I scoot closer across the wet tile until my knees press against the insides of his thighs, his legs spread, drawn up, feet flat on the floor. I nestle between them, and the contact is immediate.
His thighs tense against mine, muscles shifting, heat radiating through the damp fabric of his jeans and my tights. I feelevery small tremor that runs through him, the way his legs press lightly against the outsides of my hips, caging me without trapping me.
I’m violence…she’s porcelain.
Our chests are barely a handspan apart now, and I gently ease the fabric away from his face, millimeter by millimeter, watching the paint-smeared skin appear beneath it. I keep going, the buff halfway down, caught on the curve of his mouth, the sharp line of his jaw.
My thumb brushes the edge of his lip, barely a touch, just enough to feel the split skin, and he inhales sharply through his nose, the sound jagged, like it hurts to let air in.
I won’t hurt her.
The black material slides over his chin then drops free, pooling around his throat, and I still.
Beneath the smudged paint, I see it—skin that looks wrong, a ridged path curling up like a pale rope stitched into him by someone who hated every inch they touched.
My breath stutters, ragged and shallow, and my lips part because I can’t get enough air. The whole world narrows to this one terrible, beautiful line on his face, and my heart cracks open so wide I feel it in my throat, in my veins, in every place I’ve tried to keep safe.
I lean my head to the side, eyes locked on the scar, then dragging up to meet his—wide, uncertain—then back to the scar again, like if I look long enough I can understand how deep the wound goes, how long it’s been bleeding inside him.
My movements are slow, each one its own small thing, because this feels like something that shouldn’t be rushed. This feels like the most important thing I’ve done in my entire life.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. He’s waiting.
Waiting for me to pull away. Waiting for the flinch he’s spent years expecting from everyone who ever got this close.
I don’t pull away. I don’t divert my gaze. Instead, I take the towel and wipe away the paint that clings to the scar like black and white chaos, revealing the pale, raised line beneath.
It’s thicker than I expected, smoother in places, rougher in others, a belt of scar tissue that curls from the corner of his mouth upward in a jagged arc, disappearing just beneath his cheekbone. I trace it with the towel until the last smudge of black dissolves and the scar lies bare under the light.
I still, barely able to inhale. He’s beautiful. Even bruised and scarred, he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. Not in a safe, easy to look at way. Beautiful in the way fire is beautiful, or ruined cathedrals, or anything made holy by survival.
Beautiful in a way that hurts.
I suck my bottom lip into my mouth, placing a finger just below the corner of his lips where the cruel texture starts. His throat bobs as he swallows hard, gaze etched on my face as I ease my touch along the jagged scar, entranced like it’s telling a story, giving me a window to look through.
“What happened?” My fingers hover, and he places his hand over mine, keeping it there.
“I died.”
Something inside me hollows out.They gave her money…for me. Said I was pretty. Until I made myself…unpretty.
“You…” God, it hurts to even say it out loud. “You did this…to yourself.”
“Are you afraid of me?”
My soul breaks as I keep my hand beneath his. “No.”
“You should be.”
I keep staring at the scar. “I know.”
He closes his eyes, only for a second, but the defeat in it pierces clear through me. The tiredness. The way he wants me to let go, to pull my hand away, but also the ache for it, the hope that I don’t.
A tear slips free, down my cheek, just as he opens his eyes. For one heartbeat, something flickers in those battered eyes, like he’s seeing me for the first time and realizing I’m still here. Like he’s waiting for the moment I finally understand what he is and run. But I don’t run. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.
Instead, I slide in closer, and the faint tremor that runs through him matches the one in me, bone-deep and unstoppable. Our noses brush, barely, and I hear the sharp inhale he takes, labored, like breathing hurts.
I whisper against his lips, “Who are you to me?”
