Page 39 of To Love the Stars too Fondly

She settled beside me. I summoned a pathetic attempt at courage and handed her my phone with the open thread. “I should have told you days ago. I was just so embarrassed.” I paused, failing to suppress my next sardonic words. “But then you told me about how a hooker pissed on you, so maybe it’s not as bad as I thought.”

Alex chuckled, though it faded as she scrolled up. “Can I screenshot this? Unfortunately, there is someone I need to send it to.”

“It’s not like I have any dignity left.” I tried to reach for the water, only to realize my hands were shaking. “What if he hurts you?”

“Me?” Alex scoffed. “He won’t hurt me.” She stilled, however, then set the phone aside and pulled me into her arms. “He can’t hurt me.”

“I know,” I lied. We were all immortal until we suddenly weren’t. Alex had too much money to understand—

But didn’t she? I managed a glance at her forearm, that awful scar making my blood run cold.

“I’ll make sure he stays away from your work,” Alex said. Lips brushed my hair. Alex kissed me softly, her presence enough to drive away the flashbacks, at least. “In the meantime, could I convince you to borrow one of my cars?”

“What?” The statement left me taken aback. “That’s so much. I can’t accept—”

“I could buy you a car.”

“You could not.”

“I knew you’d say that, but think about it, at least?”

I nodded, though I was hardly reassured. At least I was safe, here and now. She was safe, here and now.

“He did pose an interesting question though.” Alex’s fuckboy grin returned, my favorite asshole front and center. “Am I your girlfriend?”

I bit my lip, blushing at my unexpected smile. “As if I know the answer to that.”

She laughed, a marvelous sound. “Think about that too.”

I lost my breath, torn between residual panic and a painfully familiar bliss.

“I was thinking, while you were in the shower,” Alex began, her bold confidence fading, “about what you said. That it’s up to me to decide how I feel about the clothes thing. You didn’t even ask why; you just said it was okay. I just wanted to say that that’s the sweetest thing anyone has said to me. Maybe ever.”

I wrapped my arm around hers, my heart bleeding at the admittance. “The bar isn’t very high, is it.”

“The bar is in hell.” Her smile returned, though sardonic and bitter. “That’s where I grew up. I recognize the weight of claiming I had a shit upbringing despite a billionaire mother, but we—my sister and I—weren’t allowed to be children. We were status symbols. My sister embraced it and got at least some scraps of affection, but I was born with a pudgy face. Literally as far back as I can remember, my mother would undress me and inspect me for flaws, but because my cheeks were fat, she’d only let me eat dinner, and only because dinner was often in public. She did that until I was thirteen, because that’s when she found lesbian porn on my phone and decided I must be sexualizing her.”

My hand rose slowly to cover my mouth, my horror starkly apparent. “Alex, that’s…that’s awful. Please tell me you know that’s awful.”

“It’s the worst, I know.” Her eyes had rimmed with red, though nothing looked ready to fall. “She’s actually evil, and cutting me off might be the best thing she’s ever done for me. But because of all that, I never really felt like I had any ownership over my body. So even when I started hooking up with girls, I couldn’t stand them touching me. It felt like her, and that freaked me the hell out.

“I guess my point is that it’s not okay that I’m like this,” Alex continued, “because this is something she took from me. Maybe I could work through it. I dunno.”

I reached up to cup her cheek, drawing our gazes to meet. “You could,” I affirmed. “If that’s what you want, of course you could. You’ve overcome so much.”

Alex scoffed. “I don’t know how grand of a job I’ve done, but despite my best efforts, I’m still here, yes.”

It broke my heart to hear her speak so cruelly of herself. Perhaps it naive, but I couldn’t help gently stroking my fingers up inside her sleeve, her brutal scar a blight against my fingertips. “It’s not about what you’ve done,” I whispered, watching with pain as tears welled in her eyes, “or what was done to you, but about who you’ll be now. I’m so glad you’re here, Alex. I’ll be here for you, however you need me.”

She pulled up her sleeve, revealing her scar, the tattoos, and my tender touch. “Chiara is the one who recommended getting the tattoo,” Alex said. “She thought turning something painful into something beautiful would help. There’s some nerve damage, so it tingles pretty much constantly and stings when the weather gets cold. But, hey, I really dug in there with that knife.” A tear fell, despite her forcibly neutral countenance. “It’s what I get to live with, but at least I get to live.”

I brought her forearm up and placed a kiss in the center of the scar, near the mermaid’s tail. “Can I propose something?”

“Of course.”

“When I was in therapy,” I began, cautious as I habitually evaded any poignant truths, “I learned that non-sexual touching can be healing after…certain traumas. Have you ever had a massage?”

Whatever wariness she showed paled to her vulnerable intrigue. “Not naked, no.”