In My Eyes, You're Beautiful

Apparently, what my parents didn’t tell me about this camp is that there are group therapy sessions every afternoon. Of course, that’s not what they call them, instead saying that we’re having “circle groups.” Basically, The four of us guys and the five girls that are our age sit in a circle on the floor and talk about our feelings for an hour.
Judy smiles at Zack and I as we walk into one of the rooms in the activity center, immediately going to sit by Rian on the pillows that are arranged into a vaguely circular shape. Jack is across from us, sandwiched in between two girls, both of them blond and both of them with impressive sized boobs. One of them has a burn that runs down the side of the column of her neck, and the other, the prettier one, has dark red splotches encircling her skinny legs, visible with the short shorts she’s wearing. She’s listening to Jack but glancing over at the three of us every so often, her eyes lingering on Zack.
“She’s looking at my burns,” he whispers to me, his hand twisting into the hem of his shirt. He lowers his eyes down to his lap. “Why does she have to look at me like that? I thought that if I came here people wouldn’t do that.” He sounds so sad. If I’m embarrassed to go outside because of the looks, it must be so much worse for him. It’s not like people can just look at his face and try to block out the rest of his body like they do with me. They have to look at them. I look at up the girl. Her eyes are still on Zack. I stare at her until she notices my gaze, and when she does a blush paints her cheeks and she looks back over at Jack. Good.
“Alright everybody!” Judy claps her hands and we quiet down save for Jack’s foot tapping incessantly against the floor. She smiles at all of us. “Welcome to the first circle group of camp! These will be held every day, and they will give you a chance to get to know each other better and talk through any issues that any of you may be having.”
I can practically feel Rian roll his eyes next to me. “Why don’t we start by having everybody say their name and…one of their favorite people.”
John’s face flashes in my mind before I can even try to think of someone else. It still hurts, thinking about him, even more so thinking about the things I loved about him. For some reason none of the bad, awful terrible things that made him who he is cross my mind, and I can only remember the way he used to cook me dinner and swing me around the kitchen as he listened to the radio.
“Jack, why don’t you start.”
“Okay, well, my name is Jack Barakat-” one of the girls giggles at his name “And one of my favorite people is my best friend Mike. He’s totally awesome and when I was in the hospital he visited me every day after school.” Jack looks pleased with himself as he looks at the girl to his right, the one that was staring at Zack.
“My name’s Autumn. One of my favorite people, is, um, my little sister Abby. She’s three and she’s never seen me without burns, so she doesn’t even think I’m weird.” That’s heartbreaking and cute at the same time.
The girl sitting next to her goes next. She’s got a shock of dyed, bright red hair that make her burns seem pale in comparison. They’re all up and down her arms. “My name’s Hayley, and one of my favorite people is my boyfriend.” She doesn’t say anything else, and Judy doesn’t push her to.”
Rian’s next. “I’m Rian.” He smiles good-naturedly at all of us, then says “One of my favorite people is my dad. I don’t see him very much because he lives down in Florida, but he’s really cool and laid-back and he doesn’t give a shit about what I look like.” I hear Judy’s sharp intake of breath at the swear, but she doesn’t mention it, and instead looks at me.
“Hi, my name is Alex.” I try to think of somebody to talk about, because there’s no way I’m talking about John. Ever. “And one of my favorite people is my friend Matt. I’ve known him since I was two and we learned how to play guitar together.” Matt isn’t even really my friend any more. Ever since…what happened he’s spoken to me less and less, and he doesn’t even look at me when we pass each other in the halls at school anymore. He’s one of the only people that don’t.
Zack is next, and I’m honestly really interested in what he has to say. Maybe I’ll figure him out a little bit more. He takes a deep breath, his eyes still glued to his lap. “My name’s Zack.” His voice is incredibly quiet. “And one of my favorite people is my Aunt Nicole.” His voice is shaking a bit. I don’t quite understand why.
“Why do you like her, Zack?” And for some reason Judy has to pick on him, doing that thing that teachers do where they try and bring the quiet ones out of their shells.
Zack shrugs the tiniest bit. “I don’t know. She’s nice to me.”
“How is she nice to you?” And by now I want to scream at Judy to stop because it is so easy to tell how much Zack just wants her to stop, how hard it is to even get his words out. Zack is silent. I can see his hand balled into a fist, his nails digging too hard into his palm. I almost reach out to get him to stop, but then realize that that might not be the best thing to do right now, with everybody watching. “Come on Zack, one way that she’s nice to you.”
“She isn’t mean to me when she gets mad at me. She just makes me do extra chores.” Finally, finally, Judy is satisfied with the words that come out of his mouth, and she moves on to the girl sitting next to him.
I don’t listen to what she has to say. All I can think of is what Zack said. His aunt isn’t mean to him when she gets mad at him. Does that mean that someone used to be mean to him? Like, abusive mean? I’ve known him for less than a day, but for some reason the thought of somebody hurting him makes me sick. How could somebody hurt him?