My head was down. My eyes were covered. My hood was up. This is how I leave the house every morning. The wind was strong, so I held my hood with a white knuckled grip. The red die was beginning to fade and the white strings were all stained.

I watched as a man jogged by, bumping into a short, blond women. He knocked her wallet out of her hand and into the street. I watched the dark brown leather fall near my white shoes. They were my favorite pair. They had neon green laces that I had double knotted this morning, as I do every morning. I bent down, reaching for the lady’s wallet, when my hood fell off.

I handed the wallet off and the lady just stared for a moment. Her dark brown eyes drifted from her wallet sitting the the palm of my hand, to the left side of my face. Trying hard not to make a face, but failing, the lady took my wallet and hurried away. She did not even bother giving me a polite thank you before she walked off. I pulled my hood back up and kept walking, ignoring her side glance at me when she had gotten farther up the street.

A few minutes later I passed the lady again. She waiting outside a café, holding the hand of a young child. I figured she was her daughter for they looked similar. The little girl had the same blond hair up in pigtails and the same dark brown eyes. She pointed to me as I walked by. Her mother told her not to stare. Even though, that was what she herself had done as I returned her wallet.

I looked back down again, trying to hide my face. I noticed her green shoe laces, good choice, I should have said that.

. . .

The next day I walked the same route. At the same café I saw the mother and daughter again.

“Mommy, what’s wrong with that girls face?” Her mother hushed her and told her not to stare, once more. I knew what was happening. The little girl looked scared and confused. She had never seen another person with a burn scar. Especially not one across most of their face and left arm.

I stopped and replied to her, “This is a burn.” The mother glared at me. I only looked at the little girl. I saw the gears ticking in her head as she tried to piece together how this might have happened to me.

“Were you in a fire?” The little girl asked innocently. I knew the mother did not want me to answer, so I only shook my head. The girls jaw dropped.

The mother snarled at me, “Well, thanks for exposing my child to fire and pain.” I thought, your child looks like she is nine. Nine year olds know that both pain and fire exist in this world. “She is only nine years old,” I was right. “She should not be scared like this because of you. Put your hood on and leave.”

Now, I was pissed. ‘Put your hood on and leave.’ What the heck. I only answered your daughters question about me. I did not tell her how burns happen, how the flesh melts. If she did not want her daughter to know about any of this then she should teach her to be polite like everyone else and just pretend the scars do not exist.

. . .

Because I am a creature of habit, I took that same route to school, the one I have taken for years, again. And behold, in the café with the green roof, was the lady and her daughter.

The lady was up at the counter ordering and the little girl was looking out the window. When she saw me, she bolted out the door quiet as a mouse. She came right up to me. This time she look my in the eye. Not once did she glance at my burn scar.

“My name is Willa.” She said.

“And I am Callie.” I replied. Then, out of no where, Willa asked something no one had asked me before.

“Are you better now, Callie?” I paused. The question kind of threw me. It should not. I know that. But it did.

“Yes Willa, I am.” I paused again to take in the look on Willa’s face. I had never seen that look before. It is almost indescribable. It brought me the kind of joy you only feel once in your life, to see that this little girl, who knows nothing about me, cared so much that I was better. And just like that, she skipped away. No more questions needed. That was all she wanted to know.