Skin Contact

Chapter 5: Scars

(Major trigger warnings for stong physcial/child abuse.) 

Beth’s nimble fingers slip beneath the hem of his shirt.

He freezes, his muscles tensing in preparation for the latter of the flight-or-fight response. Daryl holds still though, not daring to move or breathe in fear of breaking. Beth rests her cheek against his forehead, ensuring this is what Daryl wanted—that it is his choice. He nods imperceptibly, and her lips turn to kiss his hair in acknowledgement.

Daryl thinks he’s strong enough to do this. To finally put the phantom of his old man to rest, along with the never-ending cycle of Merle’s slow drawl running through his skull—ain’t nobody every gonna care about you ‘cept me, lil’ brother. Ain’t nobody ever will. Daryl knows Beth cares for him, more than his kin ever did, but the moment Beth’s hands graze the raised, rough skin of a scar it’s a knee-jerk reaction. He clenches his jaw shut and reels out of her reach, already fighting the need to run. She’s staring at him in hurt, her old-soul eyes shining. The scar she’s touched is lowest on his back, stretching below the waistband of his pants. He’d received it after swiping his old man’s pack of smokes on a dare when he was barely a teenager—it wasn’t the first, and it certainly wasn’t the last.

“Daryl—”

He cuts her off swiftly. “I can’t.”

“Look, I just wanted to say—”

“Don’t, Greene,” he finally meets her gaze, hating how she flinches at the wrath she saw there. And then he’s standing, ready to open the door and tell her to leave. “I don’ need your pity, I don’ need you to tell me you’re sorry, and I don’ need you—” Halfway across the room he feels an insistent tug on his hand, keeping him firmly planted in his place. Daryl whirls around, snarling at Beth to let him go.

She’s fearless; her gaze vacant of all uncertainty and doubt as she forces him to stay put and look at her. Beth releases his hand.  She pushes the sleeve of her sweater up her arm and jerks her numerous bracelets away to expose the bare skin of her wrist. Beth takes Daryl’s fingers again, pressing them to the slim silver line of a scar on the pale underside of her right wrist.

“What’re ya doin’—”

“Just listen to me, Daryl.” Her tone broaches no argument, something she had the habit of doing lately. “Just shut up and listen to me for five seconds.”

He nods dumbly. The longer he has to psych himself up to tell Beth to leave, the better.

“This,” she starts, “is a scar. I got this when I was sixteen, when we were still at Daddy’s farm. After my Momma died”—Beth falters for a moment, although she is quick to recover—“I was angry and sad and a million other things. I didn’t see the point in living anymore—I even hated Lori for choosing to bring Judith into this world. I made the decision to end it all, but . . . no one would let me out of their sight except Andrea. She opened the door to the bathroom and told me that pain doesn’t go away; you just make room for it. She gave me a choice, and I chose to live, Daryl. I chose to make room for it.” She pulls her left hand from his, letting him touch her wrist on his own accord.

He vaguely remembers accusing Beth of cutting her wrists for attention back at that old moonshine shack, another drunken regret. In all honesty, Daryl had never understood someone’s reasoning for hurting themselves. But, looking at Beth now, the realization clicks into place—she wanted to block out the pain. She had come to the conclusion that in living and caring for someone other than yourself, pain is part of the package. Daryl blinks, glancing at her wrist and noting the stark difference between their skin—tanned on milky-white. Dirty on clean. Old on young. He commits the image to memory. His thumb traces the feel of her scar, the breadth and width of the pale line, now knowing it signified Beth’s first of many—her step towards maturity and resilience, her end of innocence.