Scars

The door behind me closed with a silent click I barely noticed. My attention was on something – someone – different entirely. I couldn't take my eyes off her even if I wanted to. Her eyes. Her flush cheeks. Her lips. Maker, those mischievously smiling lips that begged to be kissed.

As if she read my thoughts she stepped towards me… close… closer… until our bodies almost touched. I held my breath when she reached around me, still not touching, locking the door with yet another silent click. I swallowed, hard, when her breath tickled my neck and made goose bumps rise on my skin. She didn't say a word, just took my hand then, gently pulling at it. The feeling of her fingers around mine sent a jolt of electricity through me and I obeyed her unspoken command without so much as a thought, following her to the bed like a puppet on a string.

Her gray-blue eyes held my gaze, never wavering, while her nimble fingers started unbuttoning my shirt. Slowly. Oh so slowly. I didn't dare to move. I couldn't. I wanted to kiss her, touch her in return but her intense eyes held me captive and motionless. My heart pounded behind my ribs, fast and wild, my pulse was loud in my ears. I couldn't think of anything but how beautiful she was. The flickering flames in the fireplace cast complicated designs of light and shadow on her skin and hair, hypnotizing in their ever changing patterns. Her eyes were dark and wanting and gleaming in a fire of their own.

And then she kissed me, softly, gently, and I was shaken from my paralysis. I grabbed her waist and pulled her as close as I could. Our kiss grew urgent as I slipped my hands under her shirt, ran them over her ribcage and up to her small, firm breasts. The moan she gave vibrated against my lips and in my mouth. I felt a tickling sensation when she slid my shirt off of my shoulders and shivered when the cooler air in the room made contact with my too hot skin. Her fingers mimicked my moves, fluttered over my sides and chest, leaving me aching for more. I felt her mouth wander away from mine as she began kissing a path down my jaw and neck, teeth scraping over my skin followed by licks and flicks of her wet, smooth tongue. A sound that was half moan, half sigh escaped me. I felt dizzy, weightless…

… until her hands found their way around me and ran along my back. Until I heard her shocked gasp and felt her body stiffening in my arms.

I froze. Time slowed to a crawl as I looked into her wide open eyes. Something inside me twisted into a cold, hard knot.

The scars. She's found the scars.

It was all I could think about. Somewhere in my mind I imagined to hear the echo of an echo of a whiplash. My skin burnt where our bodies still touched, seemed to melt from my bones where her hands still lay on my back and I jerked away. She didn't try to keep me from doing so and for some irrational, stupid reason it hurt. I took a deep, shuddering breath, my hands curled into fists by my sides without me even noticing it. We stared at each other for endless seconds, slowly ticking by in agonizing silence.

She was the one who moved first. Her boot scraping over the perfectly polished hardwood floor was too loud in the all-encompassing quiet as she took a hesitant step towards me. My legs twitched, not sure if they should turn and run or just keep me standing in place and before I could decide on one or the other she was close to me again, stepping around me to look at my destroyed back.

The tension in the room seemed to clamber to new heights. I felt her eyes on my back like a hot iron and I clenched my hands even tighter until I felt my nails digging into my skin. Not being able to see her expression was nerve-wracking. If I could have seen her eyes, I would have been able to determine whether she was disgusted or afraid or just ok with what she saw. But since I couldn't and didn't dare to turn around to look, all I felt was insecurity paired with anxiety. An anxiety that slowly turned into disappointment and anger the longer she remained in my back, silent and unmoving.

Finally, when I couldn't stand it any longer I said, "So? Like what you see?"

I was aware that my voice was tight and strained, every syllable spiked with tiny thorns and dripping with venom, but even if I tried I doubted that I could have made myself sound any different in that moment. There was just too much going around in my head. Too many thoughts. Too many feelings.

"Anders, I…" she began but I did not wait for her to finish. I didn't want to hear the answer anyway. Instead I grabbed my shirt and threw it back on. I tried to ignore the trembling of my fingers when I closed the buttons again, tried to ignore how much I hurt. It was not important. It never should have been in the first place. She hated mages. How could I have been so stupid to think she might harbor feelings for me of all people? For a mage, and a damaged one at that.

I turned for the door, keeping my face void any emotion as I passed her without looking. I found the key in the lock but my still trembling fingers had difficulties opening it. The lock did not budge, stubbornly remaining in place.

"Anders…"

The key finally gave but I did not open the door. Something in the way my name sounded coming from her lips kept me rooted to the spot. It sounded helpless. Small. A little girl's voice. It shouldn't be able to hold me back but it did and it made the anger inside of me flare. It should be easy to leave! Why wasn't it easy?

"What?" I snapped.

For a long moment, there was silence once again and then I felt her hand over mine on the door handle, warm and soft.

"Don't go."

Not being able to stand her touch, I freed my hand more forceful than necessary and spun around to face her.

"Tell me one good reason why I shouldn't! You don't want me here anyway!"

She flinched a little with my harsh accusation, eyes on the floor, biting her lip. I probably should have felt guilty for yelling at her but I was so wrapped up in my anger that I did not really care if my words or my tone hurt her or not. As a matter of fact, I wanted to hurt her. I wanted her to feel just as miserable and disappointed as I did. I wanted her to fight me.

But she did not fight. She did not even raise her voice when she said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... please don't go, Anders."

Given her fierce temper, I so much expected her to yell as well, to throw some insult back at me that her answer totally caught me off guard and left me speechless for a few seconds. She was not meant to apologize. She was not meant to hold me back. I needed her to justify my leave so that it would be easier, needed her to confirm that I was damaged goods and not worse any second thoughts. What I did not need was this plea in her voice that meant that she cared when she shouldn't, these gentle words that kept me wanting what I couldn't have.

"Why?" I insisted but this time, it sounded a lot calmer. In a heartbeat, all anger drowned in the pools of blue and gray that were her eyes when she looked up at me. The expression in them made me shiver. There was so much honesty in those eyes. So much pity. And it made me feel so much more miserable and I wished I still had that anger to hold on to. When I was angry I could at least pretend that I did not care.

I wanted to look away but her gaze rendered me frozen to the spot, unable to move, unable to breathe, just like she had done a few minutes ago, with her hands on my chest and her breath on my neck. It was hard to imagine that indeed only a few minutes had passed since then. It felt like eternity, like another life.

"I don't know," she whispered and for a long moment her words made no sense. I was so lost in her eyes, at the same time craving and resenting her pity, that I had forgotten about the question she had yet to answer.

"I don't know," she repeated. "But I know I want you to stay."

Her hand touched mine then. Shy. Questioning. Feeling her fingers there – in my hand or on it or around it – was something that I got shockingly used to in a frighteningly short amount of time. I swallowed. The impulse to run was overwhelming now but for completely different reasons. Where I wanted to run from the possibility that I might have been wrong about her feelings before, now I wanted to run because I might have been right about them.

But like before, I couldn't. I couldn't leave. I just couldn't. Something held me in that room with her. Something I was afraid to name.

When I did not pull away from her, she closed the distance between us and leaned her head against my shoulder. Her free hand came around me in a lose embrace.

"I don't care about them," she murmured against my neck. "Please stay. I want you to stay."

I exhaled the breath I did not even know I'd been holding. I believed her. That she didn't care but that she cared. Not about the scars but about me. It was a frightening thought. Frightening and disturbing, but at the same time relieving and wonderful and… needed. I needed to hear this from her. I needed her.

My arms wrapped around her. I wouldn't leave. Because I didn't want to. Because she didn't want me to.

When she slipped her cool, soft hands under my shirt and ran them along my back this time, I did not pull away and neither did she. Her eyes on mine did not betray any sign of discomfort or disgust, just certainty and want.

I reached behind me and locked the door with a silent click.