’s director and I convinced him to test my friend for my role. They were obviously up a creek thanks to me so they agreed and she killed it, of course, and they hired her. They only had to reshoot a week of scenes to make her the lead, recast her role, and that was that. It kickstarted her career. I’m happy for her. I know it might not seem that way, but I am. Really.
Sooooo now you know what you’re dealing with. Exactly what you imagined, I’m sure. Such a common story.
To preemptively answer your questions: I’ve learned to live with my disfigurement and to compensate for having one eye （are the violins playing yet?）。 The human body is a marvel. My shoulder is mostly fine （though I’m not competing in Olympic weight-lifting anytime soon）。 I wear an eye patch, which has become as second nature as lipstick or nail polish. Most people aren’t intentionally rude assholes. I try to avoid drunks and children. But to be fair I did that before the accident, too.
And now you have my “Why.” Finally!
There. Sewanee sat back, basking in the satisfaction of having told the story, all of it, hiding nothing. She placed the cursor over the send icon and then, just as she was about to click, lifted her finger. She realized she should give it a read, to make sure autocorrect hadn’t sabotaged her words, to make sure the story, and her thoughts, were as clear as she felt they were.
So she did.
And whatever courage she’d acquired prior to sitting down leaked away with every sentence.
She couldn’t send this.
She wasn’t ready.
His story had given her a peek into his personality; her story was a naked reveal of all her rawest parts. It was not an equal exchange of insight.
How could she hand over her soul when she didn’t even know his real name?
She deleted everything but the first paragraph and added what she hoped was a distillation of her truth. Enough of it, anyway: Hey,
To start, I want to apologize. I know I made it seem like I don’t want to talk to you on the telethingy, but that’s not true. I would love to talk to you. But you want to know my “Why,” my Another Time . . . and the problem is I’m not prepared to talk about it. I am prepared to tell you about it, though. I hope you can understand the difference.
So that’s how I started writing this email to you. The email in which I was going to lay it all out there, bare myself in the harsh light of a computer screen. Problem is, “I’m not prepared to talk about it” is true. “I am prepared to tell you about it” is apparently not. I’m sorry. There’s a lot to this. To me. And I thought I was ready, but I’m not.
In what I wouldn’t classify as a happy coincidence, but a coincidence nonetheless, I do want to tell you we share something in common: loss. Loss of what we once had and who we once were. Fear of having to go through anything like that ever again. And just telling you that feels good. Like you must have felt when you told me? So that’s something, I guess.
I feel better having put this out there, even this sorry, abbreviated version. I hope we can continue. With all of it. The work, the play, the banter, and of course the sexual innuendos when they . . . come.
Onward, friend.
She began to write Sewanee, changed it to Sarah, and then, simply, truthfully: