Chapter 5
He didn't touch the scar right away.
He sat across from me at the small table and turned my hand palm-up again, like he had that night. The lamp threw the same warm amber light across the room. His watch caught it when he moved — dark strap, gold bezel — and I watched the second hand sweep. He looked at the faint line the glow had left behind, not at me.
"Can I?" he asked.
I nodded. My throat was dry.
His fingers were careful. He traced the air just above the skin first, not contacting it. Then, light as anything, he ran the pad of his thumb alongside the line without pressing into it. The scar was thin, pale pink now, straight.
"Does this hurt?" he said.
"No."
"Here? If I press?"
"A little," I said. "Like it's tight."
He nodded once. He tilted my wrist toward the lamp so the light hit it from the side. Shadows made the texture clearer. He leaned in, glasses low on his nose.
"See this?" he said, more to himself than to me. He pointed with his other hand but didn't touch. "Edge is clean. It goes in and stops. Not jagged. Not a scrape."
I tried to keep my hand still. My fingers twitched anyway.
"On concrete you'd get abrasion," he went on, voice even. "Gravel in it. Skin torn in different directions. This isn't that. This is one direction. One depth the whole way. Do you see the angle?"
I didn't answer. I was looking at his face, the way his eyebrows pulled together. He wasn't accusing. He was just describing what he saw, like he was reading something out loud.
He turned my wrist a fraction. "It starts shallow here by your thumb side and gets deeper toward the middle. Then it lifts again. That's a blade moving across. Not a fall."
The word blade made my stomach drop. My hand jerked before I could stop it. I pulled back half an inch and his grip loosened instantly to let me go. He didn't hold tighter.
"Sorry," I said quickly.
"You don't have to be sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have said it like that."
I curled my fingers into my palm. The memory came without permission — not the whole thing, just a flash of sound. A locker door slamming somewhere close. Shoes squeaking on polished floor. My own wrist hitting the edge of something metal as I tried to catch myself. Or as I was pushed. I couldn't tell anymore.
My breathing got shallow.
"Hey," he said quietly. "You're okay. You're here."
He didn't reach for my hand again until I uncurled it myself and set it back on the table. He took it gently, palm-up again, his thumb resting beside the scar, not on it.
"Where were you?" he asked. "Not who. Just where."
I swallowed. I could feel the heat from the lamp on the side of my face.
"The stairwell," I said. My voice sounded small. "By the lockers. Second floor. The one nobody uses after last period because the door sticks."
He didn't react right away. He just kept looking at the line, then at me.
"When?" he asked.
"After school. I stayed late to turn in a paper."
"Was anyone else supposed to be there?"
I shook my head. "No. That's why I went that way."
He exhaled slowly through his nose. I could see his watch again. 8:47. He'd been timing how long he looked, or maybe he just needed to look away for a second.
"Did you fall there, or did it happen there?" he asked.
"It happened there," I said. The words scraped. "I said I fell because —" I stopped. We'd already done that part. He knew why I'd lied.
"I know," he said. "You don't have to explain again."
He finally let go of my wrist and sat back. He took his glasses off for a second and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Without them his eyes looked more tired.
"A clean cut like that, in a stairwell with a locker edge," he said. "Someone had something sharp. Or they used the edge on purpose."
I flinched again and hated that I did.
"I didn't see it clearly," I said. "It was fast. I just felt it. Then blood. I wrapped it with what I had."
"Gauze from your bag?"
"From the art room," I said. "I grabbed it on the way out."
He nodded. He believed that part. He put his glasses back on.
"Okay," he said. "That helps. That stairwell — lockers, metal edge, place where no one looks — that narrows it. That's not random hallway traffic. That's someone who knows that spot."
I wrapped my other hand around my wrist, covering the scar. The skin there still felt warmer than the rest, where the glow had been.
"Are you going to tell someone I was there?" I asked.
"Not without you," he said. "But we can't pretend it was a fall. Not with this line. If someone asks again, that line tells its own story."
I nodded, even though I didn't want to. Outside the window the parking lot lights had come on, and a car door shut somewhere down the street. The room felt too quiet after.
May you like
He looked at my covered wrist. "You don't have to hide it in here," he said. "Not with me."
I didn't move my hand. Not yet. But I didn't pull away either.
