“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” She shakes her head and gives a self-deprecating laugh. “That was totally inappropriate. I don’t usually ask to see people’s scars. I was just curious. I mean, I have…” She gestures to her thighs, and heat rises to her cheeks. “I have scars too. Nothing like yours, but…I’m sorry.”
Fucking hell. She’s still scarred from cutting herself.
Something inside me breaks apart, splinters.
I’m so goddamned sorry I wasn’t here for you, Nell. For your father. I don’t know what I could’ve done, but I’m sorry.
The apology sticks in my throat. Useless. Sorry won’t change the fact that I failed her and Henry. That her scars are as permanent as mine.
I unfasten the top buttons of my shirt. She startles, her eyes widening before she looks down to follow the path of my fingers. Acutely aware of her stare, I undo the buttons along the length of my shirt and shrug out of it.
“Here.” I point to the bullet scar on my shoulder. “That was the first one. Somalia. This was the second. Sniper in Chechnya. This was the third, a raid in South Sudan. The fourth is right about here.” I indicate the side of my thigh.
Nell squints, then rises and crosses the room. My insides tense up the closer she gets. She stops in front of me, leaning down to peer at the scars intently. I catch the smell of cinnamon.
“This one is almost a perfect circle.” She brushes her fingers across the wound on my shoulder.
The contact almost makes me jump out of my skin. I curl my hands into the arms of the chair. My breath is shaky.
She studies the other two, the one on my chest ragged and large, the one near my abdomen still surrounded by rough, puckered scar tissue. She straightens, her forehead creased.
“Does the scar tissue still hurt?”
“No. I only remember them when I’m in the shower or see them in the mirror.”
Her curious gaze slips across my chest and down farther. I pull my shirt back on and button it up.
The air is thick. Tense. I don’t like it. Reminds me of standing on a rooftop in Baghdad, watching the sky in the distance light up from falling bombs. Knowing the spot where I stood, the building solid under my feet, could be next. Taking me with it.
Nell tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. For an instant, she doesn’t move. Then she brings her hands to the button of her jeans.
My blood freezes. A protest shoves up from my throat. Before I can make my voice work, she unzips her jeans, pushes them down to her knees, and lifts the hem of her long shirt.
A dozen lines, each one four inches long, mark her right thigh. Thick red slashes on her white skin.
I clench my teeth against a sudden rage of shit—burning anger, pain, despair, understanding. I can’t block it, this storm boiling inside me.
“I had more, but they healed.” Her voice trembles. “I wanted the scars, so I cut them in the same place. I thought of it like a tribal tattoo.”
A strangled noise breaks from my throat. I can’t stop myself from touching the rough raised scars stacked like a ladder. She flinches when I run my forefinger across them, each one spaced half an inch apart.
I can’t fucking stand it. The image sears into my brain—Nell sitting on the edge of her bed, carefully slicing her perfect skin open with a razor. Hurting herself. Bleeding.
Poor sweet baby. Why the fuck wasn’t I here? How could I not have known?
“Dad caught me doing it one day,” she says slowly, “which is how I ended up in the institution.”
Her father. I drop my hand away from her thigh and sit back.
She tugs her jeans back up over her hips. I catch a glimpse of her underwear. Blue with little yellow stars.
“Tell me you don’t do it anymore.” I shut my eyes, dragging my hands over my face as if I can erase the image of the scars. “Please.”
“I don’t.”
I open my eyes and look at her. “Promise you never will again.”
“I won’t.” She fastens her jeans. “My dad totally freaked out, but he’s always been worried I’ll end up like my mother. I guess I should be glad he got me help early on, so I never became obsessed with cutting. It was just that things were so weird after Mom died. Part of me felt like this light had gone out, and then another part was relieved Dad and I didn’t have to deal with her anymore. But it took so long before I stopped being scared when I woke up, because with her we never knew what kind of mood she’d be in.
“The kids at school had always whispered about her being crazy, but afterward they started speculating about how she killed herself and that I must be crazy too, and they just did not stop. They were posting things about me on social media and sending me emails…plus being nasty at school…and cutting just became something I could control. A way to stop feeling.”
Stop feeling.
“I’ve tried to do that too. So many times.” My voice is rusty, like old metal. “But you can’t, Nell. It’s impossible to stop feeling. No matter what you do.”
“I know.” She rubs her arms and steps back. “I hated being in the institution, but they did help me figure stuff out.”
“Since then, it’s been okay?” I hold her gaze, willing her to tell me what I want—need—to hear.
“I think so.” She fiddles with a button on her shirt. “Dad is still super overprotective, but I understand why. It was weird going back to school and being a year older than everyone else, but mostly people seemed to have moved on. I still get a jab or insult sometimes, but much less often. For the most part, I’ve been able to fly under the radar.”
Under the radar. A girl who should be soaring above everyone else, a bright, pretty sparrow against a crystal-blue sky.
The door clicks open. My spine stiffens. Every nerve ending snaps to alertness. Henry appears in the living room doorway, running a hand down his wrinkled shirtfront. He stops and flicks his gaze from me to Nell.
“Either of you hungry for dinner?” He pats his stomach. “I have an appetite for pizza tonight.”
“Sounds good,” Nell says. “I’ll call in the order. Pepperoni okay?”
“Perfect.”
She starts toward the door, tossing me a quick glance.
The look that passes between us contains things it shouldn’t. Understanding. The acknowledgment of shared secrets.
And the promise…or warning…of more.
PART II
CHAPTER 17
Nell
When I wake the next morning, I’m hot and aching. My dreams break apart in the dawn light, but transparent images of writhing, naked bodies cling to my mind.
I still feel the raised flesh of Darius’ bullet wound underneath my fingertips. I still feel the brush of his hand against my scars, the restraint coiling through him.
I hadn’t believed what I was doing—I’d felt almost dizzy as I’d stood in front of him and pulled my pants down. My heart had been beating so fast. I hadn’t wanted him to take his hand away from me.
What if my father had walked in two minutes earlier? What if he’d seen me with my jeans around my knees and Darius touching my bare thigh?