They Borrowed My Surgery Fund To Leave Me Behind novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Her Face Everywhere

Mara's POV

By Thursday morning my face had been seen by six million strangers.

I knew because my phone showed small red numbers that kept climbing.

I sat at my kitchen table in a gray sweatshirt with my bare feet on the neighbor's lap.

I read the messages out loud.

"This one says, I'm so sorry for your loss."

"Whose loss?" the neighbor said.

"Mine, I think. They watched the memorial slide."

"Next."

"This one says, you look so peaceful, rest well."

"You're drinking coffee."

"Decaf," I said, and she waved it off.

Some of them were kind.

A woman in Tulsa had written four paragraphs about her own valve surgery at nineteen, and ended with: *Don't let them make you a saint. You're allowed to be furious.*

A boy of about twelve had sent a drawing of a heart with a zipper.

A man from a gym in Dayton wanted to know if the girl in the video was single.

"Block him," said the neighbor.

I blocked him.

Ezra stood at my stove with his sleeves rolled, watching a pan of eggs.

He had come over at seven with a bag of groceries and no explanation, and I had not asked for one.

I kept looking at the pale scar on his left wrist, and at his hand.

I remembered what that hand had done on Saturday night, and every time I remembered, I went back to my phone.

"Eggs," he said, and put a plate in front of me.

"I didn't say you could make breakfast."

"It's not a gift. It's eggs."

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