He crashes the car into a tree and as a result, Izzy ends up with two broken legs – one of which the doctors can’t save and have to amputate. What was I supposed to say to that? It’s all right? There were too many people in the room, and their eyes avoided me, and they stared.Īfter attending a party, Izzy’s date insists on driving her home, even though he has been drinking. Somebody held the door open so my mother could wheel me in, and a few people who had met me came around to say how sorry they were. I liked the way my mother’s hairdresser teased me about boyfriends and dances. I liked to sit there–young and fresh and pretty–and see what the women were having done, to make themselves look younger and prettier.

I liked the mirrors in the room and all the smells of lotions and shampoos. I used to like going to have my hair cut. When we went to have my hair cut, I knew why. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back to school, anyway in fact I was sure I didn’t want to. The shock had worn off, but whenever I started to think of everything that had changed, everything I could never have or do now, there was nothing I could do to make myself accept it. She was ashamed of herself, and she tried hard to make herself accept what had happened, but she couldn’t accept it. She was scared she did a lot of weeping and whining alone in her room. The day Izzy was the one everybody saw and talked to. It was as if my life had cracked in half, and the two parts of it were as different as night and day. I could see why they thought I was adjusting so well.

Izzy willy nilly by cynthia voigt