“It’s going to hurt,” I warn him. “It’ll probably hurt you to hear as much as it’ll hurt me to tell you.”

“If you don’t want to—”

“It happened when I was nine,” I cut in. “My mother was in a mood. More like a rage. She was cutting my hair and the end of the scissors dug right in.” I hold my head high, years of therapy helping to convince me that it’s not my shame to carry.

Josh blows out a breath, my hair shifting with the force of it. Then he swallows loudly, his fingers moving up the middle of my back. I know what he’s aiming for, and I’m not at all surprised he knows it’s there. Like I said, he knows my body better than anyone. Better than myself. But he’s never asked before, and he’s asking now.

He taps the small lumps of skin between my shoulder blades. “Are these…” He can’t even get the words out, so I do it for him.

“Cigarette burns. I was fourteen. She found out I had a boyfriend. The burns hurt as much as her knee pressed on my back.” A sob fills my throat as I watch his eyes, my pain mirrored behind his tears, his ache as strong as mine. His jaw tenses, fighting against the fear, the anger I can see building inside him. I capture this moment, my gaze locked on his, and I memorize it, store it, treasure it as the first time in my life I’d felt a love greater than my own.

I wipe at my cheek as Josh’s lips move to beneath my left eye, kissing the scar there. “And this one?”

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“We can stop,” he rushes out. “If you can’t…”

After a shaky exhale, I type, “She hit me with a pan, right before she dragged me by my hair, kicking, screaming and bleeding, toward her car. It happened just before the accident.”

He nods slowly, his glassy eyes never leaving mine. Then he kisses me, slow and soft, right on the long diagonal scar on the side of my neck. The scar that hurt the most. Not physically, but because of why it’s there. Josh’s voice cracks when he says, “I assumed it was from the seat belt in the accident, but then I found out you weren’t wearing one so…”

I lick my lips, my mouth dry, and I can feel my pulse in my thumb, reminding me of its existence, of its need to be between my teeth so I can let the physical pain overpower the emotional one. I fight the urge, and instead, I use it to type: “It was from the accident. But not the seatbelt. She had a knife. She held it there.”

His eyes charge with rage, with hate, with all the things I’ve tried to feel toward the person who created the scars.

“She was dead a few minutes later,” I tell him, like it somehow makes up for her actions.

Minutes pass while silence descends and I wait for him to say something. Anything. When he finally finds his voice, the words he chooses surprises me. “Is she on your list of fears?”

Josh pulls me closer when my eyes widen in shock, his arms wrapping tight around me. “Your dad told me about it. I’m sorry. I didn’t know if it was a huge secret or something. I just know that I was on it, and I mean, it has to be working for you… you conquered me, right?” His lips curve into a smile.

I nod slowly, my heart swelling at his words. “Do you want to see it?”

His smile is instant. “Only if you want to show me.”

We dry off quickly, dress, and move hand in hand toward my bag where I pull out the piece of paper. It’s way too worn, but too filled with memories to replace. I sit on the bed, waiting for him to do the same before I slowly unfold it.

He takes it from me, treating it just as carefully. I watch his eyes move from side to side, getting lower and lower down the list. He takes his time, his breaths shallow, his eyes narrowing at some that may seem confusing. “Ice cream?” he asks skeptically. “How is anyone afraid of ice cream?”

I type out the reason, feeling his breaths on my shoulder as he reads what I’ve written, and when I’m done, he stares right ahead, his mind lost, his anger brewing. “It’s okay,” I whisper.

Shaking his head, he slowly turns to me. “I think it’s just… you’ve never really spoken to me about it so it’s a little overwhelming….”

“I know,” I mouth.

He clears his throat. “I wouldn’t have cared,” he says. Then quickly adds, “I mean, I would’ve cared about what happened to you, but you have to know that it wouldn’t have changed the way I feel about you.”

I bite my thumb gently, not knowing how to respond. I’ve thought about it a lot in the time we spent apart, mainly when I was cooped up in the “Personal Development” center back in North Carolina. It was a psychiatric hospital filled with patients suffering from severe depression. Some, like me then, had tried to find a way out, and some, like me now, were fighting the battle one day at a time. Cordy asks for me, “What’s that thing Chloe told you? Those words that are on the magnet?”