Page 137 of The Truths We Burn

It’s the scars.

Some are healed completely, sunken, and slightly discolored. Others are a dusty pink, indicating that they’ve just started the process of mending. But there are a few that are still scarlet red from irritation, barely scabbed over, and they look like they could bust open any second.

They run from just below the tattoo, all the way down to the dip in his spine. Multiple ones, some that look like they have been reopened too many times to be healthy.

When he returns, he is carrying a first aid kit that has already been opened, sliding it beside me as he takes some materials from inside.

“I’m fine. You don’t need to do that.”

“Shut up. It’s my fault you dropped the glass. Let me fix it.” He reaches down, curling his fingers around my ankle and lifting it upwards so he can examine the damage better.

Silence falls between us. It’s not awkward or strained. It’s a comfortable one.

Using his teeth, he rips open an alcohol swab, the pungent smell immediately making my nose burn. I hate that smell so much it makes me quiver.

“You alright?”

I nod. “Yeah. Just hate that smell. Reminds me of Monarch. I swear they soaked the halls with that shit every night.” He rubs the pads against my skin, causing a sting to buzz through my foot. I look down at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Making sure you’re safe.”

My heart thuds a little.

“Wasn’t aware you cared.”

“I wish I didn’t.”

Ouch. I suppose I deserve that.

“You seem to be pretty good at this. Used to cleaning up wounds?”

A smirk appears on his face. “Alistair has busted his knuckles open quite a few times in the years we’ve been friends. Had to learn at some point, or he’d probably bleed out.”

“And the scars on your back? You clean those up too?” I ask, knowing I have absolutely no right to know the truth behind them but wanting it anyway.

He presses a little harder into my fresh wound, making me jerk a little.

“Don’t ask questions you’re not ready to hear the answers to, Theatre Geek.”

My chest spasms hearing him call me that. At one point, I’d hated hearing it, but when I was inside those four walls, I would have given anything to hear him say it again.

“Who says I’m not ready for them? I begged you for them at one point and barely got anything from you. I have always been ready for your truths, Rook.”

The closer we’d gotten last year, the more I felt like he was hiding from me, only giving me the pieces that he wanted to while I had shown him all my skeletons in the closet. I don’t think he’d ever really trusted me to begin with.

But all I had wanted was to understand him better. To know him and not just his name, like everyone else. I wanted to know what made him tick. His dreams if he had any left at this point. His nightmares.

I just wanted to know him.

“What happened to you?” I ask, hoping he will give me something. Anything.

“Nothing happened to me. I did it to myself,” he grunts, grabbing the gauze next to me, “Well, Thatcher did the cutting, but I asked for it.”

“What? Why?” I furrow my eyebrows, confused.

When I’d first seen them, I’d thought the abuse from his father had escalated to more than just busted lips and black eyes. I hadn’t been expecting him to say one of his best friends.

Their relationships with one another are an enigma. It doesn’t matter how much they tell you, you would still never be able to comprehend the depths they would be willing to go for one another.