Graceful Scars

by Savannah Stewart

  I stood from his lap, “Thank you.” My shaky voice caused him to get up from the floor even faster than he was initially moving.

  His hands cupped my face as he bent over, searching my eyes as he spoke. “You don’t have to thank me, Tegan. I’d do anything to make sure you’re okay.” I had no idea what to say to that so I nodded in acceptance and we made our way to the car.

  The ride home and the walk to my front door was in silence. Neither of us attempted to say a word, we just kept exchanging sideways glances. As we reached the door I placed a shaky hand on the doorknob, unlocked it, and pushed it open. I walked in without turning around and heard the sound of Talon’s footsteps following me. I’d be lying if I didn’t say a smile danced across my lips.

  As soon as I walked around the kitchen island and into the living room Talon stopped me. “Are you sure you’re okay?” You could tell that he was unsure about asking that question, and in a way I was unsure about answering it.

  “I think I will be,” was all I could muster up without glancing back at him.

  The sound of the door clicking shut forced me to turn around but instead of an empty kitchen like I was expecting, Talon was hanging his jacket up on the wall rack behind the door. “You don’t mind if I stay for a while, do you?” He gauged my reaction nervously. The laugh that escaped me, echoing through the kitchen, was unexpected by the both of us, but instead of him looking at me like the crazy person I was, his own laughter bellowed with mine. After a few seconds of belly aching laughter I wiped the tears from my face and breathed slowly to calm down.

  “I honestly have no idea what was so funny,” I admitted, crossing my arms across my chest.

  Talon stood from his bent over, arms braced on his knees position and composed himself. “Neither do I.” His smile was simply gorgeous. Perfectly white teeth, with one of the teeth beside his front one back slightly farther than his others. It was something most people would see as a flaw in a person, but it showed character to me. He took a few steps closer to me and stopped when the toe of his shoes touched mine. I sighed as his warm hand came up and rubbed across my now flustered cheek. On instinct I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of his hand caressing across my skin.

  All laughter from moments ago was forgotten, and in its place were feelings I was terrified of. “Are you sure you’re okay, Tegan?” His breath brushed against the hair at my ear.

  My breaths were labored as my arms hung loosely at my sides. “Okay, is something I’ll never be.” I allowed myself to be honest for once about how I truly felt regarding my own self. Was it a good idea? Probably not. But Talon made me feel comfortable, like I could lay everything out there for him and he would find a way to make things better. As terrifying as that was, I needed to keep it all to myself before I sent him running as fast as possible away from me and my issues.

  “I don’t know what happened to you, Tegan, but whatever it was you can move past it. You’re a strong and beautiful woman who runs her own business, and has for years now. Don’t let whatever happened to you destroy the bright future I know you have.” His words were like needle and thread, stitching up my wounds that were constantly trying to gape open.

  I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around his waist as I tried to control the tears that were welling in my eyes. Talon had hit the nail on the head without even knowing how right he was. It was like he was sent into my life to help me push forward, to help me realize that all scars have a story behind them, you just have to allow them to heal first without hindering the scab. I had been hindering my scabs for far too long.

  I felt his lips press against my temple as I squeezed him in my arms. Comfort was what I found with Talon, and I never wanted to lose it. He kept his lips pressed against my skin for numerous seconds before moving them away, leaving a tingling it their wake.

  “I don’t know why we were meant to cross paths, but I’m glad we did.” His admission had me smiling. If this was the kind of happiness everyone in the world had, I’d been missing out my entire life. Talon leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine, swiping his tongue against my bottom lip. That feeling alone almost caused my knees to buckle so I gripped his shirt tightly into my hands as he deepened the kiss. Releasing one of my hands from the death grip I had on his shirt, I ran it up his back and into his hair. A low growl vibrated his chest against mine but the sound of a cell phone ringing pulled us from the moment.

  Talon broke our kiss and rested his forehead against my shoulder as I realized what ringtone was playing. The pop melody that was filling the room had to belong to none other than little miss Zoey. I could feel his smile against my shoulder as the song played on. “She has the best timing.” We both laughed as he stepped back and fumbled in his jeans pocket for his phone.

  “That she does.” I shook my head as I continued to smile from ear-to-ear. Rounding the kitchen island I grabbed a glass from the cabinet beside the refrigerator and poured myself a glass of orange juice while I listened to Talon talking to Zoey.

  “Everything okay, Z?” His nicknames for her were always changing.

  I could hear her tiny voice rattling off but I couldn’t understand what she was saying from where I was standing in the kitchen drinking my orange juice. He didn’t look upset, so that was a good sign. Maybe she hadn’t caused the babysitter to leave this time. The story of her doing that a few weeks ago was the funniest thing I had heard in a long time.

  Apparently the babysitter tried to force Zoey to turn off her music and go to bed a couple hours earlier than Zoey usually did. Needless to say, that didn’t fly with sassy pants. She waited until the babysitter had fallen asleep to crank the music up as load as she could, scaring the hell out of the poor girl, which made her call Talon to tell him she wasn’t dealing with Zoey anymore. The girl left before Talon could get home, but Zoey didn’t think she was in the wrong because she was simply practicing our dance routine. I couldn’t help but laugh at how she honestly thought the babysitter was in the wrong. Talon said he had slipped the babysitter some extra cash the following day when he met her to pay her for her time.

  “I’m sorry. I have to go.” He turned towards me in the kitchen. I hadn’t realized he had hung up the phone with Zoey until I looked up from my glass where I was daydreaming about Zoey’s craziness.

  I swatted my hand in the air towards him, “Don’t apologize. It’s completely fine.” He rounded the island and pulled me by the hips into his embrace. His unbelievably dark eyes were so close to mine that it was hard to see anywhere except into them.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.” What would usually be a question was more like a statement. The butterflies in my stomach began to flutter in full force as I shook my head yes. He pressed his lips to mine once more before stepping back and walking towards the door. Stopping just short he turned back towards me, that breath taking smile spread widely across his delicious lips. “I hope your night was good, considering.”

  “It was…great.” I smiled back as I touched my bottom lip with my index and middle fingers.

  His smile widened even more. “See you tomorrow, Tegan.” The door opened and closed as I stood there in complete awe of the man that had just walked out of it.

  “See you tomorrow, Talon,” I whispered in my happy state.

  Chapter Six

  The constant beeping of the alarm across the room forced me awake. I had learned quickly to place that bad boy as far away from my bed as possible so I wouldn’t be late every day. I’m one of those people who like to hit snooze about twenty times in their delirious sleep-induced state without thinking twice about it until I’m running around like a mad woman with five minutes to get ready to leave.

  I jumped from the bed and zombie-walked to the alarm clock. I blinked a few times trying to bring into focus the button to turn the damn thing off but yanked the chord from the wall instead. My overly large night shirt was hanging loosely off of my left shoulder as I padded back to the bed and slid beneath the warm covers.

&n
bsp; “Why did I set that alarm?” I questioned myself out loud but couldn’t wrap my head around the reasoning as to why I had done it; I couldn’t remember actually doing it.

  My eyes were fluttering open and closed when the alarm on my phone started going off on the nightstand beside the bed. “What the hell?!” I groaned, snatching it from its resting place. The memo read, Wake up beautiful. I felt the heat in my cheeks as I bit down on my bottom lip. Talon had set my alarms! No wonder I couldn’t remember doing it. But when did he do it and how did he manage to pull that off? I swiped the screen to turn off the melody that was playing when his name popped up showing that he was calling.

  Before I could say hello he was talking, “Good morning, Tegan.”

  I could hear the smile in his voice as my name rolled off his tongue. “Good morning to you too, Talon.”

  “Did you like your alarm?” He snickered.

  “About the alarms…” I emphasized the ‘s’ on the end so he knew I got them both. “How did you manage to pull that off?”

  His laugh bellowed through the phone, “I might’ve had a little help with your personal one, but last night when you went to the restroom at dinner I snatched your phone.”

  I scoffed, “I’m going to have to keep a better eye on you then. Aren’t I?”

  “Possibly.” His voice dropped an octave, sending chills across my skin.

  The line fell silent as I listened to the sounds of Talon breathing on the other end, wondering if he could hear my own louder than normal breaths.

  “So I’m thinking you need to get out of bed, get ready, and I’ll be there within the hour.”

  I had no idea what he had in store for the day, but my excitement had me hopping out of bed as soon as he told me to. “I’m not sure what you have planned, but remember I have to be at the studio around five tonight.”

  “I took care of that.” Say what?

  “What do you mean, you took care of that?”

  “Adalynn said don’t worry about coming in tonight. She has it all taken care of.”

  “Talon Fisher…I don’t know what you are up to, but I think I like it.”

  The tone of his voice deepened, “I hope you say that later.” I giggled in response as we said our goodbyes and I hurried into the bathroom to start getting ready for whatever adventure Talon had in store for us.

  The warmth of the bathroom was overbearing. I had been fine during the shower, but stepping out into the steamed-up room had my lungs burning for a deep breath and my hands clamming up from my nerves. I hadn’t had a spell in the bathroom in months, four months to be exact, so I wasn’t sure why I was feeling like I was about to have another one. I secured a brown fluffy towel around my body and threw the door open. The change of temperature between the bathroom and the hallway had allowed me to catch a good deep breath as I rushed down the hall and into the kitchen in search of my anxiety pills. I tried my damndest to avoid taking those things, but I couldn’t allow a spell to spiral down on me this close to the time Talon would be showing up. I’d showed him too much of my crazy recently and I wanted to save face for once.

  My hands shook as I grabbed a glass from the cabinet, filled it with water from the sink, and popped the top off the bottle of pills. Fumbling to pull two from the bottle the entire thing slipped from my grasp and crashed to the floor.

  “No!” I yelled as I fell to my knees and frantically tried to collect the pills that were decorating the tile floor of my kitchen. “Seriously…” I growled as I dropped one pill after the other back into the bottle. Securing the top back on the bottle I tossed it across the room and slouched back against the cabinets behind me. The cool from the tiles seeped through the material of my towel, cooling my overly heated skin. The urge to cry was knocking loudly within me, but I wasn’t going to give in.

  Not this time.

  I closed my eyes and laid my head back until it was resting against the cabinets. My arms hung loosely, allowing my hands to rest against the chilly floor as I took in the silence. Usually I would be terrified of such silence, but the fact that I was even allowing myself to acknowledge it was a stepping stone in itself. Being broken wasn’t something I would wish upon anyone, not even my own worst enemy. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure I had one of those anymore. The last one I could remember was a girl named Avery who stole my boyfriend freshman year of high school. Looking back it’s kind of funny how such petty instances seemed like catastrophes back then.

  The grownup world is far more cruel.

  Far more cruel.

  I sighed heavily as I pushed myself up from the floor. The glass I had filled with water was staring back at me from the counter. Taunting me to take those damn pills like I had come into the kitchen to do, but I refused. Shoving the glass as I hard as I could, it slid across the counter, spilling water as it tumbled into the sink, shattering in the bottom. I stepped up to the sink and braced my arms on the side of it as I stared at the mess I had made. Fragments of glass were spread haphazardly. It reminded me of my life, and how I felt from day-to-day.

  Some pieces were large, while others were small.

  Some days were magnificent, while others were disastrous.

  Pushing the thoughts away I reached into the sink to clean up my mess when someone started banging on my door. “Shit!” I yelled as a shard of glass sliced the end of my first finger. I quickly wrapped a wad of paper towels around the wound so I wouldn’t track blood across the room as I stomped over to the door.

  Unlatching the locks I swung the door open without checking the peephole. A smiling Talon soon turned into a flustered Talon and I wasn’t sure why. “Umm…Tegan…” He looked down my body and then past my head like he was trying to avoid looking at me all together, confusing the hell out of me.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I looked down to see what was causing him to act that way when I realized I was still dressed in only my towel, which was barely holding on for dear life. My injured hand grabbed hold of the towel where I had tucked it in place at my chest.

  “You’re bleeding!” Talon grabbed my hand, pulling it from the towel but thankfully I held it shut with my other hand or everything about me would have been on full display for him to see.

  “I’m okay, Talon,” I argued as he dragged me into my apartment, kicking the door closed behind us. Stopping at the sink he stared at the shattered glass and drops of my blood in it before looking at me.

  “What happened?” His dark eyes were searching mine as I removed my hand from his grasp and took a few steps away from him. I didn’t bother answering or looking his way as I took the blood-soaked wad of paper towels away from my cut and began working on cleaning it up in the empty side of the sink.

  “Can you get the first aid kit from beneath the bathroom sink, please?” Without a word he left me in the kitchen waiting for the water to warm before holding my finger beneath the stream.

  A couple minutes later when he returned the tension in the room was unbelievable. I didn’t know what to say without letting Talon into my head, and I really just wanted a day without any of the shit I was constantly dealing with tainting it. A girl can dream, right? He placed the first aid kit on the counter beside where I was standing and popped it open. Pulling out bandages, ointment, and a small roll of gauze, he shut the lid and slid it to the side.

  “Let me see it.” His tone was unlike one I had heard from him before, a mixture of sadness and…I don’t know, anger maybe? I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it wasn’t the usual Talon I had grown to know.

  I turned the faucet off and extended my hand in his direction, holding a small kitchen towel under it in case the blood started frantically pouring out of the wound again. “Doesn’t look too bad.” He inspected the cut closely. “I think the gauze and bandage will do. If it doesn’t stop bleeding soon, we’ll need to get you to a hospital so they can stitch it up.”

  I’m sure my luck could get worse but it honestly didn’t seem like it at that moment. My attacks were rearing
their ugly head more often than not, I couldn’t go to counseling anymore because my insurance only paid for so many visits, and now Talon was standing in my kitchen staring at me like I wasn’t the person he thought I was.

  When he finished wrapping the bandage around my finger I slid it from his hand. “I think it would be best if I stayed home today. I’m not feeling all that great and now I need to clean up the mess I’ve made.”

  Avoidance was the route I always took when I didn’t want to deal with things.

  “Tegan…” The warning tone he used stopped me from saying the rest of what I had planned to say. I turned away from him and began to walk into the living room when his hand grabbed hold of my arm, stopping me where the tile ended. “Don’t shut me out.” I felt his body step up against mine as I shut my eyes.

  Why does he care so much?! My mind was shouting at me. It’s not like we had known each other very long, but in a way it seemed like a lifetime. Talon softly moved his hands up my arms and gently turned me around so that I was facing him. The darkness behind my eyelids was easier to handle than looking into his emotion-filled onyx eyes. A small tremble started in my legs and gradually moved its way up my body. It wasn’t enough to notice unless you were touching me; Talon was touching me.

  “You’re shaking.”

  I slapped his hands off of my arms and took a step back, securing my towel once more. “You should go.” I tried looking anywhere except at him.

  “Are you serious?” His voice was thick with hurt.

  I couldn’t reply to that without risking a sob escaping me. My emotions were so thick in my throat that I knew at any moment I wouldn’t be able to hold them back any longer. The day had been an emotional rollercoaster for no apparent reason, and it didn’t seem like I was going to be able to get off of it anytime soon.