the roof of my mouth. It’s been years since anyone’s touched me there, that I’ve allowed anyone to touch me skin to bare skin. “I don’t have much feeling in most of it.”
I don’t tell her about the other stuff, like having to wear compression bandages for months. Or how sometimes the nerves will randomly flare to life, and how it feels like an electric shock. Or how I had to do stretches during the healing process to get any kind of elasticity back, and how that PT was cut short on account of life at Mountain Point, and how the scars could probably be better if it hadn’t been.
Her hand falls away and I feel her shifting. I gather the courage to look over my shoulder, prepared for whatever I see in her expression—disgust, pity, revulsion.
I am not prepared for the sight of her topless.
She’s shucked her shirt off. My eyes instinctively fall to her chest, to the dark outline of her nipples beneath the delicate fabric of her bra, before I whip my head back around.
“Christ, V.”
“Look.” When I don’t, she stands, turning to me. “Please.”
When I turn, her pale stomach is right there. Because of this, the long scar slashed across the skin is the first thing I see. It’s not like mine. This one is thick, raised, and precise. Surgical. There are little dots above and below it, staples having at one point held the skin together. Someone could walk into my house and cut me open in the same place, and I’d probably feel less gutted than I am right now, looking at this.
“My pelvis was shattered,” she explains, turning so that I can see how it goes all the way around to her back, stopping at the base of her spine, where there are other obvious surgery scars. “I have some metal in there now.” She turns back to me, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the raised flesh, two shades lighter than the skin the rest of the world sees.
She doesn’t flinch when I curl my fingers around her waist. I rub the pad of my thumb against the scar, as if I could smooth it away, wipe the damage clean. This used to be flawless, this skin. She used to be sound. Pure.
“I’m sorry.” My voice is gravel when it gives her this, rough with my quiet secret. I don’t mean to say it—I never wanted to—but I find that I don’t regret it. It’s not sour, like I thought it’d be. It’s as easy as the space between one breath and the next, and suddenly, the thought of not saying it feels like absolute agony. I barely have to tip forward to bury my head into the warm, marred skin of her stomach. My hands clutch her waist, holding her close, as if I could press the truth of this into it. As if it could hide the way the corners of my eyes sting. “I’m so fucking sorry, Vandy.”
I feel her hitched breath in the jump of her stomach below my face. “Reyn...”
“It’s my fault.” I can’t bear to hear her say it’s okay. “I’m sorry.” Like a floodgate opening, now I can’t seem to stop saying it, over and over, “I’m so fucking sorry.” I think I’m shaking, and I’m holding her too tight, but she doesn’t push me away.
Her fingers thread through my hair, holding me to her, and she doesn’t say it’s okay.
Softly, she says, “I forgive you.”
“Don’t.” That single word holds multitudes. I want to tell her to take this and just leave it. Let the silence hang. It’s what I deserve, we both know it.
“Reyn,” she insists, voice thick with tears. “What happened to us was an accident. A horrible accident. We both suffered because of it, but you didn’t mean for that to happen. I know you didn’t.”
I have to let go of her then, because I definitely can’t take her consoling me. Fuck. As if I don’t feel sick enough. I jam the heels of my palms into my eyes, just as much to hide the redness of them as to not see her crying. I’d used up my tears for that night years ago, in the scant privacy of my hospital room, dark bunks, and shower stalls. It’s not fair that she still has some left.
Her voice sounds close enough that I can feel the heat of her breath on my knuckles. “I shouldn’t have said that, about Afton and