Caresses turn to burns.

My breath hitched as the scene before me played out on the screen.

We sat there on the couch, far enough apart that you didn’t hear my sharp inhale. You didn’t feel the way my muscles tensed as my brain grabbed hold of a memory I had buried down deep. You didn’t notice the way my grip tightened on the pillow and I fought to bring myself back to here and now.

On the screen, Tess sat in the bathtub, Harden behind her tracing words onto her back that she had to guess. Her laughter in my ears faded away as I heard my own. I was no longer looking at the tv, I was staring at the ceiling. The ceiling of that room.

I lay there, my shirt slightly pulled up as he lightly laughed and traced letters on my stomach, telling me to guess what he was spelling.

I… l..o…v…e…y…o…u…

My breath hitched then too. He was shy about it. This was not something rushed. This was not a heat of the moment. It was obvious it was something he had been thinking about for awhile. In that moment, I believed him. I believed in the way he tugged me against him, in that oversized bed. I believed in the way I felt so safe and protected in his huge embrace.

In the present I sat next to someone who not hours before had been fighting with me about how little he knows about me. I never know what to say when he says this. I came damaged and then he caused damage. He wants to know when I’ll let him in. I think we both know the words I won’t say. I may never.

For in that bedroom where a different he traced sweet words onto my skin, he later in time pulled forth bruises. He whispered he loved me then shoved me away. He offered his warmth only to make sure I knew just how cold the world was without him.

I finally admitted that I don’t cry because every time a tear slips from my eye, I blink and I see that room. I am curled up. I am laying on my back. I am crying. Always crying. Staring at my surroundings, memorizing every crevice. I think he looked at me a little differently after I admitted that to him. I think he just saw tears when I cried before. Now I think he sees that I leave this place and am tortured by another all over again.

One day, maybe, I’ll tell him about the caresses that turned to burns that turned to scars that eventually faded beneath my skin, only surfacing in distant memories.