“I’m sorry,” Chloe wailed. Her voice tore from her throat in a ragged, ugly, beautiful sob. “Oh my God, Maya. I’m so sorry.”

She buried her face against my scarred, grafted stomach, wrapping her arms tightly around my waist. Her tears flowed freely, mixing with the sweat and the smell of chlorine, soaking into my skin.

“You burned for me,” Chloe wept, her voice muffled against my body. “You burned for me, and I hated you. I called you a freak. I tortured you. I’m a monster, Maya. I’m a monster. Please… please forgive me.”

Through the sliding glass doors, my parents finally broke. David and Sarah sprinted out of the house, pushing through the frozen crowd of teenagers.

They dropped to the concrete beside us, wrapping their arms around both of their daughters in a desperate, tangled, weeping embrace.

“We’re so sorry, Maya,” my father sobbed into my shoulder, kissing the scarred skin of my back, apologizing for the decade of silence they’d enforced. “We’re so sorry we made you carry this alone.”