Burn

I stand with my right hand under the rushing water of the restaurant's kitchen sink, crying into a white dish towel. "That is going to kill you." My manager says. "I'm such an idiot." I tell myself over and over again. "Take that bucket." My manager says next. "And fill it with ice, you're gonna need it." My Columbian friend, Marco, who has had numerous kitchen accidents, says, "Just spray it honey. I hate to see you cry, I never seen you cry. You don't need any more ice." My friend, Dina, a tiny waitress exclaims, "Oh fuck, oh fuck huney oh fuck." Everyone shouts for me to "KEEP IT UNDER THE WATER!" Above the clamorous cries for cold water, my manager says, "Rachel, where's Scott? He didn't answer his phone." Sniffling, I say, "I don't know. He might be at the movies." In the front of the restaurant, my friend, Jesse leaves Scott a voicemail. "Hey Scott it's Jesse, ahh Rachel burned her hand pretty bad and the ah skin's coming off, so if you could call back the restaurant cause she needs to go to the emergency room."

An hour later in the doctor's office, I sit beside a bucket of water and ice while the doctor takes a pair of sterile scissors and cuts away the dead skin from my hand. I close my eyes, listening, cringing, crying. The white coat says, "This is going to get much worse before it gets better. You have a choice of pain medication." "How long will this take to heal?" I ask. "Probably between 7 and 10 days." In the corner, a med student stands observing, "You probably hate coffee now, huh?" He says. "Oh, it isn't the coffee that I hate."