The Scars That Made Us

by Inda Herwood

  Wanting to drive away the bad dreams, I whisper reassuringly to her under my breath and onto her skin, feeling her relax the more I tell her that she’s safe, that I’m here, and I’m not going to leave. Eventually she goes completely still, and her breathing evens out again. With her being peaceful now, it does the same for me. And knowing that she isn’t scared anymore, that I helped her somehow, gives me a feeling I haven’t felt in years.

  Like I’m needed.

  Cyvil

  It’s a terrible dream, one I haven’t had in a really long time. Well, I guess it’s more of a memory than a dream. It’s when I could hear the woman that did most of my torturing coming back down the hall. The floors were ridiculously creaky in the house, letting you know where people were almost constantly. But the hall had a distinct creak, more of a groan, really. I dreaded that groan. It meant that horror was returning to visit an old friend: me.

  But this time, I’m not alone. There’s a little boy with me. He has dark hair with skin the color of caramel, making the unusual gray of his eyes stand out beautifully. He’s tied up to a rusty old dining chair like myself, hands bound behind him, legs roped to the metal legs of the chair. He looks to be a few years older than me, tall, even sitting down. It takes me a minute to understand who I’m looking at.

  “Jagger?” Hope fills me for the first time since I arrived at this horrible place, my heart hammering for a whole other reason than fear for once. “Jagger please. She’s coming back. The lady with the sharp thing is coming back.”

  He does the most unusual thing then. He smiles at me, as though I said the silliest thing in the world. “What is there to worry about? As long as I’m here, you’re safe. She’s not going to hurt you, because I won’t let her.” When I still look at him with uncertainty, he says, eyes darkening to metal, “I’d never leave you, Cyvil.”

  And then the dream is melting away, the edges going blurry before dissolving completely, and I’m in my room now, the lights out, the house quiet except for our breathing…

  Wait, our breathing?

  I can feel a body behind me, warm and strong and holding me safe in its arms. I panic for a moment though, wondering who the heck is in my dream with me. But then I catch a whiff of clean, rich air, and I see the tan skin of the hand holding mine, which I hadn’t noticed before, and I relax. It’s just Jagger. But then why is he in my dream, on my bed, holding me?

  Just as I start to worry about this, I decide it’s pointless. It’s just a dream. My mind was suffering and it brought me the one thing it knew could help me, and that’s my fake fiancé, who now makes me feel like a breath I can’t catch when he’s not around. Honestly, I wouldn’t have survived both of the parties without him. I wouldn’t have survived my mother without him. He’s starting to feel like this safety blanket I need to carry with me, to distract me from everyone else and their pointless opinions. I’m beginning to crave the calmness I feel standing next to him, telling me without telling me that I’m safe to be me when I’m in his presence.

  And how pathetic is that?

  I’m addicted to my pretend fiancé.

  No, worse, I’m crushing on my pretend fiancé.

  Hard.

  Just add it to my list of issues, one of them being Jagger appearing in my dreams. The other is having him save me, and then hold me in them. I’m not that kind of girl, or at least I never thought I was. I don’t daydream about men like my sister and Hanna do (no offense, girls). I don’t pine. But…how do you stop a dream? And do I really want to end this?

  I feel his nose bury itself in my hair, taking a deep breath, and letting it out slowly against my neck…

  Uh, no. I do not.

  Pretending for a moment that this is real, and that this Jagger isn’t just imaginary, and that he likes me like I’m starting to like him, I relax in his arms. Turning myself to face him, my dress gets caught around my middle, showing the tops of my thighs, my healed scars turning white under the light of the moon through the window. Really? I couldn’t have dreamed my way out of uncomfortable clothes, and magically gotten rid of the evidence of my past? Figures.

  Ignoring it, I focus on Jagger in front of me, his face only a few inches away from mine. His hair has flopped over one closed eye, hiding it from me. He looks peaceful like this, the heaviness that usually follows him evaporating in sleep. But even so, he has small bags under his eyes, his skin paler in the moonlight. Still, he’s beautiful, like an old painting you find in a basement that’s been sitting there for years. A little banged up, maybe nicked around the edges, but it doesn’t take away from its original beauty.

  The tip of my finger pushes back the piece of hair that was blocking his left eye, feeling his skin ghost across mine in the process. The contrast of it next to my porcelain skin stands out, even in the dark. With his hair pushed to the side, my finger glides down the length of his nose, falling to the rise of his lips. I really don’t give them enough credit. They are dark pink and full; smooth to the touch. It makes me wonder…do guys use Chapstick?

  Tracing the outline of them, I notice quickly when they open minutely, a rush of air being sucked through them. My eyes immediately jump to his to see his reaction, my finger still against his lips.

  His eyes appear black, framed in equally dark lashes as they look over my face, questioning. But he doesn’t move away. I mean, why would he? It’s my dream after all. Can’t imagine I’d reject myself in my own fantasy. And so I pretend like I do this all the time, having my thumb replace my index finger on this lips, roaming back and forth before I let it fall to his chin, his cheeks, the dark circles under his eyes. The whole time he watches me, never looking away from my eyes, appearing more intense than they ever did in real life.

  My hand falls away once it has memorized every hill and valley of his face, resting against his chest now, right above his heart. I stare down at it as I feel the rhythm of it pulse against my palm, a staccato of erratic beats, uneven and fast. My lips tip up at the corners, liking to think that I caused its hectic state.

  “I wish it was real,” I quietly admit to Dream Jagger, and not just meaning this moment.

  He doesn’t say anything, but I feel as though I recognize the torn look in his eyes, the crease above his brow. It’s the expression he wears when I tell him something personal about myself, how I look in the mirror when I think of him and the real reason for his presence in my life. It’s not a happy look, and I wonder why I would allow it in my dreams.

  But unlike reality, what follows ‘the look’ in the dream world isn’t a bad thing. Not by a long shot.

  He tips our foreheads together, giving me a single moment to catch my breath before he says something along the lines of “Screw it”, and seals his lips to mine, stealing the breath I had just caught. The shock of how real it feels stuns me at first. I can sense the warmth of his lips, the hardness of his chest under my hands; feel the arms he has wrapped around my back, pushing me that much closer to him.

  His kiss is alive, electric, the feeling of static coursing through the air, heightening every sense. I feel the hair on the back of my neck rise the longer he kisses me, my fingers gliding through his hair, down his back, wishing he didn’t have two stinking shirts on so I could feel the beautiful curve of his muscles.

  My heart stops when he flips us over so that I’m on top of him, his hands on my hips, my straight hair creating a curtain around us. Like flipping a switch, the reckless kiss quickly evolves from something fast and desperate to slow and deep – gentle and sweet. And then we’re flipping over again, me underneath him as he steals my lips, then the side of them, and all the way up the right side of my face. A cold, hot rush passes over my skin, knowing he’s getting close to the scar at my cheek and forehead. Even in the dream world I don’t want fake Jagger to touch it, to feel the ugly, raised line and be turned off enough that he stops what he started.

  The closer he gets to it, the more I start mumbling, my legs twisting and spasming against his, my hands pushing at h
is chest. He stops, looking down at me with worry in his eyes, arms raised to keep his weight off of me. His muscles strain with the motion. “What’s wrong? Am I hurting you?” His voice is shattered glass.

  I’m shaking my head before he even asks the question, feeling hysteric tears filling at the back of my eyes. Gosh dang it, AGAIN? This is not supposed to happen when the whole thing is fake. Why the hell would I make myself cry in front of him in a dream? Because I’m a masochist, that’s why. And my brain is so past gone that it won’t even let me take a break from reality in my dreams.

  “S-scar,” I barely breathe out, forcing my eyes to shut and reabsorb the tears. It takes a second, but I accomplish it, only to open them again and see the sadness in his.

  “Your scars,” he says in a steady, rough voice as his lips move closer to my face, near the hideous gift I was given by a psycho as a child, “are beautiful,” he finishes, placing a soft, delicate kiss right in the middle of the raised scar. My heart feels like a machine gun until his lips move off it.

  “They symbolize how strong you’ve always been,” he says, head dipping down to my neck, kissing each scar he can find, stopping my breathing with how tender he is with them – as though he knows they are sensitive. “It shows how incredible you are.” Now he’s moving down to my shoulders, across the top of my chest, along each arm, kissing every mar, score, and line as he goes, not showing a single sign of repulsion. “You’re perfect,” he finally says once he’s gone across every inch of exposed flesh, showing me just how much he seems to think so. “Too perfect for the likes of me.” His eyes are so sad that I can’t stand it anymore.

  I pull him back up to my face, holding his forehead to mine as I give him a kiss I hope Dream Jagger won’t soon forget. In response, he grabs my hips and I wrap my legs around his, not leaving a breath of space between us. We lay there for what feels like years, my head nestled under his chin, his hands running soothing patterns up my back. I have never felt calmer, more content, than here, in fake Jagger’s arms, wishing the whole time that life could be this simple.

  ***

  Feeling the warm sunlight on my face, I groan, flipping a pillow over my eyes to ward it off. I don’t feel like going to work this morning, or moving from this bed, quite frankly. It’s too comfortable, safe.

  And as I imagine falling back to sleep, wasting the day away, a certain dream comes back to me; slow but steady.

  Oh my gosh.

  Alright, so not only do I not want to go to work, but I don’t think I’ll be able to face Jagger again without my face going red as a tomato, and my mind replaying all we did in my dream on a loop. Ugh.

  Mentally yelling at my subconscious, I feel a sudden dip in the mattress, and my heart stills. What the –

  A cold, furry nose nudges my hand, followed by a disgruntled baahhh, and I let a giant breath of relief fly through my lips. Throwing the pillow to the side, I look down at Grim, who is sitting next to my arm, head tilted to the side. It’s her I’m waiting to be fed face.

  “Alright, alright. Give me a minute.” Sitting up, I realize I’m still in my dress from the party last night. I don’t even remember Jagger driving me home, or walking in the house and to my bed.

  My phone rings next to me. Since when did I put my phone on the nightstand?

  Picking it up, I see that I got a text from Jagger. I feel my face go hot, and he’s not even in the room with me.

  Hey, just wanted to say good morning, and ask if you wanted to go do something later? I was thinking a walk in Central Park. Maybe we could talk about last night?

  Smiling down at the words he wrote until I get to the last line, I nearly drop the phone when it rings again, this time with a call, not a text.

  Answering it, I’m not prepared when I hear, “Tessa, what did you and Will do last night?” Moon asks without pretense, voice more than a little suspicious.

  I pause, brain still foggy with sleep. “…What?”

  “You heard me. What exactly went down at the beach last night?” I hear something that suspiciously sounds like a club hitting a golf ball, and then a bunch of swearing in Spanish in the background.

  “What are you even doing right now?” I ask, dodging the question.

  “Golfing with Rosacea. Answer the question.” I hear Rosy continue to curse, but now it’s aimed at Moon.

  “Why do you assume something happened?” I say as I unzip the back of my dress, nearly sighing in relief with it no longer digging into my spine.

  “Because your real life Will Herondale called me this morning and he sounded chipper. Chipper, Montae. Jagger Wells is never chipper. So, I can only assume something happened in the sand dunes.”

  Opening the drawer to my dresser, I grab my favorite pair of black scrubs and then go to retrieve the white long sleeve shirt I normally wear under it, but stop when my hand touches the fabric. It gets so hot when I’m running around the hospital, helping patients, taking information, doing errands. It’d be nice to not have to worry about it for once.

  You’re perfect. Too perfect for the likes of me.

  My eyes close as Moon continues to talk to himself on the other end of the line, my mind replaying Dream Jagger’s words, how much it hurt to hear them. It was just a dream, but I swear I can still feel his fingers on my back, tracing every line and scar…

  “You’re daydreaming, aren’t you? Typical. I mean, what does it matter when your super hot Asian friend is talking to you when you can be picturing a Grecian rich boy naked.”

  Now that I heard. “Wait, what? I was not! Why would you say that?”

  “You haven’t spoken in over five minutes. It’s either that, or you had a stroke. Did you have a stroke?”

  “No.”

  “Then you were thinking about someone you probably shouldn’t be thinking about in the way you’re thinking about them.”

  “I – what? I don’t –” How did he know that?

  He sighs, saying, “Hold on a second, I have to hit my shot first before I decipher your stuttering. Rosy, hold my phone. I said hold my phone, you little dipsh– ” His voice cuts off in the distance, then I hear Rosy say cordially, “Hey, Cyvil,” while I can make out the sound of Moon hitting the ball in the background. I say a quick “Hey,” back, and before I know it, Moon is talking again.

  “Okay, so what I can gather is that something happened last night, and either you’re not telling me the truth, or you really don’t know what happened.”

  Bypassing the long sleeves, I take the scrubs and shut the drawer. “The latter.”

  “Did you drink?”

  “No,” I say as I set my phone on the dresser, changing it over to speakerphone so I can put on my work clothes and chat at the same time. Though at the moment my finger is itching to hit the End button.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has he texted you?”

  I don’t say anything, and when the silence lasts longer than three seconds, he goes, “Bingo. What did he say?”

  Normally I would dodge the question, but with what Jagger said about wanting to talk about last night, I half wonder if Moon might have some insight for me. So I tell him about the text, saying that I don’t remember anything happening between us other than just dancing. His response?

  “Hmm.”

  “Hmm? That’s all you’ve got?” I walk into the kitchen with Grim’s water bowl and fill it up, placing it on the floor next to her food pellets when I’m done. She happily eats away while Moon constructs his next sentence.

  “Yep, that’s about it. Well, if things heat up, call me.” The line goes dead, and I roll my eyes, wondering why I picked it up in the first place.

  Work is relatively uneventful. I mostly take calls, schedule appointments, and help a few older people with filling out their insurance forms. I love working with the elderly, especially the men. They don’t stare at my scars, and I suspect it’s because since most are either World War II or Vietnam Vets, they have seen their fair sh
are of injuries.

  “You’re just another one of us survivors,” one of them said to me once after they were brave enough to ask about my condition, smiling at me like the title was a badge of honor. It was the first time I hadn’t received pity for what had become of me, my story. He had made me feel like I was a part of a special group of individuals, not something to be ashamed of, but proud.

  As I clock out for the day, I stare down at the text I got from Jagger, feeling bad for not having responded yet. I want to hang out, but I don’t understand what he wants to talk about, and it makes me nervous, especially with the odd call I got from Moon. I guess there’s only one way to find out.

  -18-

  Last Night

  I scan the six words printed against the screen, wondering why they came ten hours after I sent my own. I had left her cell on the nightstand last night and knew she must have seen it this morning when she got up. Perhaps it’s because unlike me, she wasn’t as affected by what happened between us.

  No.

  That was far too intense not to be remembered or taken seriously. I’ve never experienced that level of vulnerability with anyone before in my life, and I have a feeling that I won’t again. So no, I refuse to believe that she’s pretending like nothing happened, even though I was hoping for a little more than just, Sure, be there in an hour?

  Since I only live ten minutes from the park, I take my time by picking up a couple of coffees, going through my emails on my phone, and waiting for her on one of the benches near the park’s northern most entrance, people watching. Though I’ve lived here all my life, the city, and its little spot of green in a concrete jungle, still amazes me. So many walks of life, personalities, ages, and cultures all strolling past me, all with different stories to tell. It’s like travelling the world without having to move a muscle.