Archive of Our Own

scar / ska:r / noun 

1: a mark remaining (as on the skin) after injured tissue has healed

2: a mark left where something was previously attached

3: a mark or indentation (as on furniture) resulting from damage or wear

4: a lasting moral or emotional injury

-Merriam-Webster Dictionary

1: a mark remaining (as on the skin) after injured tissue has healed

Belly Conklin is 25 years old when she realizes she might have a scar kink.

Conrad has had various scars across his body for as long as she has known him.  Using each line, every ridge as a metric system, she can measure the events of his life by his scars.  (For example, she knows he was six years old when he earned the small dot on the front of his right shin from running into a rock along the beach; nine years old when he got a thin, inch long zigzag on his left forearm while hiking with his Boy Scout troop in the Spring; 13 years old when he collided with another football player and scraped the hell out of his arm, a jagged white patch running the entire expanse of his elbow; 18 years old when he cut himself along the curve of his jaw while shaving.)  She’s read the story of his life through the marks on his body with her fingers, her lips, her tongue, to the point where she can map him with her eyes closed.

Perhaps one of the most jarring parts of learning Conrad again after five years away from his body is the appearance of new scars–new landmarks across his skin signifying a life she doesn’t know.  Admittedly, she sees them as a personal affront because how dare he have stories that she doesn’t already have memorized like her favorite bedtime tale?  Stories of which she’s not a part?  But as her body melds with his, and she relearns the weight of him above her, she stops viewing these unknown stories as competition, but as more pieces of him to discover.  And oh, does she love to discover him.

The first scar she asks him about is located at the base of his left thumb where it curves into the heel of his palm.  She’s 22 years old on one of her two week visits to see him in California, and she notices it one afternoon when she takes his thumb between her teeth.  She makes a mental note to ask him about it when he isn’t naked and buried between her legs, his pelvis curling into her with such devastating sweetness she’s already on the verge of shaking apart.  The initial observation feels like a betrayal, though she can’t say how because she knows (she knows, she really does) he was allowed to have a life outside of her all these years he’s been in California.  But seeing it does kind of sting, and she can’t shake it from her mind.

Belly spends the next week obsessing over it before she finally gets the nerve to ask.  She’s in the middle of seasoning the salmon for that night’s dinner, and when she looks at Conrad to see where he is on salad prep, she catches a glimpse of the small, light pink ridge that’s been living rent free in her brain for the past eight days.  

“How’d you get that scar?” she asks. “The one on your thumb?”

“This?” Conrad holds his hand up, first to push his glasses back up his nose, then to tilt it into the light for a better view. “Oh, some hot oil jumped out of the pan one night when I was cooking.  Got a little burn.”

“How long ago?” she asks.

“Mm.  Three years?  Four years?  Not too long after I moved out here,” he says, squinting his eyes as he reaches back through his memory. “It was in my old apartment, so I guess four years ago.”

“What were you making?”

“I was trying to make steak, but I guess I either had the heat up too high or something and…” He makes an exploding motion with his hands. “And now I’ve got this scar and a healthy fear of a hot, oiled pan on a stovetop.”

“Is that why you only made chicken for so long?” Belly purses her lips, fighting the smile that threatens to take over her face.

Conrad groans and throws his hands up. “You’re never going to let me live down the chicken, are you?”

“I’m sorry, but you have to admit it was a lot of chicken,” she giggles. “I think you grilled up every chicken in the entire state of Massachusetts.”

“You’re laughing.  I have cooking trauma from getting burned by hot oil, and you’re laughing,” Conrad says, failing to keep his own smile from sliding across his lips.

“Do you want me to kiss it and make it better?” Belly asks.  She blinks slowly and looks up at him through her eyelashes, her body warming as she watches Conrad’s eyes flick down to her lips.  For a man who keeps his cards so close to his chest, he can’t hide that he wants her.

“And if I say yes?” he asks softly.

Belly bites her lip, knowing what it’ll do to him, and she’s rewarded by the slow, even breath he inhales between his parted lips.  “Then I’d say you have to wait until after dinner because this salmon isn’t going to cook itself, Mr. Cooking Trauma.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up into a smirk, and he tilts his head, observing her like she’s a medical anomaly he’s dying to figure out. “You know I can get you to come in under five minutes, Isabel.”

“What does that have to do with cooking?”

“It doesn’t.”

Belly takes his hand and holds his gaze as she brings his thumb to her lips, his breath audibly catching in the back of his throat.  She softly kisses the textured edge of his skin, pressing her lips to his scar, warmth flooding between the two of them.  She’s quiet as she releases a quiet moan,  her tongue darts out from between her lips to taste the salt of his skin.  Groaning, Conrad closes his eyes and shudders, a full body ripple that Belly can feel against the tip of her tongue.

“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he sighs.

Belly mouths at his scar, her breath already quickening. “Tell me.”

Conrad opens his eyes.  Without saying a word, he takes her free hand with his and brings it between his legs.  He holds her hand in place against him and watches her feel how hard he is through his pants.  Belly’s fingers curl around the thick bulge of his erection, and she begins palming him, her lips still caressing his scar.  His cock strains against his zipper, and she hums a soft note in sympathy.

“You’re so hard, baby,” she breathes.

“That’s all for you.” Conrad blinks rapidly, his hips pushing his cock harder into Belly’s hand. “Every bit of this is for you.”

She releases a breath, half-laugh, half-gasp. “You gonna come in your pants before we even have dinner, Connie?”

“Fuck dinner, I want to come inside you,” he says without hesitation.

Belly openly whimpers against his hand, her eyelids fluttering shut. “But dinner.”

“I don’t think dinner’s really what’s on your mind right now,” Conrad huffs. “Jesus, honey, look at you.  You want me so bad you’re making out with a burn mark from my shitty cooking.  You want my come between your legs and my scar in your mouth, don’t you?”

She cups his balls, her thumb running along the edge of his zipper, over the outline of his cock, and he inhales through his teeth, sharp like a scalpel. “Yes.”

“Tell me,” he says, his voice as tight as the muscle in his jaw.

Belly is all breath and thudding heartbeats as she reaches beneath her dress, pushing her underwear down past her knees.  She kicks them off, moves the food and all their prep out of the way, and jumps up onto the kitchen counter.  Conrad’s moving, too, his hands unbuckling his belt and working on his zipper as he steps between her splayed legs.  Belly can’t wait, can’t stop the frantic energy of her hands, and she reaches for him.  She has his cock bared to her in seconds, and as she looks at him, at how hard and pink and thick he is, she wants him so badly she thinks death might be the only thing that could free her from this agonizingly painful want burning its way through her marrow.

She takes him in her hand and guides him to her, her hips arching when the blunt tip of him nudges into her wetness.  Normally, she’d watch Conrad’s face as he enters her–fewer things are lovelier to her than the look of utter bliss that settles into his face when he slides into her–but she can’t make herself look away from between her legs, from where they’re becoming one.

Teasing her, Conrad feeds his cock into her in several thrusts.  Each thrust pushes him a little bit farther, a little bit deeper, and the promise of having him fully inside her brings a humiliating wetness to the corners of Belly’s eyes.  As he slowly melts into her, she can feel him pulsing inside her, his heartbeat as raucous and ragged as hers.  She’ll never be able to grasp what it’s like to be with him like this, to feel him and listen to him and watch him and taste him with such intimacy.

(Being with Conrad, having him inside her, is intimacy in its purest iteration.)

Conrad bottoms out, and Belly swears she can feel him in her lungs.  She stares at their intertwined bodies, silently marveling–not for the first time–at how he’s able to fit inside her.  The stretch is taut, glorious in how it takes her to her limits, and lets out a soft, strangled sound that doesn’t even sound like her.  Breaking her focus, Conrad places his hand against her cheek.

“I want you to fuck yourself on my cock,” he says, his voice a string pulled tight, ready to snap. “Take what you want.  Is this what you want?”

He rubs the base of his thumb against her lower lip, his scar brushing against her mouth like a kiss.  She whimpers and nods, her hips already beginning to rock in greedy, desperate rolls.  Conrad wraps his free arm around her back to let her brace against him, and he just watches.  She feels his eyes on her like a beacon, a spotlight illuminating every part of her so she can’t hide from him.

A particularly vigorous roll of her hips pushes her clit up against his pubic bone, and she gasps at the lick of pleasure that shoots through her nerves.  Repeating the motion, she pants against Conrad’s hand. “I’m close.”

“Me, too, honey.  Fuck.” He doesn’t quite thrust, his hips instead pressing into her with small, barely imperceptible pushes, like his body can’t fight the instinctual urge to move.  She closes her eyes, her lips covering his scar, her pelvis grinding in time with his.  The buildup is quick–almost too quick.  When her orgasm hits, it feels like a punch, a physical snap of a fist into her gut that steals her breath.  She tightens around Conrad and tries to speak, tries to warn him, but before she can choke out a single word, Conrad’s coming, too.

His entire body shudders, and he spills inside her with a low, primal grunt.  She wraps her legs around his hips to pull him deeper, his come filling her with thick, wet spurts.  Trembling, she finally releases his hand from her mouth and lets her head fall forward onto his shoulder.  He mirrors her, resting his against hers, and for a moment, they do nothing but breathe.

“That was really fucking hot,” Conrad murmurs.  Belly can feel his pulse start to even out again, and she turns her head in towards his neck, pressing her lips softly to the column of his throat.

“Hey, Connie?” she asks, her voice muffled by the collar of his shirt.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think we’re freaks?”

He laughs, and its warmth melts into Belly’s bloodstream, calming her from the inside out. “I mean…probably.  Do you think we’re freaks?”

“Kind of.”

“Then we’re freaks together.”

She laughs with him and then winces. “And there we go.  Time to clean up.”

“Mm?” Conrad draws back to look at her, and she gestures down to their joined bodies.

“To put it, uh, politely, I think we’re getting come on the counter.”

“Shit.  Sorry.” He’s quick but gentle as he pulls out, his cock covered in their combined fluids.  Belly watches his come trickle out of her and waits for Conrad to hunt down a clean dishtowel.  When she takes it from him, she can see him already mentally tracking down his cleaning supplies to give the counter a thorough clean, and she puts a hand on his arm.

“Hey.  I love you.  And thank you for telling me how you got that scar.  I’ve kind of been curious for a while,” she says gently, bringing him back to her.

“I love you,” he says back and leans forward to kiss her forehead. “If that’s what I get for telling you about a scar, I’ll have to get hurt a lot more often and stock up on them.”

“Ha ha.” Unamused, Belly rolls her eyes. “This was a one time thing, baby.  Don’t get used to it.”

She has no idea how wrong she is.

2: a mark left where something was previously attached

The second scar to earn Belly’s fixation is a thin line along the back of his neck.  

She’s 23 years old that summer, and she spends most of it wondering how she got to be so lucky.  Conrad is in Paris for the 4th of July–in her bed for the 4th of July, specifically, though they somehow manage to drag themselves out from that utopia to sit beside the river–and he’s laughing at something she said, his smile so wide and sunny that it’s impossible not to picture a beach, its rolling waves, its sun.  She basks in the warmth of his laughter, drunk on the sound of it and craving it inside her body like it’s a physical aching hunger.  She reaches for him, her fingers running through his hair, ruffling his bangs.

“You know, I liked you better with the center part,” she remarks.  Conrad pauses, considers her thoughtfully.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Yep.” Belly pushes her hands through his hair again and fluffs it to let it fall back into its natural placement.  She smiles when she sees the familiar frame of his bangs around his face, and she holds her hands up, making a rectangular finger camera. “There he is.  There’s my pretty boyfriend.”

Conrad’s mouth is lovely as he smiles, gentle and quiet. “I wasn’t pretty before?”

“Oh, you’re always pretty.  But with those bangs in your face, I can’t see just how pretty you are.  That’s why I’ve always liked your bangs like this.” Belly takes his face in her hands, runs her palms along his jaw and to the back of his neck.  She presses her fingertips into the muscles there and watches him close his eyes, his head falling forward to give her better access.

“That feels good,” he sighs, looking completely relaxed, blissed out.  His voice feels like a plea of some kind, and it kind of breaks Belly’s heart to think about how he probably doesn’t experience as much tenderness as he deserves.  She holds his head, caressing the weight of his skull in her palms.  He’s pliant beneath her touch, lamb-like even, and she wishes she could hold him like this forever.

Massaging his neck, her fingers work their way down his neck to where the muscle begins to slope into his shoulder.  A thin, textured line breaks the surface of his skin, and she hums softly, picturing it in her mind’s eye.  She’s kissed and touched and examined his body enough to memorize this new little punctuation mark, and when she closes her eyes, she can see it tattooed along the backs of her eyelids.  Not even an inch long and nowhere near as visible as some of the other new ones, it pulls her in, magnetic.

(Sometimes she thinks the only possible explanation for her love for him has to be scientific, something that can be measured.  Sometimes she thinks her love is too big to be contained by something so ordinary as a formula.  Her love is cosmic–infinite.)

“What’s this from?” she asks, tracing it with her nail.  He’s so blissed out she isn’t sure he heard her, but then his eyebrows wrinkle together, their crease marring the openness of his face.

“What is it?” he asks.

“A scar.  It’s about this big, and it’s just a skinny, little line.” She shows him the size with her fingers.  He squints, and his gaze grows distant as he wracks his brain.

“I have no idea,” he says, confused. “It’s just a line on the back of my neck?”

Belly moves so she can see it better. “Yeah, it looks like a cat scratch, if anything.”

“A cat scratch,” he repeats under his breath. “Yeah, I have no clue.”

Belly gives him a small, confused smile. “How do you not remember it?  It was bad enough to leave a permanent mark on you.”

“Do you remember every scar you’ve gotten?” Conrad counters.

It’s not like Conrad asks unkindly, but the question ignites a flicker of irritation, and her mouth curves downward in a frown. “Well, no.”

“There you have it.” He shrugs.

“Maybe you were like, with Agnes or something,” Belly says casually, far too casually for it to be a genuine remark.  She doesn’t know where the words come from, but they bubble out before she can stop them, and she’s left with them dangling in the air.  She sees Conrad go still, his muscles tense, and when he looks at her–ever her twin flame–he’s mirroring her frown.

“What do you mean?” he asks, caution edging his tone.

Belly shakes her head and shrugs at him. “I don’t know.  Just…maybe you got it with her.  You guys go hiking a lot, right?”

“Well…yeah…but I can’t think of how I’d get a cat scratch on the back of my neck from a hike,” he says.  His eyes are full of questions he isn’t sure she’s ready for him to ask, and he shifts to face her better. “Belly–"

“What?” she asks. “I said it’s like a cat scratch.  Not an actual cat scratch.” 

She knows she’s being mean, can feel the meanness roiling in her gut like an oil slick, dirty and polluted.  But the worst part is that she can’t identify where it’s coming from and why it’s choosing to rear its ugly head now.  These past few days with him have been perfect, and now she’s picking a fight with him out of nowhere all because of a scar?  She doesn’t need time or distance or hindsight to tell her she’s being ridiculous, but no matter how hard she tries, she can’t rein herself back in.

“I…I don’t understand,” Conrad says slowly. “Are you mad at me?”

“No, what would I even be mad at you about?” she asks, even as she pulls away from him.  The last bit of brightness still lingering in Conrad’s face fades away, and his expression clouds.

“I don’t understand,” he repeats. “You sound mad, but I can’t figure out why.  Is it…because of Agnes?  If you want to talk about–”

“I just don’t know how you can have a whole thing happen to your body that literally leaves a permanent scar behind, and you don’t remember what happened,” she says sharply, each word sliding knife-like out of her mouth.

“I guess it just wasn’t that big of a deal.” Conrad shrugs, and he holds his hands up–bewildered and helpless. “It’s a weird place to have a small scar, but I really don’t remember what happened.  It might’ve been from a hike, but it could’ve been from anything.  Football, a tag on the back of my clothes…literally anything.  Fuck, maybe it’s from the time Jere tackled me by the pool, and I hit my head against one of the pool chairs.”

“It’s not,” she insists, the accusation heavy in the clip of her consonants. “This is a new one.  You didn’t have it before you went to California.”

“But you don’t actually know that, Belly,” Conrad protests. “It could be from anywhere.”

“I do know,” she says indignantly, her eyes flaring. “That little scar behind your ear? That’s from when Jeremiah tackled you, and you hit your head.  The chairs used to have that metal framing, but when you got hurt, that’s when Susannah went out and found new ones not made of plastic.  The scar on the bottom of your foot?  When you stepped on glass from a beer bottle on the beach.  You’ve also got a scar on your ankle from when you were mowing the lawn, and the lawn mower spit a rock out at you.”

Disbelief colors Conrad’s face, and he blinks rapidly. “Ok.  So you remember all of those.  I don’t understand what this is supposed to prove, Belly.  I don’t understand why it matters.”

“You know what?  Fuck it.” Belly stands and folds her arms over her chest. “I’m ready to go home.”

“Belly–”

“No, you’re right.  It doesn’t matter.  There’s nothing to prove.  So let’s just go.”

“Baby–”

“You can stay here all you like, but I’m heading back.  You can either come with me or not.”

Conrad’s lips part, but before he can speak, she turns and starts the walk back to her apartment.  After a couple moments, Conrad falls in line beside her.  She doesn’t look at him, but she feels him like a cloying presence during the entire walk back.  Her mind screams at her to calm the fuck down, and she knows that’s the logical thing to do–she knows–yet every time she thinks about that delicate little line etched into the back of his neck, she feels like her nerves are going to explode out from beneath her skin.

During the walk, neither of them speaks.  The silence is a third person, an additional entity, between them that feels more alive than any elephant in any room Belly’s ever been in.  She fumbles with her keys to unlock the door, and out of the corner of her eye, she can see in the tense flexion of Conrad’s hands that he’s physically restraining himself from reaching out to help her.  Seeing him like this is agonizing, a cruel, taunting reflection of her own behavior, and a swell of emotion makes Belly’s throat tighten.

“Do we still want to go out for dinner later?” Conrad asks, breaking the terse silence.

“We don’t have anything here to cook, so yeah,” she replies.

“I could run out and get something, if you’d prefer to stay in,” he offers.

“You don’t know the way.” She rubs her forehead with the side of her thumb, impatience and resignation filling her face.

“I can figure out how to find the store, Belly,” he says gently. “We’ve gone together in the past, and even if we hadn’t, I found my way here on my own last year, remember?”

Last year when he’d shown up the day before her birthday and declared his love for her, the year she’d finally embraced her love for him, too.  Something delicate shatters deep within her ribcage, and she has to take a breath.

“Ok,” she finally says. “Ok.”

“Can I take your keys?”

She holds them out to him, lets him take them.  He lingers, but when she makes no move to do or say anything, he goes.  Belly tells herself not to watch him leave, and she only allows herself a look in his direction when she hears the door click softly behind him.  Exhaling a shaky breath, she sinks down onto the wicker bench in her room.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she whispers.  She feels like she’s screaming, but the soft rush of her breath breezes through her like a ghost, like she’s haunting her own apartment. “What the fuck are you doing?”

She digs the heels of her palms into her eyes and makes herself inhale and then exhale, all on a count of three.  In, two, three–out, two, three.  The insides of her nostrils burn with each inhale, and she lowers her hands from her eyes.  With just one glance around her room, she can see the evidence of Conrad’s presence.  His suitcase, his neatly folded clothes, his phone charger–each and every one of them an artifact belonging to the man she loves and has loved her entire life.

Belly gets up and crosses to the bed, picking up the Brown University sweatshirt he’d brought with him for her to wear.  She’d worn it this morning while they’d sat in bed drinking coffee together, his arm around her shoulder and her bare legs intertwined with his like vines that have grown together over the years.  Closing her eyes, she buries her face in the fabric and lets herself breathe in the scent of him.  As much as she loves everything belonging to him, this sweatshirt might be her favorite thing.  It’s soft from use and time, and he looks so handsome whenever he wears it–so much like the boy she remembers than the man he’s become.  This single sweatshirt is imbued with a history that belongs to her just as much as it does to him.

(The front seat of his Range Rover, the air conditioning blasting, a worn paperback warming her palms, “I was going to get you a Stanford one, ‘cause I, you know…”)

If a museum to Conrad Fisher exists, it’s within Belly herself.  She collects each artifact of his and catalogues it in her brain, a registrar whose focus is solely on love.  She archives his words, his breaths, the exact color of his eyes and how they look under each sun because the Paris, Cousins, and Palo Alto suns are all very different–this fact is indisputable.  Her heart is a museum, a living, breathing museum that has catalogued and interpreted his life from the time she understood what life was.

And suddenly, she understands why the goddamn scar bothers her so much.

After that, waiting for Conrad to come back is probably the worst part.  Patience has never been an area in which she’s excelled, but she’s forced to practice it as she waits for his return.  She pulls the sweatshirt over her head, pulling the sleeves down around her hands, and she paces.  She can hear the anxiety in her footsteps, a steady, unforgiving pulse for the worst heartbeat she’s ever heard.

The second she hears the key turn in the lock, she’s in the hallway waiting for him.  He comes through the door with a single paper bag in his arms, and at first, he doesn’t see her from behind the bag.  He closes the door behind him, locks it, and turns around, only to go still when he sees her.

“Hey,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts. “I got upset about something and picked a fight with you instead of just telling you.”

His blink is slow, controlled. “Can I put this bag in the kitchen, and we can talk?”

She nods and steps back for him to pass, following behind him with her arms folded protectively over her chest.  Conrad sets the bag down on her small table and then turns to face her, his eyes guarded but not exactly closed off.

“Did I do something?” he asks, cutting right to the chase.  She can hear the anxiety in his voice, and the thought that it’s there because of her makes her feel nauseated.

“No.  But also yes.  But not in the way you think.” Belly’s breath comes in quick, shallow waves. “You did something, or something did something to you, and I wasn’t there to see it.  And I hate that I’ve missed out on five years of your life.  You have all these friends and places you go to and things you do, and I missed all of that.  I just get to hear about it now, but I–I want to know everything, Conrad.  I want to understand everything about your life and–and who you are.  It actually used to kind of kill me when we were kids that I didn’t get to know what you were like outside of summer.  I hated missing out on that.  And then I missed out on five more years of your life, and it’s kind of killing me again.” She lets out a loose, shaky laugh, and she rubs her arms, self-conscious. “I’m so fucking jealous of everyone who’s ever crossed paths with you in California because they get to be a part of your story in a way that I don’t know about.  And isn’t–isn’t that crazy?  Doesn’t that make me sound fucking insane that I’m jealous of a random person you briefly passed in the park one time four years ago?  Because that sounds batshit insane, Conrad.  I’m jealous of the birds that sing outside your window.  Birds.” Her shoulders sag, and she sighs. “I want to know everything that’s ever happened to you, and the fact that I can’t drives me up a wall.  And that’s crazy.”

“Belly,” he says softly. “I think you just sound like you’re in love.”

“Maybe,” she admits. “If being in love means I sound like I’m out of my mind.”

“I think that’s exactly what it’s supposed to sound like.” Conrad takes a step towards her, and he holds his hands out for her. “Do you think I don’t feel the same way?  Because I do.  I get so jealous of all the people who get to know you here that it feels like I can’t breathe.  Do you want to hear something really fucking insane, Belly?  There are actually some nights I go and scroll through your Instagram, and I make up my own stories behind what’s going on in your pictures.  I’ve come up with entire conversations between you and your friends, all because I want to know every story that makes you who you are, too.”

Belly stares at him, wide-eyed and wild. She waits for him to break, to say he was just kidding, but he just looks at her with that self-conscious earnestness he gets whenever he admits something he’s embarrassed by.  

When he doesn’t speak, she does. “You do that?”

“Yeah.” Conrad laughs a little miserably, and he runs a hand through his hair. “I do.”

“You never told me.”

His mouth quirks up into a wry half-smile. “Well, you never told me that you’re jealous of the birds in California, so.” 

Words can’t suffice, and so Belly does the only thing she can to communicate her love for him.  She grabs him.  She grabs him and kisses him and crushes him to her.  Within seconds, they go from tortured wrecks of humans to a fused coil of love and desire.  They don’t even make it to the bedroom; instead, Conrad takes her on the floor of her kitchen, thrusting into her with a groan that Belly archives in her mind.  They make love with a ragged ferocity that feels out of place considering the setting, but it’s perfect.

(Belly worries Conrad will think her kitchen floor is dirty, but his mouth proves to be dirtier: Oh, honey, you’re so fucking wet.  I can’t get enough of you.  Fuck, you look so beautiful, taking my cock wearing my sweatshirt like this.)

When Belly comes, it’s with her finger pressed against the scar on the back of his neck, her nail digging into it when he comes inside her seconds later.

Panting against her neck, Conrad lets out a quiet laugh.

“What?” she asks.

“I just remembered how I got that scar.”

“Yeah?  How?”

“Barber accidentally nicked me when I went for a haircut.  I don’t even think it bled.”

Belly smiles. “Really?”

“Yeah.  Really.”

It’s not funny–not even in the slightest–but Belly starts giggling.  The absurdity of it all hits her, and she can’t not laugh, not when Conrad’s laughing with her, his eyes welling up from the force of their joint laughter.  He laughs and looks at her with sea-colored eyes, an ocean gathering in them, making Belly feel like she’s back in her favorite place in the world.  And with Conrad’s eyes on her, she realizes that she actually is right where she wants to be because her favorite place in the world is anywhere he is.

After they clean up, Conrad kisses the side of her head, and looks at her with such longing–such love–that she feels her breath catch in the back of her throat.  She wants to tell him how she feels, how in love and terrified and blind with it she feels, but yet again, words can’t suffice.  Instead, she doesn’t speak.  She puts her hands on his shoulders, bringing his head down closer to her, and when she kisses the scar from the barber, she knows he can feel it, too.

3: a mark or indentation (as on furniture) resulting from damage or wear

Conrad has an odd mark on the side of his ribs that doesn’t look like a scar, but it’s definitely not a birthmark. And as the keeper of Conrad’s scars and birthmarks, Belly can confirm he didn’t have it pre-California, thus disqualifying it from birthmark status.  She touches it a lot because she likes touching him, but she becomes a little addicted to the way Conrad inhales through his nose, more of a gasp than anything else.  She’s actually just kind of become addicted to Conrad in general, and moving in together has only intensified how she craves him–heart, body, and soul.

It’s their first Spring as a couple finally living under the same roof when they spend a day at the beach playing volleyball.  Taylor and Steven come out for the weekend, Conrad invites some of his co-workers, and Belly even extends an invite to a couple people in her cohort to join.  The day is perfect with bright sun, clear skies, and sand as far as the eye can see.  Even her knee holds out and doesn’t give her any issues, which is really the most important part in Belly’s opinion.  It’s also Belly’s opinion that everyone spends way too long debating whether or not it’s a good idea for Belly and Conrad to be on the same team.  If she hears, “But they’re too competitive, they’ll ruin it for everyone else,” one more time, she swears she’ll throw herself into the ocean.

But despite the “too competitive” allegations, Belly wishes she could capture days like these and put them in a bottle.  She’d carry the bottle with her, saving it for rainy days or days for when she misses Taylor so much a FaceTime call won’t quite cut it.  It wouldn’t be the first bottle she’s taken care of, wouldn’t be the first precious memory she’s protected with every ounce of care in her chaotic heart.

(The small bottle filled with Cousins–with Conrad, with love–sits on her bookshelf at home where the Palo Alto sun can warm it through their apartment window.  Someday she’ll reunite it with the Cousins sun, but for now, Palo Alto is the best she can do.)

Much to her delight, Belly’s team wins, which Agnes declares unfair because they all know each other and have history together.  Conrad’s friends are good sports about the loss, but it’s when they’re ribbing Conrad over it that Belly finds the answer she’s tried to ask for but hasn’t had the language for.

“I knew you were insanely good at football but volleyball, too?  Fuck off, man,” Phil laughs. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

“Ok, ok, ok,” Agnes interjects, holding up her hands. “No need to hype him up like this when we all know it’s just going to go to his head, which is the last thing he needs.  Plus, do you not remember how his own backpack took him out like, three years ago?”

“Hey, that doesn’t count,” Conrad says, pointing at her. “I didn’t even complain once about it.”

“But that was the problem.  Your backpack was literally rubbing you raw, and you just let it happen and then shrugged about it when we saw you treating it later,” Agnes says, exasperated.

“Wait, what?” Belly asks.  Her eyes dart between Phil, Agnes, and Conrad. “What happened?”

Agnes sighs and shoots Conrad a pointed glare. “Several years ago, we did a backpacking trip.  It was Phil, me, Conrad, and a couple others from our program, and it was supposed to be an easy weekend in the woods.”

“Which it was,” Conrad adds.

Agnes ignores him and continues, “We did like, five miles the first day, and your boyfriend was using a brand new backpack because breaking in a brand new thing over a long weekend is always a great idea, and it rubbed him raw the entire trip.  It wasn’t until, what, the second day?  I think it was the second day Scott saw him trying to quietly bandage himself up away from everyone else.”

“There was no sense in drawing attention to it,” Conrad protests. “It was just some rubbing, so it’s not like I needed to go home.  I had Neosporin and gauze.  I was good to go.”

“Didn’t you say you still have a scar from it?  That doesn’t sound ‘good to go’ to me but whatever,” Agnes mutters under her breath, even as she exchanges a look with Belly.

Belly’s eyes drop to the mark on his ribcage, and she tries to recall where the chest straps on his backpack fasten.  If her memory serves her well, the height and angle of the straps line up with the mark.  Wincing, she thinks about Conrad spending an entire weekend hiking, about him ignoring the pain of his skin getting rubbed away by his chest strap over his shirt.  She’s not surprised to hear this because if a prize existed for suffering in silence to avoid making things harder for people, Conrad would be the recipient.  He’s always been like this, stubborn and insistent on being the least bothersome person, even to the extent where he shuts everyone out–especially to the extent of shutting everyone out.

Later, when they all go to the public showers to rinse off the sun, sand, and sweaty sunscreen before heading home, Belly manages to slip away from Taylor and Agnes.  Her heart thuds, dangerously loud beneath her sternum, as she sneaks out of the women’s bathroom.  She ducks into the men’s bathroom and sends up a silent prayer to all the deities that may be out there, begging them all simultaneously to keep her from getting caught.  She’s not exactly sure what the penalty is for being caught creeping around men’s showers at a public beach, but she’s not interested in discovering the answer firsthand.

She’s quiet as she tiptoes down the row of stalls.  Suddenly, Conrad’s towel catches her attention, and she inwardly lets out a sigh of relief.  Hurrying towards it, she reaches the stall just in time to slip in around the curtain right as she hears male voices starting to approach.  The thought that this might not actually be Conrad’s stall doesn’t even cross her mind until she’s on the other side of the curtain.  Panic flashes through her, a lightning strike of fear and anxiety, but it’s gone as quickly as it had arrived because her eyes land on the shape of a man in front of her, and she’d know that shape anywhere.

Conrad turns to face her, and his mouth falls open. “Belly?”

“Shh!” She holds a finger up to her lips and steps in closer. “Be quiet!”

“What–you’re not–baby, what are you doing?” he asks, his eyes wide.

She points at his side, going to him and placing her hands on his waist. “I want to see.”

“What are you–” Conrad stops talking when she starts turning him, her hands pressing into his waist to get him to bare his left side to her.

There, beneath the spray, Belly finds what she’s looking for: the mark that doesn’t quite look like a scar but isn’t a birthmark, either.  She grimaces and draws closer to him to get a better look.  The scar is a small, darkened patch of skin about the length and width of her thumb–almost a perfect match to the size of Conrad’s backpack straps.  She touches it, running the pad of her index finger over the dark, bruise-like strip.

Conrad inhales, a hiss rather than a breath. “Belly.”

“Is this it?” she asks.

He doesn’t need to ask her to specify what she means–he just knows, and he nods. “Yeah.”

“It doesn’t look like a scar.”

“Chafing scars look a bit different.” He takes a breath, starts to explain, but then he stops himself when he sees the wild expression on Belly’s face. “What is it?”

“How could you not say a word to anyone?  How did you just–just power through it when it had to hurt so bad?” She doesn’t mean to demand it of him, but the accusation in her tone is clear.  He looks down at her, lips parted, his wet hair hanging down into his face.

“I didn’t want to be a bother.”

“I hate when you say that.” She presses her palm flat against the scar and watches how his eyelashes flutter.  He’s gorgeous like this, all wet hair, wet skin, and wet swim trunks clinging to his thighs.  Water trickles down his body in thin, streaking rivulets.  Belly is so close that with just a single dip of her head, she’d be able to lick the water from his skin.  She could do it.  He’d let her.  Conrad steadies himself, and when he opens his eyes, his pupils have blown out–large, inky pools inside ringlets of brilliant green.  

He blinks, and his tongue darts out, wetting his lips.  “I didn’t.  I don’t.”

Beneath her palm–beneath his scar–she can feel his heart beating, his breath quickening. “I want you to bother me.”

“How?” he whispers.

Belly slides her hand down his ribs, down past his hips, until her fingers graze his.  She doesn’t break eye contact–not once as she brings his hand between her legs.

Conrad sighs like he’s been holding his breath, his fingers already starting to circle her clit over her swimsuit bottoms. “Honey.”

(Honey, she notices.  Conrad calls her honey when he wants to fuck.)

Belly’s breath stutters in her lungs, and she starts to turn, to put her hands against the wall and arch her back for him, but he shakes his head.

“No,” he says a little brokenly. “I want to see you.  I want to see your face.”

Electricity sparks its way down Belly’s spine, and she can only stare as he bends down, grabs her thighs, and hoists her up against the shower wall.  The rational part of Belly’s brain tells her that it’s disgusting to fuck in a public shower, but the part of her that wants him so much she’s having trouble drawing in breath wins.

“We’ve got to be quick,” he murmurs, reaching between them to free himself from his swim trunks. “Pull that to the side for me, sweetheart.  Good girl.”

Belly’s hand trembles as she holds the fabric of her swimsuit bottoms to the side, and she bites the inside of her cheek when she feels Conrad’s cock drag through her wetness, feels him slicking himself up for her.  He dips inside her for the briefest moment, and she gasps. “Conrad.  Please.”

“You’ve got to stay quiet for me, too,” he whispers. “You don’t want everyone in here knowing you’re taking my cock like this, right?”

Before she can answer, he sinks inside her in a long, slow thrust.  Belly’s mouth falls open in a perfect “O,” and she grabs at him, one hand going to his shoulder, the other going to his ribs.  She doesn’t think he’s ever been this deep before, but she knows he has, knows it like she knows the exact curve of his cock inside her. “Conrad.”

Pulling his hips back, he keeps his gaze fixated on her face.  He likes to watch her–loves to watch her and see how she reacts to him, which used to make her cheeks burn but now, just makes her feel loved.  She’s never been seen so acutely before, but with him, when it comes to her, he sees everything–who she is, who she wants to be, who she once was.  Conrad sees all of it, and the vulnerability of being so seen leaves her shaking.  Gripping his shoulder, Belly meets his stare. “Now.”

At her command, just a single word, Conrad slams back into her, and it takes everything in Belly not to cry out.  He sets a rough, relentless pace that leaves her breathless, leaves her brain devoid of any thought other than a silent, unvoiced demand for more.  He fucks into her like it’s been decades since he’s had her like this.  Already, her orgasm begins to spark from deep within her pelvis.

It’s a race to the finish line, after that.  Conrad, fucking her like his life depends on it.  Belly, inhaling his every breath as he pants into her mouth in between kisses.  She takes him and takes him and takes him.  When she comes, it’s an exercise in control not to cry his name.  She smashes her mouth against his and chokes back each cry, whimpering against his lips with soft, breathy pants.  It’s only a matter of seconds until Conrad comes, too.  He comes inside her, his hips moving in sloppy, uneven thrusts as he pumps his come into her, and Belly’s gaze falls to where her hand rests over his ribs.  Her palm is pressed directly against his scar, against the expanse of his body where he’d let himself be rubbed raw without saying a single word to anyone.

“Belly,” he whispers, his voice shaky.

She takes his face in her hands, and she waits until he meets her eyes.  He looks at her with a stormy mess of emotions painted across his face.  He’s silent as he searches her face, gazing up at her with such tenderness, Belly feels everything inside her shatter.

“I want you to bother me,” she whispers, repeating her words from earlier. “Always, Connie.  I mean it.  Every day until the day we die.  Bother me.”

“Ok.” His wet eyelashes close, and she leans forward, kissing them.  He smiles and starts to open them when three quick raps on the tile outside of the shower make them both jump.

“Hey, Con?” Steven asks.  Belly’s body goes rigid, and she stares at Conrad with huge, panicked eyes.

Conrad clears his throat and furrows his brow. “Uh, yeah?”

“I’m done, and I’m heading out, so I’ll meet you outside, ok?  The girls are probably still in the bathroom, and knowing Taylor and my sister, we’re going to be here for, uh, I don’t know, another hour?” Steven chuckles.

“Right.  Yeah.  I’ll be out in a moment,” Conrad calls.

“Cool, man.  See you out there.”

“See you.”

Belly holds her breath.  She doesn’t move, she doesn’t blink, and she doesn’t even think.  For a moment, they remain frozen, locked together in a panicked embrace that seems unreal the more Belly thinks about it.  Quietly, Conrad starts to chuckle.

“Oh, my God,” he mutters. “I have no idea how the fuck we’re going to get you out of here without being seen.”

“Shut up!” Belly smacks his shoulder and squirms in his arms. “Put me down.  We’ve got to brainstorm.  We’ll be able to work something out, right?  No one will know.  It’ll be fine.”

Five minutes and many failed theorized strategies later, Belly and Conrad walk out of the men’s bathroom hand in hand.  Steven gags dramatically while Phil and Conrad’s other friends have the decency to pretend they don’t notice, but he stops when Belly shoots him a withering glare.  Five more minutes pass, and Taylor and Agnes walk out, pausing when they see Belly.

“How’d we miss you?” Taylor asks, squinting in disbelief. “We looked all over the bathroom.”

“I was just quick, I guess,” Belly says with a little shrug and a smile. “Speaking of quick, who’s ready for a bite to eat downtown?”

In the backseat of Phil’s car, Conrad drapes his arm around Belly’s shoulders, and she snuggles up close to him, her hand going to his ribs.  She places her hand where she guesses his scar is, imagining it beneath his shirt, beneath her fingertips.  From a scar born of friction and silence, the only touch she wants him to know from here on out is tenderness.  And so she gives it to him.  She presses her hand to his heart, to his scar, and with her touch, her heart, every frayed fiber of her being, she gives him tenderness.

4: a lasting moral or emotional injury

When Belly’s 24 years old, she reunites with the summer house.  And when she’s 25, she reunites with something else equally as meaningful there, too.

For two days, the summer house belongs solely to Belly and Conrad, and as much as she’s looking forward to having everyone all together again, she also relishes the chance to be at her favorite place in the entire world with her favorite person in the entire world.  They spend most of their time swimming, whether in the pool or at the beach, but they also spend time getting to know each other in the summer house in this new context.

For example, Belly discovers that making out with Conrad in the pool is wonderful and magical, but making out with him in the ocean is showstopping on a whole new level.  Tasting the ocean’s salt on his lips, the lingering sand’s earthiness–nothing is like it, and she can easily see herself becoming addicted just to making out with him in the ocean.  She also learns that Conrad is really good at putting sunscreen on her back.  Whether it’s the lover or the doctor in him, she doesn’t know, but he proves himself to be thorough and concise with his application skills.

But most of all, Belly discovers what it’s like to love him at the summer house.  She’s always loved him, has always felt that with each summer that passed, from the moment she understood what love was, she tumbled deeper and further in love with him, but she loves him now with a quietness that’s completely new to her.  Before, she’d loved Conrad with the chaotic wildness that comes with childhood love, a naivety and ferocity that felt like an uncontrolled forest fire.  Now, she loves him with steadiness.  She doesn’t feel like she’s falling into a bottomless pit, flailing and pulling at anything for purchase.  She feels safe.  Protected.  She feels loved in return with all of Conrad’s quietness, too.  

(Her love isn’t confusing anymore; it’s kind.)

On their last day alone, Belly goes to open the curtains in Susannah’s room.  Her room never feels right unless it’s filled with sunshine, and Belly wants every millimeter of the room illuminated by the sun by the time Laurel arrives.  She looks out the window and leans against one of the plush white chairs, remembering how she used to come up with every excuse in the world to spend time in this room.  Susannah’s room had seemed so elegant, so grown up, and Belly had wanted nothing more than to be like that, too.  And while Laurel might not have approved of small Belly scheming to gain access to this magic room, Susannah hadn’t minded at all and had encouraged it, even.

Belly’s heart no longer breaks when she thinks about Susannah.  Instead, she feels a soft, gnawing ache along the edges of her heart’s healed lines.  She smooths the top of the green fabric of the closest chair pillow and starts to leave when she pauses, glancing towards the bathroom.  The last time she’d been in there was when Conrad cut his leg, and she’d bandaged him up.

She crosses to the bathroom and glances inside, her eyes landing on the pristine porcelain tub.  She goes to it like a moth to the flame, and she sits on the edge.  She doesn’t need to close her eyes to remember what it had felt like to sit here and watch Conrad bleed out.  His swim trunks clinging to his thighs, green eyes etched with pain, crimson curling like cursive down his leg and into the tub.  She’d been so close to him she’d been able to smell the iron from his blood, the salt from the ocean.

“Hey, love?”

Belly lifts her eyes and meets Conrad’s gaze in the mirror above the sink.  He’s standing in the doorway, his face quizzical.  She smiles, and she turns her head to face him. “Hey.  Is everything ok?”

“Yeah, you were just gone a while, so I thought I’d check on you.” He walks into the bathroom and nods at the tub. “You good?”

“Mmhmm.”

As he draws closer, he angles his body and sits on the edge of the tub exactly as he had those years ago.  He remembers it, too, the scene playing in front of his eyes, even as he looks at her with such clarity. “Thinking about the day I cut my leg?”

“Yeah.  I definitely thought you were going to bleed to death here in this bathroom.” Belly gestures to the inside of the tub. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to get the blood cleaned up?”

He grimaces. “I did kind of leave you to do that on your own, didn’t I?”

“Oh, there’s no ‘kind of’ about it.  You absolutely did,” Belly says with a laugh. “I had to wash your blood out of the tub and scrub it down.  And to make matters worse, I could totally hear your voice in my head the whole time giving me a whole lesson on biohazards and blood and the right ways to clean it up.”

“I wouldn’t have done that,” Conrad says, though the sheepish look on his face gives away that not even he is convinced by his words.  Belly laughs again, and he guiltily shrugs. “Ok, maybe.  Probably.  I probably wouldn’t have read the room and accidentally told you everything I knew about blood.”

Belly’s smile softens as she glances down at Conrad’s leg thrown over the edge of the tub.  The hem of his shorts rides up just enough for her to see the scar and, much like it had on the day she saw the wound, open and raw, her pulse accelerates.  She can’t stop herself from reaching out, and she traces the edge of it with her index finger. “Does it ever hurt?”

Conrad shakes his head. “No.  It healed up pretty quickly, too.  And now all I’ve got left is this old thing.”

“Four years old,” she murmurs, covering it with her thumb.

“Do you ever think about that day?” he asks suddenly. “Us here?”

“Mmhmm,” she says without looking at him. “Do you?”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice quiet. “I do.”

Belly runs her thumb back and forth over the light pink ridge of his skin, caressing it rather than just simply touching it. “It’s beautiful.”

“Hmm?” Confusion clouds Conrad’s eyes, and he ducks his head a little to meet her eyes.

“This.” She nods at his scar. “It’s beautiful.”

“Baby, come on.” Conrad’s laugh is gentle, loving even. “I know you seem to like my scars, but it’s probably my ugliest one.”

Finally, Belly lifts her eyes to his, and she frowns, genuinely bothered. “No.  No, it’s not ugly, Conrad.  It’s…it’s beautiful.  I mean it.”

“Well, I love you for loving it,” he says.

Without another word, Belly suddenly leans forward, and she presses her lips to his leg, kissing his scar.  Conrad freezes.  Beneath her lips, she feels his every muscle seize and lock up.  She no longer hears the soft sounds of his breathing or the kiss of self-deprecation in his laugh.  The only thing she hears is her own heartbeat.  Four years ago, she’d lost that sound; she’d lost her heartbeat.  And then she’d sat on this tub and touched Conrad’s leg, feeling his wet hair and his wet breath against her shoulder, and she’d found it all over again.

When Belly looks up at Conrad, his eyes are locked on her in a wide, awed stare. “Belly.”

Grabbing his hand, Belly sits up and brings it to her chest, placing it over heart.  “This is what I think about from that day.  I felt this again.”

“I know,” Conrad says softly.

She believes him.

Leaning in, she brushes her lips over his in a questioning kind of kiss.  She doesn’t yet know what she’s asking him, but when she pulls back to look at his face, she sees the answer written in the quirk of his mouth and the large circle of his pupils.  His hand slides from her chest to the back of her head, cradling her closer to him as he deepens the kiss.  Belly’s hand falls back down to his leg, and she presses her fingers into his scar, drawing a moan from the depths of his body.  The sound passes from him and straight into her, and it lands deep in her pelvis, a reverberation that makes her gasp against his lips.

Conrad kisses her, his fingers starting to tangle in her hair, but she pulls back.  Swiftly, she swings her leg over the edge of the tub and sinks down to the tiled floor in front of him.  For a moment, Conrad doesn’t move, but when he sees her hands go to the waistband of his shorts, his eyes flash, and he turns with her.  

Belly has his shorts unbuttoned, unzipped, and down past his knees before either of them can take another breath.  His cock bobs directly in front of her face, and she wraps her hand around him, giving him a single, hard stroke that makes his hips jerk.  He’s already leaking pre-come, and Belly can’t wait any longer, leaning over to lick a stripe up his cock with the flat of her tongue.  The sound that erupts from his throat is like that of a man being strangled–tight and pained.  She flicks her tongue over his slit and licks up the salty stickiness of his pre-come.  Beneath her, Conrad’s thighs tremble, and he makes another agonized sound.

“Belly–”

She takes him all the way in her mouth then, swallowing him down in a single slide of her wet lips.  Conrad lets loose a string of curses, and his hips flex forward, pushing himself farther into her mouth.  It’s easy to take him like this–all sharp breaths and cutting syllables that sound both like her name and like a prayer.  She hollows her cheeks, increasing the suction, and she runs her tongue over the flat ridge on the underside of his cock.  His thighs go taut again, and she places her free hand on his leg, her fingertips unconsciously grazing over his scar.  

(Later, the idea that she might have a scar kink will stop her in her tracks.  Now, she takes him to the back of her throat and hums.)

Conrad’s hips buck forward, and he gasps. “Honey–fuck–honey.”  

His hand clamps down to her shoulder, and he pushes, moving her back so his cock falls out of her mouth.  She looks up at him, her lips pink, swollen, and she frowns.

“What–” She starts to say, but he shakes his head.

“I don’t want to come like that.  I don’t want my come in your mouth.  Not today,” he says breathlessly. “I need to be inside you.”

“You want your come inside me?” Belly asks as she stands, her fingers already yanking at the zipper of her jean shorts.

His eyelids flutter shut, and he shakes his head, exhausted. “No.  I need my come inside you.”

Belly shivers as she steps out of her shorts and underwear.  Conrad reaches for her, draws her into him and holds her against his body as she straddles him.  With one slow push of his hips and a sinking down of hers, they join together.  Belly lets gravity pull her down onto him until she feels his pubic bone nestled against her clit.  He’s so unbelievably deep inside her as it is, but she wraps her legs around his hips to take him deeper still.  She doesn’t know who moves first, but when they start to move, it’s a rough, deep grind.  He’s barely moving, his hips pushing himself even deeper like he’s searching, trying to find something inside her body.  

(The thought briefly crosses Belly’s mind that someday he’ll be moving like this with her trying to put something inside her, and she involuntarily clenches around him.)

Their orgasms hit within seconds of each other.  Belly clings to him, tightening impossibly around his cock as he spills into her.  His come is warm inside her, and she feels like a wet, exposed wire.  Tremors wrack Conrad’s body, and he pants, trying to catch his breath.

“I’ve got you,” Belly whispers, running a shaky hand over his hair. “I’ve got you, baby.  I’ve got you, Connie.”

“Belly?” he asks in a muffled, wrecked voice.

“Yeah?”

“I hope you never stop finding my scars beautiful.”

The admission is so raw, so honest, that tears fill Belly’s eyes.  She pulls back and places a hand on either side of his face, making him look her head on.  He looks heartbreakingly vulnerable the way he always does after he comes, but this time, she sees something much more fragile sitting at the forefront of his eyes.  

“I will never not find you beautiful, Conrad Fisher,” she promises. “Ever.”

“Did you know that I love you?” he asks, his voice so quiet that she almost has to lean in closer to hear him. “Completely.  Madly.  I love you, Isabel.”

“I love you, Conrad,” Belly says back. “Completely.  Madly.”

She draws him into her arms again, and she rests her chin on the back of his shoulder, the both of them holding each other.  Without realizing it, her fingertips find the scar on the back of his neck, and they run back and forth over the thin line.  She’s always prided herself on being able to read the story of his life through his scars, but as she touches him, it hits her that in his body, she can read the story of their life.  This place, these memories–they’re written in the landmarks of his skin, their combined history documented in the slash across his thigh, the come between her thighs, a heartbeat restarted.

Their history lies within their bodies, wounded, healing, and healed.  And as Belly holds Conrad, as she feels held by him in return, she knows she will someday make a promise to him out loud in front of their friends and family to love him, to have and to hold him, to be with him until death do they part.  But for now, she loves him, and she silently makes another promise to him.

I promise to kiss every wound you ever receive.  I promise to love every scar.  I promise to read your history with my hands.  Our story.  I promise to read our story.