He Knew He Shouldn't Have Gotten His Hopes Up

By the end of their usual Sunday basketball session, Mitchell's team lost by two points. That cheered Troy up and he was back to his usual self by the time they got home.

Jonah was hot and sweaty so he went to take a shower and ended up spending the rest of the day reading that book he had largely ignored in favor of Eden last night. She didn't text him first and he didn't want to be annoying so he didn't say anything until shortly before he went to bed when he wished her good luck the following day and told her to tell him how it went.

She sent him a simple thumbs up in reply, which was a bit disappointing, but it was his own fault for not reaching out to her earlier. He could talk to her tomorrow. Goodness knows he would probably need cheering up after his doctor's appointment.

It was at 8 AM so he could head home and get to work as soon as possible. These sorts of appointments normally didn't take long if he didn't get stuck in the waiting room. It was why he tried to grab the first appointment of the day every time.

He didn't like going to the dermatologist for a variety of reasons (most especially his ever-dwindling hope) but one of the biggest ones was the waiting room. Some people were there to have moles looked at. Others were there for cystic acne. Very few that he had seen were there for burns.

At least not facial burns. Those lucky people tended to be there for burns on their hands or arms.

Jonah would gladly trade his facial burns for anywhere else on his body but it didn't work that way. His scar tissue went from the right side of his forehead down around his eye, which was thankfully undamaged so he could still see out of it, and across his whole cheek, part of his nose and mouth, and down his neck.

The burns didn't stop there though. They continued down the right side of his chest to slightly below the bottom of his ribcage and all the way down his right arm. While recovering, he had been forced to become left-handed because he couldn't move his formerly dominant hand well enough to write.

After a lot of physical therapy, he had gotten the use of his right hand back but he remained ambidextrous to this day. Ambidextrous and missing an eyebrow. Once he had money for it, he got his missing eyebrow tattooed on in a color as close to his natural one as possible.

Even with his fake eyebrow, he was definitely one of the weirdest looking people in the dermatologists' office. He would kill to have any of the problems the other people in there did instead.

"Jonah?" a nurse called despite the fact that he was the only person in the waiting room.

He stood and followed her back to get his vitals taken. Even at a dermatology office, they still had to get height, weight, blood pressure and so on. He knew the drill by now. Once that was over with, he had to wait for Dr. Lamont to come in and examine him.

Everyone in this office knew him by now because of how long he had been coming here and the nurse exchanged pleasantries with him the entire time she was taking his vitals. She wasn't the type that was scared of him; she pitied him. Which was worse in a way.

"How have you been feeling lately?" she asked in that pitying tone he hated.

Jonah remained civil though. As much as it annoyed him, he knew she didn't intentionally mean harm by it. He was used to this sort of thing anyway. He got it from almost everyone.

"Fine. My scar tissue hasn't been bothering me much," he replied neutrally. "And work is going well. Working from home and setting my own hours has been great."

The disability office had hooked him up. He wasn't technically disabled but he did experience frequent discrimination when he first started job hunting so his doctor told him about a place that could match him up with employers that were willing to work with his situation.

Setting his own hours allowed him to work around doctors' appointments and days when his scar tissue was particularly stiff. And working from home made everyone more comfortable, not only Jonah.

He had to go in once or twice a month to meet with his supervisor and pick things up or drop things off but that was it. The rest of the time, he worked out of the spare bedroom that had become his office.

The nurse left after satisfying her need for insignificant small talk and Jonah was left alone for about ten minutes before Dr. Lamont showed up and shook his hand. "Hey, Jonah. Has anything changed since I saw you last?"

"I think the right side of my mouth is acting up more than usual," he admitted. "Milk came out of it yesterday when I was eating cereal."

"Hmm. Have you gone to the dentist recently? Or done anything else that could overtax your scar tissue?"

"…I've been smiling a lot more the past few weeks."

That was the only thing he could think of that might have caused this when Dr. Lamont mentioned overtaxing the scar tissue. His face in general had been stiff lately but he wouldn't trade the happiness he got from talking to Eden for anything.

"Really? Any particular reason for that?"

"Something good happened," Jonah said generically. "Is that a bad thing? Am I not supposed to smile?"

Dr. Lamont laughed. "No, there's nothing wrong with smiling. Your muscles are simply underused beneath your scar tissue. It might bother you for a while but the more you do it, the more natural it should feel.

"Is there anything else? Any pain or stiffness around your joints? I know you're an active person. If you don't keep it moving, it might freeze up on you more easily. We don't want that to happen because you're still so young."

"No, nothing else has been bothering me," Jonah said honestly. It wasn't pain he was concerned about. It was getting his face to look more like a normal person's face. "Is there anything that can be done about my face? Any experimental treatments?"

There was that look of pity again. Doctors, nurses, social workers, teachers. They were all the same.

Poor Jonah Kelly, who lost his parents, his two younger siblings, and a good chunk of his body at such a young age. The kid who was always in pain and had to relearn how to move his right arm. The kid that looked like a monster.

"I'm sorry, Jonah. I don't have anything new for you. Has the cream I gave you for stiffness last time helped at all?" Dr. Lamont asked gently.

Jonah sighed. He knew he shouldn't have gotten his hopes up. It was the same old story every time. He couldn't be fixed.

"Yeah, but I'm out. I should probably get more for my cheek and the side of my mouth, huh?"

"I can send you home with a new tub of it today."

The rest of the appointment went the same as usual with the doctor checking all of his scar tissue and skin grafts for pain or stiffness. Nothing had changed. And he doubted anything ever would.

He left the office with a heavy heart. Hopefully, Eden was having a better day than he was. He would have to ask her about it when she got off work; that might cheer him up a little.