Paper Planes

XXIII

Totally sappy pre-chapter A/N: PAPER PLANES HIT 6,000 READS!!! Excuse me while I literally sob. This book is barely over a month old and I am literally shook by how loved it is already. I've never written anything so fast in my life, and it's because of you guys!!! I always look forward to your reactions and comments, and even when I'm discouraged about a chapter, I'm always so pleased to see the end results. SO, enough of my rambling, and enjoy this unusually short filler chapter (pls don't hate me)!

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"Scars are not signs of weakness, they are signs of survival and endurance."
—Rodney A. Winters

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"What's this one from?" Ember whispered, her fingertips grazing over the slightly raised flesh above his left hip.

"Hmm." Joker hummed, rotating his body on the bed so that the scar would be on display. It sat cleanly above the bone of his hip, etched sloppily into the skin as it healed a light pink color. The scar was about half an inch wide, and traveled nearly three inches across the flesh.

"Some fucker stabbed me on my twenty-first birthday." He grumbled, maneuvering the waist of his trousers so that he could show her an additional scar underneath the pant line.

"And this," Joker began, smacking his lips together enthusiastically. "Is an array of cigarette burns in the sha-pe of a heart."

Ember's jaw slackened, her fingers darting outward to caress the raised skin that did, in fact, resemble a heart.

"Wha–?"

"Carol-ine." He bluntly stated, masking the blemish with his pinstripe pants once again as he cupped Ember's jaw. "Some-uh, girl I slept with several times. She was ob-sessed with me."

Ember switched positions against the purple comforter, bending downward to pry the waist of his pants down once again. She pressed a soft kiss to the destroyed flesh as Joker merely groaned in response.

His bare fingers laced into her hair, massaging her scalp as she continued her gentle assault on his marred hip with her lips.

"Why'd you let her burn you so many times?"

"Passe-d out drunk. Didn't feel a thing."

Ember repositioned herself, her forehead grazing his as she lightly placed her palm on his bare shoulder, urging him to lay flatly on the bed.

The painted-face man raised a brow, collapsing onto his back as the scars on the his left side became visible.

Ember sucked in a dramatic breath, focusing solely on the faded wound directly underneath his ribcage.

A bullet wound?

"Tell me about this one." She whispered, the pad of her thumb tracing the indented skin as Joker brought his arm upwards, claiming her jaw between his fingers.

"My first injury," he reminisced, Michelle's frantic expression flooding his mind as he remembered that day very, very clearly. "My-uh, Mom taugh-t me how to stitch myself up. Some-uh, good old fashioned tough love."