Chapter 14
I didn't put the gauze on that morning. That was the whole decision.
I'd laid it out on my bathroom counter the night before out of habit, the roll of white gauze next to my toothbrush, the medical tape, the little scissors. I looked at it for a long time. My wrist was bare underneath the sleeve of my sleep shirt, the thin pink-white line catching the bathroom light. For two weeks I'd wrapped it before anyone could see it. That morning I pulled my vest sleeve down instead and left the gauze where it was.
The hallway at school smelled like floor wax and coffee from the teachers' lounge. I kept my hand at my side as I walked to third period, not tucked, not hidden. A girl in my chem class glanced down when I handed her back her pencil. She didn't say anything. She just looked, then looked away. The faint scar was there. It didn't glow. It didn't bleed. It was just a line, maybe two inches long, still a little raised at the edge where the skin had closed fast and imperfectly.
He was waiting by the lockers after lunch. He didn't say anything at first either. His eyes dropped to my wrist, then back up to my face behind my glasses. I could feel myself holding my breath.
"You left it off," he said quietly.
I nodded. "I did."
He didn't reach for me there, not in the hall where anyone could see. He just stood close enough that his shoulder blocked the traffic moving past us. "How does it feel? Tight?"
"A little itchy," I admitted. "When I bend it."
He smiled then, just a small one. "That's normal. Fast healing pulls."
That night he knocked at seven. Same warm lamp light in my apartment, same room where he'd held my wrist and unwound the bandage for the first time. Nothing had changed about the place except I was the one who opened the door and I was the one who held my hand out first.
I sat on the edge of the bed. He sat beside me, close but not crowding. The little brown paper bag from the drugstore was on my desk. He'd told me to get it after the board meeting — not prescription, just real care I could do myself.
"Show me what you bought," he said.
I emptied the bag. Gauze pads, not the roll. Medical tape. A small tube of plain petrolatum, a fragrance-free lotion, sunblock.
He picked up the tube. "No glow tonight," he said. "You don't need it. Your skin did most of the work. We just keep it clean so it doesn't have to work twice."
I watched his hands, his left wrist with the dark leather strap and the gold bezel catching the lamplight. His watch read 7:14. The same watch that had timestamped the night I got hurt.
"First, wash hands," he said, and we both did at the little sink. He came back and sat again. "Now, you do it. I'll talk you through."
I unscrewed the cap. My fingers felt clumsy.
"Just a thin layer," he said. "You don't need a lot. Omega skin heals fast but it heals messy if it dries out. That line stays thicker if you let it scab hard."
I dabbed a little of the clear ointment along the scar. It was cool. I spread it thin the way he'd shown me.
"Good. Now don't wrap it tight like before. If you cover it at all, just a loose pad while you sleep so your sleeve doesn't rub. In the day, leave it open. Let air get to it. And later —" he tapped the sunblock, "— this matters more than people think. New skin burns fast."
"Even indoors?" I asked.
"Even through a window. Even on cloudy days," he said. "Scars remember sun."
I nodded and rubbed the lotion in around the edges where the skin was dry. He didn't take over. He just watched, his hands resting on his knees, letting me do it.
When I was done, I didn't pull my sleeve down. I turned my hand palm-up on my lap, the same position he'd held me in that first night, only this time I offered it. Voluntary.
He looked at me to ask if it was okay.
I tipped my chin. "You can check."
He took my wrist gently, the way he had before, but lighter now. No urgency. His thumb didn't press the scar, just skimmed the skin beside it to feel for heat.
"No swelling," he said softly. "Color's good. You did it right."
The lamp hummed warm behind us. His glasses reflected the light for a second when he looked down, then cleared when he looked back at me. For a long second we just stayed like that, his hands holding mine palm-up, my scar open to the air between us.
"Does it still hurt?" he asked.
"Only if I think about how I got it," I said.
He didn't try to heal it away. He didn't call the white light. He just held my hand steady and let the scar be what it was — faint, visible, mine.
May you like
"Keep doing what you just did," he said. "Every night. It won't disappear, but it'll soften. It'll be yours, not something you have to hide."
I curled my fingers slightly, and he let me hold him back.
