Page 142 of Property of Scar

It doesn’t take me with it.

That’s the difference.

I sit here with it for a while, feeling its shape, the edges worn smooth from time and repetition, and, for the first time, I don’t try to drown in it. I don’t reach for it like it’s the only thing I have left of her.

I just… let it be what it is.

A choice I made.

A thing I carry.

Not the thing that defines me.

My hand comes up before I think about it, fingers brushing over the raised line along my face, the scar I chose to keep, the one thing I refused to let heal because it felt like the only honest way to carry what I did.

It’s been there so long it feels permanent.

Like it should be.

Like letting it go would mean letting her go with it.

My thumb presses against it, tracing the line of it one last time, and there’s a moment, a small, quiet one, where I expect something to stop me.

Some instinct.

Some resistance.

Something that says, ‘You don’t get to be free of this.’

But nothing comes.

The bond hums beneath my skin. My mind shifts to Cali, to my obvious love for her. I need to let my guilt go so I can live my life entirely for Cali.

She deserves that.

She deserves all of me.

I have to let Astrid go.

Then slowly, the skin shifts under my hand.

Subtle at first.

Then not.

The raised edge softens, the old damage pulling back, smoothing out beneath my fingers as the scar finally gives way to what I am, to what I’ve always been capable of doing and never allowed.

It doesn’t hurt.

That’s the part that lands hardest.

It doesn’t tear or fight me.

The wound just… heals.

Like it’s been waiting.

When I lower my hand, the skin is smooth.