She swallowed.
“I know.”
Yet she did not relax.
I could see that she was fighting something inside herself, something that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with a past she had never fully revealed.
I gently moved my hands away.
“You can tell me to stop at any time,” I said. “You don’t have to explain anything.”
She closed her eyes.
For several seconds, the room was silent except for the music drifting in from the living room.
Then she whispered, “Please don’t look at me differently.”
My heart sank.
“Why would I do that?”
She turned her back to me and slowly lowered the fabric from her shoulders.
And that was when I saw them.
Scars.
Dozens of them.
Some were thin, pale lines that had faded with time. Others were wider, uneven marks that crossed her shoulders and extended toward her upper back and chest.
