I had basically no desire to see my parents (that sounds harsh but it’s true). It wasn’t as if I’d spent any time at St. Joseph’s missing my home or my neighbourhood or high school. If anything, I’d just started feeling like I’d managed to escape that stuff. Like, you know, thank GOD. Of course, the first thing my mom noticed at the train station was the scratch Shar had left on my burn Halloween night. Dance Yourself to Death ", By dinner she was picking and poking at me, pulling on my shirt to expose the borders of old wounds. She was all over me to go to the doctor. Like, immediately. Like let’s all overreact and call an ambulance why don’t we? “It doesn’t really look like you’re looking after it.” “Mom! It’s nothing! I had this HUGE scab and now I have this teeny tiny sore bit—” “It is sore then,” my dad noted. For fuck’s sake. “Dad. It’s a BURN. It doesn’t TICKLE.” Overall, my parents noticed that I looked way paler than I did when I left.
