How

the

assault

changed

my

life

It’s 5 in the morning and I haven’t closed my eyes. In this hospital bed, I can only see his face. His hand and that damn box cutter that opens my face, left side of my face open, violated, torn from temple to chin.

Tomorrow morning at 10:30 the surgeon arrives to perform the operation, yes, because a surgeon doesn’t have to go to work at 6 in the morning. I’ve been here with my open wound since 9 PM last night. I wonder what the physical consequences will be, but most of all, I wonder what the mental consequences will be.

It was October 7, 2014, I was 26 years old, I was walking peacefully through the streets of Brescia, Italy, when a man decided to steal my phone. I was so naive, walking alone through the streets of the city at 9 PM. I come out of the train station and see a group of guys, I’m a woman alone, and I get scared, I decide to change my path, hoping to avoid any bad encounters. I have my earphones in and I’m listening to the song "I Hate Everything About You" by Three Days Grace. The city is empty, terribly empty.

The only encounter I have is with him, my Zorro. He attacks me and steals my phone, I resist for a few seconds but then let it go. In reality, I just wanted to finish listening to the song. Everything lasts 15 seconds, I don’t even have time to get angry about the theft before I feel a strange warmth on my left cheek, then a rain of blood… I still don’t understand that I am the owner of that blood. I bring my hand to my face, and my fingers sink into a deep, long wound, something I couldn’t understand how it had ended up on my face. He had put it there, with some kind of box cutter he had in his hand. With one hand he stole my phone, and with the other, he left me his signature.

I realize what’s happening, I look around, and suddenly, the same street that was empty two minutes before is now full of people, including a police patrol that, apparently, had seen nothing despite being 15 meters away from me.

I find a white parked car with a man inside who had seen everything, he looks at me as if he had seen an alien. I get in and ask for help. Meanwhile, the blood flows in streams. He gives me a paper tissue, and I worry about wiping the blood from his car rather than stopping my own bleeding. He tells me he’s sorry but doesn’t know what to do and asks me to get out because he doesn’t want trouble. I apologize for making a mess and leave. When does politeness turn into stupidity?

I cross the street and find a young guy who helps me call an ambulance and notify my husband. The ambulance ride, the fear, the thousand questions, the blood that keeps pouring, my face is full of capillaries, and between lymph and capillaries, it was impossible to stop the flood.

A volunteer, an angel, rescues me. I watch him consume packs and packs of gauze in the vain attempt to stop the bleeding. Always with a smile, he tries to hide his fear—he is more afraid than I am. I don’t even know how I manage to stay so lucid and present. I ask him if he thinks I’ll need a blood transfusion. He tells me he doesn’t know and tries to give me an even bigger, even more sincere smile. I see his angel wings, and I feel affection for him. I’m struck by how much a human being can do to help a stranger.

I arrive at the hospital with my husband. I don’t have the courage to tell my parents. They admit me and tell me to wait for the surgeon until the next day.

I go to the bathroom and peel off the dried blood from my neck and chest. It was like pine resin. I squeeze my bra; the blood is everywhere, even on my turquoise leather purse. I don’t feel pain, the wound doesn’t hurt.

I get into bed, in a state of total wakefulness, completely alert. The adrenaline is so strong that it causes lactic acid pain the next day. I tremble, all my muscles are tense. I find an unexpected clarity in me. I know the night will be long and difficult. I wait for the operation with anticipation and trust.

At 8 AM the next morning, I call my parents, who rush to the hospital. At 10:30, I’m in the operating room, still with a clarity that, at this point, feels out of place. The doctors are listening to Virgin Radio. I even find the courage to joke with them and sing along to some songs playing on the radio. After 40 minutes and 30 stitches, it’s done. They discharge me.

I spend the following week on the couch, sleeping and eating meat and chocolate cakes to replenish all the blood, iron, and minerals I lost. For a week, my muscles are tight, the lactic acid pain hurts every single part of my body, but little by little, I recover.

I have a mix of strong awareness of what happened and the feeling that it was all a dream, the hope of waking up the next day and having nothing left on my face.

At that time, I still didn’t know that image—his green eyes full of hatred, his olive skin, the dark blue hood—would keep me awake at night for the next eight years. Every night, the image would come back to say goodnight to me. Every single night.

Days pass, and I seemingly come to terms with it. The surgeon removes my stitches, and when I ask if he could do something as a cosmetic surgeon, he replies, “No. Good luck.”

I’m in the car, returning home from the hospital, when I have the illumination, the epiphany!

I realize that if the same wound had been on my neck, there would no longer be a Chiara. I realize that as bad as it went, it also went well. I understand that life is a precious gift hanging by a thread and that it must not be wasted. I understand that I had to toughen up and that I couldn’t waste this second chance.

At a very precise point in my childhood, I had understood something very important about myself. At 4 years old, the truth had hit me in an almost divine or mystical way. It struck me like energy, a fire! Right then, I had fully understood that my destiny was that of an artist. At that moment, at 4 years old, I had promised myself that I would follow this vocation.

I had reached the age of 26, and even though I had always studied art, I hadn’t had the courage, as an adult, to tell myself that this was my destiny and that I would do everything possible to pursue my dream.

In that car, returning from the hospital, I realized that I had to toughen up, that I had unfinished business with the 4-year-old Chiara, that I had unfinished business with my most intimate self.

I had spent the last 20 years doing everything to extinguish that flame.

"Enough," I told myself.

I grabbed a can of gasoline and poured it all over that little flame that was left in me, and from that day on, I never looked back.