Broken Record

Scars

I was in seventh period, sitting next to my friend Myra. For some reason, Jace, a boy I've had a crush on for more than seven months, came and sat with the two of us sometime during class. So here we are now, laughing at Jace as he scrubs his laptop furiously with hand sanitizer, cussing at Myra for marking his laptop with a permanent marker. She couldn't stop laughing because she had only made two of the smallest dots either of us had ever seen. In fact, you barely could see it, so why he was acting like this was beyond me. Though, it was an amusing sight.

As I was reading through the textbook, Jace, instead of asking Myra who was seated next to him, leaned behind her and looked right at me. "Jules, give me your hand."

I raised an eyebrow at him and leaned back as well. "Why?"

He lifted his hands up in a small shrug, "I got too much."

I rolled my eyes at him, laughing. Turning back to the textbook I spoke through a small smile, "No thanks."

He frowns and scoots closer to me, his chair going as far as it would let him because the table and Myra sat in his way, "please?"

I looked up at him again, and when I did, I saw his eyes and I rolled mine once more as I tried to play it cool. "Fine." I reached out my left hand for him, and that's when he slowly ran his hand over mine until the tips of our fingers slipped away from each other. There was nothing on his hand when he touched it to mine, so I was confused and I could feel my face heating at the contact we just made. I shook my head, and just as I was about to pull my hand back, Jace stopped and stared at something on my wrist, and I realized that he had taken ahold of my hand, once again.

I shivered at his touch, my face betraying me.

"What's that?" He asked as he started to reach for my hand again. I pulled my hand back and held it to my chest, I tore my gaze away from his face as my face started burning with shame. My eyes grew watery and my vision became somewhat blurry.

"Jules...please let me see." I shook my head. He couldn't see; no one could. No one else knew. Everyone thought I was done, thought it was over.

"Jules. Please." I slowly moved my gaze, and it locked with his. His head was tilted to the left, his eyes somewhat sad and his lips weren't pulled up into a smirk or smile like they usually were. I looked down to his hand, that was held out for me. I sighed and slowly placed my hand near his. His hands engulfed mine, causing sparks to shoot through me. I shuddered as I focused on not crying. He slowly pulled my jacket away, frowning at my skin.

"What?" He took a short pause, then continued. "Why?" I couldn't answer. I could only focus on his thumb running over them. I wanted to cry.

"These are old, right?" He looked up at me. I met his eyes. "Oh...they aren't, are they?" I shook my head.

"They're new."

Then he left. We all left after that. I went to therapy after my grandma picked me up,, and that day, that class, that moment, repeated itself over and over again. Never stopping. Like a broken record, it kept playing in my head.