“What happened to your hands?”
I swallow and instinctively pull my hand away from the steering wheel, hiding both of them in my hoodie pockets. Her question slams straight into my chest before I can even think.
Of course she noticed.
I forgot about them for a moment. I shove them deeper into my pockets like an idiot, my shoulders tensing as I stare at the windshield.
“Accident,” I mutter, my voice lower than I intended. “Nothing serious.”
She doesn’t buy it. I feel her eyes on me—careful, not judging, just too curious and too gentle.
“Kasien,” she almost whispers, and it’s ridiculous how my entire body reacts to hearing my name like that. “Why did you hide them?”
I swallow hard.
Because they’re disgusting.
Because I spent the whole day scrubbing blood and brain off concrete and then my own skin like a lunatic.
Because nothing about me is soft enough for you.
But I can’t tell her that. So I just shrug.
“They’re not exactly nice to look at,” I say with a forceful laugh.
She reaches forward, hesitant at first, then braver, and her fingers stop right next to my pocket.
“Can I?” she asks quietly.
Jesus Christ.
My heart starts beating like it wants to jump out of my ribcage. I pull one hand out slowly, stiffly, palm up, still half-looking away because I cannot handle whatever expression she’s wearing right now. The scars are rough, the knuckles raw. All of it fucking ugly.
Her hand lands on mine, feather-light, like she’s afraid she’ll hurt me. I actually forget how to breathe. She turns my hand gently, her thumb brushing the melted skin, tracing the lines like she’s memorizing them.
“Kasien,” she says, softer this time. “They’re beautiful.”
My head snaps toward her before I can stop myself.
“What?” I sound actually offended.
Jesus. Smooth.
But she just smiles—small, shy, but so real it makes something in me unravel.
“I mean it,” she continues, her thumb still on my hand, like she’s trying to warm them. “They look strong. Like you use them for things that matter.”
My brows furrow slightly.
If she only knew.
Her eyes flick to mine, and there’s this tiny smile—unsure, nervous, but full of something that hits me so hard I forget to blink.
Her fingertips glide over my knuckles again, careful, almost reverent, and every thought I had about feeling disgusting or wrong just evaporates under her touch.
If I leaned a few inches forward, I could kiss her. If she looked at me for one second longer, I would.
But I don’t.
