Scars Before the Bond

Episode 2

“Why would I ever want to be with someone like you? You’re just a clingy nuisance. I tolerated you because Ben’s too softhearted to cut you off,” he spits, each syllable slicing through the air like shards of glass. His eyes gleam with cruel amusement, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smirk that makes my stomach churn.

My breath catches in my throat, a strangled sound escaping before I can stop it. “So this past month… you were just playing with me?” My voice trembles, thin and hollow, barely holding together as I fight to remain standing. Every word feels like it’s being dragged from the depths of a wound I didn’t know could bleed this much.

He leans forward, his elbows resting lazily on the table as if this were nothing more than a casual chat. His smirk deepens, eyes glittering with a sadistic spark. “Yup,” he says, almost gleefully, his voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial whisper. “The other girls were too easy, too dull. But you… you weren’t exactly a challenge, but I was curious. I wanted to know what it felt like to take a virgin.”

I inhale sharply, my hand instinctively flying to my lower abdomen, a futile attempt to shield the fragile secret growing inside me. He doesn’t notice — or maybe he doesn’t care. He picks up his iced coffee, sipping it leisurely as if he hadn’t just shattered me into dust too fine to collect.

At that moment, I hated myself. I hated the naive girl who believed in his soft smiles, who melted under his fingertips, who mistook manipulation for tenderness. My mind reeled violently, replaying every late-night message, every whispered promise, every fleeting glance that had felt like a universe being born. All of it, a meticulously constructed illusion designed to break me.

“Hey! There you are!” a voice slices through the suffocating fog. My heart lurches violently as a familiar figure steps into my peripheral vision — Benji, my brother in everything but blood, the one soul I thought would always protect me.

Relief floods my veins like morphine, but it’s gone just as quickly. Benji doesn’t even look at me. His eyes are locked on the boy across from me, sharp with urgency. “Come on, we have to go. My uncle’s waiting. We should’ve been there yesterday.”

I reach for his sleeve, my fingers trembling, my mind screaming silently for him to see me. Please, please look at me.

But he remains rigid, jaw clenched, his gaze refusing to meet mine.

I grip his hand, a last, desperate attempt to pull him back to me, to ground myself in someone who once swore he'd never let go. He jerks away violently, turning toward me with a glare so foreign it almost knocks the breath from my lungs.

“What?!” he snaps, his voice like a whip cracking across my skin.

I flinch, my hand falling limply, my world spinning faster than I can anchor it. When I dare to look up, I see it — that cold, impatient edge in his eyes, the warmth gone as though it had never existed. Tears blur my sight, but I force them back, swallowing the scream clawing at my throat.

He exhales sharply, the sound heavy and sharp as a blade. “Look… I don’t have time to deal with you right now.”

Deal with me.

The words echo, sharp and jagged, lodging deep in my ribs. I never realized I had become something burdensome, a problem to be managed and discarded.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my voice cracking like thin porcelain.

“Let’s go, man. We don’t want to keep your uncle waiting,” he mutters, rising abruptly. His chair scrapes against the floor, a screech that reverberates through my skull.

Before turning away, Benji glances at me one final time. For a fraction of a heartbeat, his eyes soften, as though he remembers the girl who once trusted him with her whole soul.

“I’ll talk to you later, okay?” he murmurs, but the words feel empty, a lie already dissolving.

I can’t speak. I can’t even move. I keep my eyes fixed on the window, watching their silhouettes retreat into the distance, each step tearing through me like shrapnel. My breath comes in shallow, uneven gasps as I fight to remain upright, my hand pressed so tightly to my abdomen it feels like I might disappear into myself.

I open my eyes. The dream clings to me like morning frost, each image sharp and cold against my skin. A dream — yet more real than the world around me. I swipe at the tear trailing down my cheek, an unspoken surrender to memories that refuse to die.

That was the last time I saw them. Two days later, I arrived at Benji’s house, desperation burning in my veins. But they were gone. A neighbor told me they’d moved out the day before. No warning, no goodbye. After nearly a decade of shared secrets under star-scattered skies, he left me standing alone, roots ripped from the only soil I had ever felt safe in.

I collapsed on that cracked sidewalk, my knees scraping open as my hands met the concrete. I didn’t care who saw me break. I let every sob echo into the empty street, each one a requiem for the girl I had been. My blood mixed with my tears, a crimson testament to betrayal. I stayed there for hours, my mind spiraling, clawing through every memory in a frantic search for where it all went wrong.

That moment shattered me. It split the foundation of my identity, left me adrift in a world that suddenly felt hostile and foreign. After that, I became a ghost in my own life — wandering hallways, going through motions, my spirit locked in that moment of abandonment.

Even now, ten years later, I wake to those echoes, the betrayal as vivid as if it happened yesterday. The child I carried, born from that heartbreak, became my anchor, the only pulse that kept me from dissolving. Her heartbeat inside me reminded me I was still alive, still capable of love, even in my ruin.

In the dark hours before dawn, when the world holds its breath and my thoughts roar the loudest, I wonder what might have been. If he had stayed. If he had seen her. If he had realized the cost of leaving. Would he have softened? Or would his eyes have stayed as empty and unrecognizable as that day?

I think of the girl I was — hungry for love, desperate to be seen, willing to shatter herself for a scrap of warmth. I mourn her innocence, her unwavering faith in unworthy hearts. I don’t know if those scars will ever fade. Perhaps they’re not meant to. They are the constellations of my survival, maps etched in flesh and soul.

I draw a deep, trembling breath. The room is silent, but inside, a tempest screams. And yet, I’m still here. Breathing. Enduring. The scars don’t define me — they shape me. They mark the path from who I was to who I must become. There will be no more sleep tonight. I rise, my hands still trembling. There is packing to finish before the movers arrive at noon.

I finally finish packing with a couple of hours to spare. I drag each box into the living room, hoping it will make things easier for the movers. Looking at the small mountain of cardboard, I realize how little I truly own — the condensed remains of a life that feels both too heavy and too sparse. My studio apartment never offered room for much, and maybe that’s a mercy; fewer items mean fewer ghosts to carry.

Before I can sink too deeply into my thoughts, a sharp knock snaps me back. I cross the room, each step echoing off the bare walls. When I open the door, I have to crane my neck back so far it makes me dizzy. Standing before me is the tallest man I’ve ever seen. I am eye-level with his broad chest, which rises and falls beneath a dark, fitted button-down shirt that somehow makes him look even more like a sculpted statue come to life. My brain sputters and stalls, my mouth opening slightly as I stare.

His hair, midnight black and slightly tousled, frames a strong jawline dusted with a hint of stubble. His eyes — an intense, stormy gray — study me with gentle curiosity, and when they crinkle with his smile, a warmth blossoms in my stomach I can’t explain.

He grins, revealing straight, white teeth that seem impossibly bright. “Hi. Are you Lynaria Knight?”

All I can do is nod dumbly, my voice swallowed by the sudden dryness in my throat.

“Great. I’m Aeron Kane,” he continues, his voice deep and smooth, almost melodic. “I’m here with the others to get you moved.”

My brain stutters back to life, words crashing into each other on their way out. “Aeron Kane? As in Vice President Kane — the one I’ve been emailing this whole time?”

He chuckles, a sound that rumbles low in his chest, sending goosebumps down my arms. “The one and only,” he replies, extending a large, calloused hand toward me.

I move to take it, but the second our skin connects, a jolt like an electric shock snaps through me. I gasp, instinctively yanking my hand back. At the same moment, Aeron’s eyes widen, his lips parting in surprise as he stares at his own hand, flexing his fingers as if he too felt that strange surge.

For a heartbeat, we stand there frozen, eyes locked. A strange heat coils in my chest, part fear, part something I can’t name. My hand tingles where his touched mine, the sensation echoing like a distant thunderclap.

Aeron recovers first, clearing his throat, though his gaze lingers on me with a new intensity. “Uh… sorry about that,” he says, his voice now slightly hoarse. He glances down at his hand again, shaking it lightly as though trying to shake off the phantom charge.

I clutch my hand to my chest, my heart drumming an erratic rhythm. “I — I don’t… It’s fine,” I manage to stammer, my cheeks burning.

He gives me a small, almost shy smile, his earlier confidence softened at the edges. “Well… we should probably get started,” he says, stepping aside so a few other movers can begin carrying boxes.

As they file past, I can feel his eyes still on me, watchful and searching, as if he’s trying to piece together the same puzzle that now rattles around in my mind. My thoughts tangle into a thousand questions, but I swallow them down, forcing myself to move, to breathe. I turn away to grab a box, my fingers still tingling from his touch, and for the first time in a long time, a tiny flicker of something dangerous and fragile stirs in my chest: hope.