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They all have their fair share of scars. Faint, silvery lines and dark, harsh blotches. Everything in-between.
Karen marked up her wrists with razors and shattered glass. Scars on her shoulders left over from the car crash remind her of one of her many mistakes. They’re silver, thin. Their only difference from the slashes on her wrists is their deepness. Cigarettes dyed her skin in faded circles, and she subconsciously rubs them when she’s nervous.
Foggy pretends the pale, bullet-sized clump of scar tissue breaking up the smooth skin of his bicep isn’t there. He thinks the break line on his nose makes him look jaggedly handsome. Marci enjoyed tracing the faint lines on his shoulders, arms, and cheeks from broken glass.
Matt threw himself at the fights too hard, leaving his knuckles stained dark. His chest has long, dark lines, raised a few centimeters. He hates the jagged stab wounds the most. A thick scar from split lip after split lip. Careful incisions hide under his pectorals, made to remove what he never wanted. Even his forehead has a dark gash near his hairline. His thighs are painted with faint silver cuts, just like Karen’s wrists. He has a matching pale line on his nose, just like Foggy’s.
Matt may not be able to see his scars, but he hates them.
They serve as reminders for mistakes and good decisions alike. He hates running his fingers over them in the shower, detested the feeling of flings tracing them in the past. They’d lie and tell him they’re beautiful, that they attest to all he’d been through. He’d only laugh, reply that that’s exactly why he hated them.
One time a man had realized just how much Matt was hurting, and had left. They were all there for one night of sex, not anything more. Nothing complicated, which was a problem, because Matt lived and breathed complicated.
Matt couldn’t deny having thought about blowing his brains out in a gun. About spattering his guts on the far pavement beneath him.
About killing himself.
He’d even tried a few times.
Karen and Foggy would tell him about what they would do, once “all this” was over. To Matt, the only way it’d ever really end was with him six feet under. They’d tell him otherwise.
The only two things that kept him from doing it was the carnal sin of murder, and his lovers. Some days, they could take his mind off of the metaphorical gun he held against his own temple. If they couldn’t do that, they showed him that life was worth it, even just a little, through small things like kisses, chocolate gelato, and weighted blankets. Karen would share a bottle of soda with him and Foggy would rub the tense knots out of his shoulders. They let him let go of the guilt that he’d done all this to them, and reassured him that they wouldn’t have it any other way. They loved Matt so wholly that they smoothed out his broken parts like ice in cracked pavement. And he did the same for them.
They helped him learn, slowly, to accept his scars. Matt would never love them the way Foggy loved most of his, but he could hate them less. He’d gotten used to the feeling of slight fingers mapping the numb lines below his collar bone during quiet moments in bed. Sometimes he’d feel proud of the scars from his surgery. Karen hated hers the same. She tried to pretend they didn’t exist and didn’t affect her. But just like Matt, slowly, she grew accepting.
Some nights, when the scars got to them, they’d cry together in silence, bathed in the obnoxious LEDs outside his window.
Recovery was never linear, something Karen understood almost innately. Foggy pretended to brush off the guilt of breaking months of sobriety after coming home drunk. Matt didn’t understand substance addiction, so he simply did all he could to remind Foggy they loved him, no matter how much he was struggling or how much he stank of vodka. Karen helped him not only recover from alcoholism but recover from relapses. Every time Foggy hit another year sober, the three of them sat on the rooftops and shared a beer. What Matt did understand was addiction to pain. If either of them noticed a new thin red gash on his thighs, the next day was spent snuggling and reassuring. Karen helped him tend to his cuts, and scolded him when he was being a self destructive idiot.
They understood each other innately, intimately. Like an in-born instinct. They helped each other in ways no one else could. When Matt found his footing with his faith again, he thanked God every morning for letting them tolerate him. For sticking through with him even when he tried to push them away because of how much he’d hurt them.
Sometimes they’d talk about getting married, buying a bigger apartment somewhere. Maybe a house. They’d go to church with Matt.
Sometimes they’d talk about kids, about how that might work. They’d definitely need a house for this.
Sometimes they’d just lay together, so in love, content as they were.