I try not to wince or let her know she’s hurting me, but I can’t help crying out when she yanks the cotton wool plugs from my nostrils. I breathe in through my nose for the first time in ages, but all I can smell is a faint tinge of disinfectant and the irony scent of dried blood. She drops the bandages and plugs into a stainless steel kidney bowl. They’re gross-looking, caked with black scabs and iodine. I lift my hand to touch the incision and trace the new shape, but she slaps it away. ‘Don’t touch.’ ‘Sorry, I was just…’ Using a clump of cotton swabs she starts cleaning the bridge of my nose. It stings, but it’s not as painful as I was expecting – more a throbbing ache than anything else. She pushes my head back and wipes around my nostrils. ‘Eish,’ she says, scowling. ‘What does it look like? Is it bad?’ For a second her expression softens. For an instant I’m a real person, not some spoiled chick who’s had an unnecessary ‘procedure’.
