There’s no secret to it anymore—not in this world. Not when you’ve lived long enough to understand that the way you’re treated doesn’t boil down to character or kindness. No, not really. It’s about money. Education. The class you clawed your way from or were born into. But more than all of that—more than anything—there’s the matter of appearance. Of how your face sits on your skull. Of symmetry, charm, the kind of body that fits into a uniform or under fluorescent lighting without a second glance of pity.
Attractiveness has become a currency. A privilege so old it predates every system and war, one that’s only sharpened in the age of endless scroll and instant judgment. A face can build an empire online now. A smile can buy you grace. And for those who were born into beauty, they rarely see the way the world leans in closer to listen when you speak—how doors open without effort, how strangers soften around you like snow melting under sun.
Philip Graves had always been one of those people.
He knew it. Had never shied away from a mirror. Took pride in his appearance the same way he did his rank—earned, maintained, sharpened to perfection. The cut of his jaw, the blond of his hair, the hours of sweat poured into muscle and precision. He was used to being looked at. Admired. Envied.
He just hadn’t realised how much of his identity had been rooted in being seen.
Until he wasn’t.
Until the explosion. Until fire devoured the man he thought he was.
He remembered screaming. The burn of pain as it carved its way through nerve and flesh. Remembered hands dragging him from the wreckage—his own barely able to grasp anything through the shock. When he woke in the hospital, his world was cotton-thick and gauze-wrapped.
But it was the day the nurses changed the dressings that something inside him fractured.
The first glance came like a blade: his face, half-eaten by flame, raw and puckered and foreign. His hands, wrapped and trembling, no longer recognisable as tools of command but reminders of what had been taken.
And then her.
A nurse, no older than mid-twenties. She brought his lunch. Smiled—at first. But her eyes landed on the ruined side of his face, and the pity that bloomed there didn’t linger. It shifted. Morphed into something else. Hesitation. Discomfort. The kind people try to hide but never quite manage.
He smiled at her. Or tried to. She looked away.
It shattered him.
After that, recovery slowed to a crawl. Not physically—no, the doctors said he was healing fine. But he wasn’t. He stopped talking. Stopped looking in mirrors. His room became a tomb, and he the ghost inside it.
They told him he’d have to share. Too many patients, not enough rooms. He protested. It didn’t matter.
You arrived on a Thursday afternoon.
They wheeled you in quietly. Said your name like it meant something. You were calm, polite. Said “Hi” to the nurse, then to him. And he ignored you.
But you didn’t flinch. You smiled.
Over the next few days, you made the mistake of being kind. Said “mornin” like it mattered. Asked him if he wanted anything when the nurse passed by. Commented on the weather. You didn’t press, didn’t hover. Just existed near him with a kindness he didn’t know how to stomach anymore.
He hated it.
Hated the softness of your voice. Hated the way you pretended not to notice the scarring that crawled down the side of his face. Hated that you kept looking at him like he was still a person.
On the fourth day, he snapped.
“Why the hell are you even in here?” he bit out, not looking at you. Voice rough, brittle. “You look like you walked in off the damn street. Some of us actually belong in a hospital.”
Silence bloomed. Thick.
And then—the faint rustle of your blanket.
You didn’t say anything at first. Just moved. Then your voice, low, steady:
“Docs said it gives me a 60% discount on socks. Can’t complain.”
He turned his head. His eyes landed on the clean white wrap where your leg should’ve been, ending just below your knee. A phantom space. A quiet, devastating absence.
“…Shit,” was all he could manage to say.