Random Oneshots

Scars

I hated my scars. There were so many of them.

I hated the fact that even after all these years, they refused to fade. They were everywhere.

They were on my wrists from too many long nights spent alone.

They were on my back from the man who raised me.

They went across my stomach from the reckless driving of a drunk 19 year old as I crossed the street.

They covered my legs from the accident that killed my mother and sister.

The only scars I didn't hate were on my chest. These were my scars. I was okay with them. They meant that I had done it. I had made it. Those scars were from when I was finally able to get top surgery, after years of saving. I had saved every penny I could since the day I moved out at 16, and after 7 years of hard work, I had finally made it. But they didn't cover up the rest.

I still had so many marks from my failures. Every stripe on my back, I disappointed my father. Every line on my wrist, I couldn't man up. Every mark on my legs, I couldn't save my family.

Every scar was me. My fault. My mistakes.

So I looked at them. I stood there in my boxers and stared at the mirror as I wallowed in the pain I caused myself over the years. I sunk so deeply into my self hatred that I didn't notice the door to my apartment open.

"Felix? I brought piz-" my boyfriend of three years cut off as he walked into our bedroom, "Hey handsome, what's wrong?"

I looked over at him before looking back to my body in the mirror on our wall. How could he possibly love such a repulsive creature as me? How could he call me "handsome"?

He walked over to me and tentatively placed a gentle hand on my shoulder blade. Just on top of a particularly hideous mark. I flinched harshly before relaxing into his touch. This man was not my father. This man was not Charles Wright.

Ever so slowly, he moved his hand from scar to scar across my back. "These aren't your fault you know."

"Zeke.."

"Listen to me Felix. These scars are not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong. And even if you had, that didn't give that man the right to.. it's just not okay, what he did." His soft hands moved to the scars on my stomach, "These aren't your fault either. That teenager shouldn't have been driving drunk." His left hand stayed near my navel while his right dropped to a jagged scar on my upper thigh, "And these? You were 6, Felix. There's nothing you could have done. Nobody could have saved them. It was dark. No one saw the truck until... it wasn't your fault." There were tears in both of our eyes now.

"And finally," he lifted my wrists up with his hands. God, those perfect hands. He held them firmly and kissed every scar on my wrists. Every single one. All the way up to the crook of my elbow. When he finished, he looked at me, tears streaming down his face and choked out, "These weren't your fault either. You were too young for any of the terrible things that happened. You were too young to lose your family. You were too young to be beaten. You were to young to be alone. But you survived. All of these are battle scars. And you won. You won the whole goddamn war."

We were both sobbing at this point, the pizzas in the kitchen long forgotten.

We knew that life was hard, but as long as we had each other to kiss away our scars, we would be okay.