The Red Spot on My Cheek
On the flight back to London, I kept touching my cheek.
At first, I thought it was a mosquito bite.
There were lots of insects on the beaches in Mexico.
The hotel staff even told us to keep the windows closed at night.
My friends got bitten all over their arms and legs, and I had a few marks on my shoulder too.
So one small red dot on my cheek didn’t seem like a big deal.
The only problem was that it was on my face.
My right cheek.
Just below the cheekbone.
A spot you could see immediately in the mirror.
When it first appeared, it was the size of a fingernail.
A small red circle.
It didn’t hurt when I pressed it.
It didn’t itch either.
I just didn’t like how it looked.
I thought it was a breakout from applying sunscreen too thickly.
It was the last day of the trip.
I noticed it while removing my makeup in the hotel bathroom.
My friend said from behind me,
“You got bitten.”
“On my face?”
“You slept on the beach.”
She was right.
We had been lying on the sand that afternoon.
I put a towel over my face and took a nap.
I didn’t know how long I slept.
When I woke up, my cheek stung a little.
I thought it was the sun.
A small lizard had gotten into our hotel room, and there was a spiderweb in the corner of the bathr