Scars
986 Words
Mia never used to look forward to anything. Days bled into nights with a kind of numbness she had grown used to. But this morning, she woke before the sun, her heart fluttering with something that felt dangerously close to anticipation.
She didn’t dare call it hope.
She got dressed slowly, deliberately. Black jeans. A deep burgundy sweater that clung to her waist. Her hair fell in soft, unstyled waves over her shoulders. She applied no makeup. Adrian had already seen her as she was—ghosts and all. There was no point in pretending.
By the time she walked into the café, her palms were sweating.
He was already there.
Same table. Same black coffee. Same air of quiet sadness that clung to him like smoke.
But when he looked up and saw her, something in his expression shifted. Like relief. Like hunger, he hadn’t realized he’d been starving from it.
She walked to him without asking this time. He pushed the chair out with his foot.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” he said.
“I didn’t think I would either.”
They sat in silence again. The kind that stretched, but never snapped. The kind that pulsed with something neither of them could name yet. She noticed the way his hands fidgeted—long fingers tapping rhythmically on the table as if searching for a melody. She wondered if he still played.
He caught her looking. “Used to be a pianist before the band,” he said quietly. “Now it just... hurts.”
“What, your hands?”
He shook his head, eyes dark. “No. The silence afterward.”
A beat passed. Then she whispered, “I used to paint.”
“Why’d you stop?”
“I couldn’t handle what came out of me.”
They shared a look. A long, fragile look that felt like standing naked in front of someone without shedding a single piece of clothing.
“You want to go for a walk?” he asked suddenly.
She blinked. “In the rain?”
“It’s just water.”
So they walked.
Side by side, close but not touching. The streets were slick with silver, the city quiet and glistening. There was no destination. Just the movement of two broken people finding strange comfort in each other’s presence.
“Tell me something real,” Mia said as they passed an empty bookstore window.
Adrian’s jaw tightened. I didn’t go to the funeral. I couldn’t. Everyone expected me to speak. But I was too high. I couldn’t even stand.”
She nodded slowly. “I used to call my sister’s voicemail just to hear her laugh. For two years. Then the number was reassigned. Some stranger picked him up. I cried for hours.”
He stopped walking. Turned to her.
“Do you ever feel like... you’re surviving out of guilt, not strength?”
“All the time,” she breathed.
That’s when he reached out.
Fingertips brushed hers.
Not a full grasp. Not yet. Just the touch of skin to skin. Electric and uncertain. And god, it was enough to make her ache.
They stood there, inches apart, while the rain slipped through their clothes, past their defenses. And when she looked up at him, she saw it—the war in his eyes. Wanting to move closer. Terrified he’d ruin her if he did.
So she made the choice for both of them.
She stepped in.
He didn’t stop her.
Her hands slid into his jacket, resting against his chest, feeling the sharp rhythm of his heart. His breath hitched, eyes never leaving hers.
“I haven’t touched anyone in a long time,” he said.
“I’m not asking you to fix me,” she whispered. “I’m just asking you to feel.”
And just like that, their lips met.
It wasn’t polished or perfect. It was raw, a little clumsy—two people rediscovering what it meant to be alive. His hands found her hips, and she felt the way he trembled. Like this was sacred. Like touching her meant holding something he wasn’t sure he deserved.
When they pulled apart, breathless, neither spoke for a long moment.
Then he said, “This is going to ruin us, isn’t it?”
She met his gaze. “Or save us.”
He laughed—a soft, broken sound. “Same thing, really.”
They walked back to his apartment.
Not because they were reckless.
But because when the world finally gives you something that feels like breathing after drowning for years—you follow it.
The apartment was small, cluttered. Guitars leaned against walls. Ashtrays with forgotten cigarettes. A framed photo of Adrian with his band, all of them smiling like they had forever ahead of them.
He noticed her look. “That night, we played for ten thousand people. I thought we were invincible.”
Mia turned to him. “What changed?”
“One needle. One stupid night.”
She didn’t ask anything else. She just touched his face, fingers sliding through the damp strands of his hair. He closed his eyes like her touch was a prayer.
They didn’t sleep together that night—not in the way most people would think.
They lay on his bed, fully clothed, facing each other. Her head on his arm. His hand resting on her waist. And in that closeness, something broke and bloomed at once.
She listened to the way he breathed. Counted every inhale. Matched her own to his. Like if they aligned perfectly, they’d survive this.
He whispered just before sleep claimed him, “I’m terrified of wanting you.”
She kissed his jaw. “Then don’t want me. Need me.”
And just like that, he held her tighter.
Outside, the rain never stopped.
Inside, they started to become something neither of them had words for yet.
- Writer
