The Morning After: Girl Got Burned

By Anonymous

It was a normal night of drunken debauchery, probably escalated a little bit due to my freshman girl status. My friend Tess and I had gone on Spring Break with a few senior guys, and we had since attached ourselves to them, thinking we were way too cool to hang out with boys our own age.

Definitely trying to impress the older crowd, we had taken a few too many shots and were hanging outside with the smokers.  Our friend Scott standing with his arms around both of us – me on the left, and Tess on the right, cigarette in her hand. Scott brought us in for a dual hug and the next thing I knew, the cigarette landed squarely in the middle of my forehead.

Did it burn? I have no idea. Did I cry about the hole in my forehead? Probably, but still, I have no idea. All I know is the next morning I woke up face down in my bed, with Tess sleeping at the foot of the bed like a dog.

I was frazzled and confused to say the least. I wondered why Tess had not slept in her own bed and what the strange feeling on my head was. I reached up to touch my forehead and screamed. “THERE’S A SPLOTCH OF VOMIT ON MY FOREHEAD. GROSS!”

I ran to the bathroom to clean myself up, and it was then, looking in the bathroom mirror, that I realized it was not my regurgitated dinner stuck on my face at all, but flaps of burnt skin rippling across my forehead.

According to Tess, I got back to my room safe and sound, then IMed her on AIM and said “Help. Sick. Broom. Help.” She came right over and I spent the entire night pretending to throw up in my bed as she rubbed my back.  That’s right, pretending. I guess I was desperate for attention. It also explains why my brain told me I had slept facedown in my own barf that night.

For the next three weeks, I walked around campus with a gaping wound on my forehead. Prior to the cigarette burn incident, I had been asked to a social by a senior guy. When I showed up in my formal wear, I immediately apologized for my unsightly wound.

“Oh, that’s a burn? I just thought you had a huge zit,” he replied, with a disgusted look on his face.