After Bette’s father had seen her appearance that morning, his first reaction was simple – he wanted to fix the problem. And that didn’t serve to help with Bette’s emotional turmoil.

“Dad … what the hell?”

He turned back to look at her, opening his car door while she stood on other side of the Mercedes. “Don’t you talk to me like that. Get in.”

“You’re treating me like I’m some sort of … freak!”

“You won’t be for long,” he assured her, ducking inside and starting up the car.

Bette felt devastated with the way he had spoken to her, but she didn’t feel like she had a choice. He was right, she figured, and that she needed to be fixed. She couldn’t have a life without her perfect face, and without her flawless beauty. She’d built her life on her appearance, as well as the appearance of others.

She was ashamed all the way to a specialist, where they told her that they had no idea what had happened, but she seemed to be in no physical danger. Her body had just unexplainably transformed, and there was nothing they could do.

After four more second opinions, it was decided that Bette should spend some time at an old winter get-away mansion that had been passed down in the family. It was located far up North, and Bette knew that was exactly why her father had suggested it – he wanted her as far away as possible, because he was ashamed of her. And while he hadn’t spent much time with her before, his purposeful separation hurt just the same.

“I’ll visit you every week,” he promised on their drive up, “And Molly’s coming up later today to help you get settled in.” Molly was their housekeeper, and while Bette liked the woman’s courteous manner and their few, short conversations together, she was resistant because of the situation.

“I can take care of myself.” She just looked out the window as residential areas gave way to trees, which gave way to many more trees until she felt like she was in the middle of a forest. She fell asleep somewhere along her way down, waking up once they’d finally arrived. With a fair amount of anger and sadness, she helped to unpack her things from the trailer, including her beloved motorcycle.