Beneath the Scars

by Melanie Moreland

  “I should have seen that more plainly, though.”

  “No. You weren’t capable of seeing another person’s suffering at the time.”

  “So you forgive me for what I did? So easily?”

  I frowned at him. “It’s not my place to forgive you. You need to forgive yourself. You need to forgive her.”

  He was motionless as he contemplated my words. “I forgave her a long time ago. I’m not sure I can ever forgive myself completely.”

  “Only you have that power,” I reminded him gently.

  “I know.”

  Nothing I could say would change how he felt. Nothing would change for him until he was ready, so I let it go for now.

  “How did you end up here?”

  The tension returned to his shoulders and he started moving around the room again, touching things, once again lost in thought. Absently, he picked up a small sculpture, his thumb tracing over the smooth glass.

  “One day I was an actor—everyone wanted a piece of me. I thought I had everything: looks, money, a life most would envy—my whole future laid out before me. People to do anything I told them to do, women falling over me. I knew I was a complete and utter asshole, but I didn’t care. They didn’t care.” He stopped pacing and looked out the window.

  “Then I woke up. It was all gone. I had no future. It all changed in one instant. I changed. Everything I knew…everything my life was built around was my face. My looks. My entire life was because of how I looked.” He sneered in disgust and looked down at his hands, as if he was surprised to see he was holding something. “My fucking face. God damn it, I hated my fucking face!”

  With a roar, he threw the sculpture across the room, the glass hitting the wall and shattering into thousands of tiny shards. I covered my mouth to stop the startled gasp, my body trembling in the face of his sudden rage. He started shouting.

  “I wasn’t Adam Dennis the famous actor anymore! I was a scarred, ugly man who needed help! But I had no one who wanted to help me! I had surrounded myself with people just like me—cold and uncaring—and when I really needed someone there was nobody I could rely on.” His voice broke and he stopped shouting, his chest heaving with exertion. He stumbled to the chair, almost falling into it. His head fell back, eyes shut. All I could do was stare, waiting for him to speak again. When he did, his voice was quieter and laced with sadness. “I was useless to anyone in my life; I held no value to anyone. I was in pain, and for the first time in my life I was scared. I had no one—not a single person to help me. My agent was distant; he knew my career was over, so I was of little use to him anymore. He played his role, but we both knew what was going on. The studio was in protection mode; too busy disclaiming any responsibility for the tragic accident on set that injured one person and killed another. All they wanted to do was throw money my way, and sweep it all under the rug and forget it. Forget me.”

  “That’s what was said?”

  “It was a closed set. They concealed it up as best they could; twisted the situation to serve their purpose. Her family didn’t want what happened to be known. I didn’t want the extent of my injuries out there. They paid money to the right people and covered it up. There were rumors and innuendos, but frankly, I was too ill to care much about that. I was in too much pain.

  “Did you know, Megan,” he murmured, his voice almost robotic, “if you’re burned enough you get cold?”

  My chest constricted as tears filled my eyes. “No.”

  He nodded, his eyes distant and unseeing. “It felt endless: pain, burning, cold. I shook all the time. My skin was on fire, but I shook all the time from the cold. Odd, isn’t it?”

  “Zachary—”

  He kept talking, his voice an empty drone, as I cried without a sound, my tears running down my cheeks, unheeded.

  “It was a cold that came from inside—nothing could warm me up. Every time I would start to wake up it was the first thing I felt. As though I was trapped in a burning iceberg. I didn’t think it would ever end.” He paused, a rough exhale of air leaving his lungs. “I thought I’d go mad before it was over. I wanted to die.

  “Maybe it would have been better if I did.”

  My heart ached at those words. I couldn’t even comprehend his pain.

  He looked past me. “I struggled daily, just to make it through every day. Get past the physical pain and work through the mental part of it. They did what they could for me medically, although my head was in such a bad place I refused some of the treatments. My career was over—I knew that. I had a couple procedures to help with the scarring, but they were extremely painful and didn’t make much difference in my opinion.”

  I wiped my face, my voice raspy when I spoke. “You didn’t have anyone, Zachary? Anyone you trusted?”

  “I was still stupid enough I thought I did, but the people I was unwise enough to think of as friends, couldn’t be bothered with me. I was utterly alone…except for one person.” His voice was deep with weariness. “One person stayed. A staff member I had never paid much attention to. She was there, and helped me over the next few months. I was so grateful.” He snorted in disgust. “I acted like an idiot, I was so grateful; like a fucking stray dog someone takes home instead of kicking. That was what I had become—a stray dog nobody wanted. I trusted her, I believed everything she said. Until—” His voice trailed off.

  “Until?” I prompted gently.

  “Until she had enough pictures, enough of a story built up—she sold it to a magazine.” He shook his head. “Once I was no longer of use to her, she left too, taking away the last bit of trust I had in humanity.”

  “Oh, Zachary.”

  “I caught her writing up her story on her computer. I was still pretty bandaged up, so the pictures didn’t show how bad things were, but with her terrible, over-the-top story, it was enough to bring it all back into the public eye again. The whole tragic story of the leading man who lost everything.”

  He looked around the room. “I had bought this place a few years before this happened. It was always my sanctuary when that world became too much. I severed ties with my agent and came here. Disappeared from the world I had known. I made a different life—a new one. No cameras or fame. No one using me anymore for what I could do for them.” He sighed, the sound forlorn. “I’ve forgiven myself as much as I ever will, Megan. I even had some counseling. I still live with what I did, though. I think there are some things a person can’t ever really recover from. I thought maybe being alone was part of the penance I had to pay for the person I had been.”

  Tears poured down my face at his words. He was so broken and used, yet in the face of all the ugliness of the story he told, he was still beautiful to me. He had lost everything. Lost himself in a world where the only thing he was taught, that defined him, was taken away. He struggled to find the real Zachary and he did it all alone, assuming that was how he had to be, because it was all he knew.

  A sob escaped my lips and Zachary looked up, his pain-filled gaze meeting mine. I was shocked to see the tears in his eyes. I had never seen him cry.

  “Then I met you,” he rasped. “You, with your sweet words and loving soul. You didn’t care about my scars or my past. You saw me. You saw the pain I put on my canvases and all you wanted was to make it go away, to understand it.”

  His hands twisted and clawed at the fabric of his pant legs as he bared his soul. “I know you think you forced me, but I had to tell you the truth, even though I knew there was a chance you’d walk away, too. I was a bastard, Megan. I still am in many ways. I always will be.

  “But I love you. God help me, I’ve tried to fight it, to fight you, but I can’t. I love you so much it scares me.”

  I gasped at his words, my heart hammering in my chest.

  He loved me?

  He lifted his hand, shaking, reaching out to me. “What frightens me even more is how much I need you. I have never needed another person in my life. You’re like the air I breathe. I can’t be without you now, Megan.�
� His voice was beseeching. “I can’t.”

  I fell to my knees in front of him, my arms pulling him close as he buried his face in my neck, his emotions so strong he shook with the force of them.

  I held on as tight as I could, his hands clutching at me in his desperation to be closer. “You don’t have to be, Zachary—ever. I’m here. I’m staying right here.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  We were huddled under the blankets, a mass of twisted limbs. Zachary trembled so violently it seemed to take forever to get him upstairs and into bed. His grip on me was tight, as though he was afraid if he loosened his hold, I would disappear.

  Given what he told me earlier, I could hardly blame him for thinking that. Everyone in his life, up until now, walked away. Proved to him what he already felt about himself: he wasn’t worth sticking with unless he had something to offer.

  He still couldn’t see the greatest thing he had to offer anyone was himself.

  I had no intention of repeating that pattern he had seen over and again. I wasn’t sure, though, if I could ever convince him of his own self-worth.

  He pressed into me, warmth beginning to return to his body as I held him, stroking my fingers through his hair, up and down his back while my foot ran over his calf, letting him feel me tight against him everywhere. I needed to feel him as much as he needed to feel me.

  The shock of hearing his story had been great. His reaction to letting it out, even greater. Watching him cry, elicited a deep need to protect and care for him, causing me to brush my own tears aside. I was sure I witnessed a side of Zachary no one had ever seen: him at his most vulnerable.

  He had expressed so many emotions: grief, torment, pain. And then, in the last few seconds of his tortured confession: a declaration of love.

  Zachary loved me. He said the words—his need so fierce, desire so great, there was no room left for doubt. His emotional outpouring left me speechless and unable to do anything as he raged in my arms, his tears so thick they soaked my shirt. It was then the tremors took over, and I knew I had to get him upstairs into bed. The day had been one emotional upheaval after another, and he was losing his strength. I struggled under his weight as he leaned into me, grateful when we finally reached the bedroom.

  There was no rest, though, not yet. He was still overwrought and needed reassurance; he also wanted to give me as much information as he could. It was as if, now he had opened up the floodgates, he wanted the words out in the open.

  “Will you stay with me?”

  “Yes,” I soothed, running my fingers though his hair.

  “Even though you know now what a bastard I am?”

  “I don’t think you’re the same person anymore, Zachary. Do you?”

  He lifted his head. “I don’t want to be. I try not to be, although I know I fail at times.”

  “We all fail at times. I don’t expect you to be perfect.” I paused. “And you shouldn’t expect it of yourself.”

  “I want to be for you.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not perfect, either. Don’t set yourself up to fail. Just be Zachary.” I kissed him, my lips soft on his skin. “That’s all I need. Just Zachary.”

  “Just Zachary has never been enough for anyone before now.”

  “It is for me.”

  “That will take some getting used to.”

  “I know. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Ask me some more questions, Megan. Please. Help me.”

  I wanted him to rest, but I knew he wouldn’t—not until he had purged as many memories as he could. Unsure where to begin, I traced down one of the scars on his face, so much deeper and harder than the others. “I, ah, was wearing a heavy chain as part of my character’s wardrobe,” he explained to my unasked question. “When they were trying to get to me, I was knocked down and the hot metal got pressed into my skin. It caused the most damage.” He hesitated. “Does it feel strange when I kiss you? The way my mouth feels, I mean?”

  I thought about it, remembering the first time I had felt the hardness of the scar against my lips, but after that, I stopped thinking about it. “No. It feels like Zachary is kissing me.” I moved my mouth with his. “I like when you kiss me.”

  He looked almost shy when he returned my smile. “I like kissing you.”

  I drew his head back to my chest, feeling him sinking into me.

  “Do you ever go back to England?”

  “I haven’t for a long time. Not since…I was burned.”

  “Do you miss your old life?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing? The glamour, the parties?”

  “No. It was empty. The life I live here is quiet and secluded, but it has more…meaning, if that makes sense.”

  “Maybe because you have people here who care about you—friends.”

  His head lifted. “Friends,” he repeated slowly, as if the word was totally foreign to him.

  “Don’t you consider Jonathon and Ashley friends? Mr. and Mrs. Cooper? I think, if you asked, they would consider you one. Especially Ashley. She’s very fond of you.”

  “I’m not used to being a friend, or having them.”

  “They care about you, Zachary. Help you. They’re all very protective. To me, that means being a friend.”

  His brow furrowed as he thought about it. I swallowed the painful lump in my throat as he looked at me from under his lashes. There was disbelief in his gaze. “I never thought about it that way,” he admitted.

  “I know you only see him on rare occasions, but Chris, as well. You do have people who care now.” I cupped his face, stroking the skin. “Your life has changed. You need to allow yourself to feel and accept.”

  He chuckled dryly. “You sound like Doc Webber.”

  “Who?”

  He rolled on his back and nestled me to his side. “After I got here, I hid for a while. Mrs. Cooper was kind enough to deliver groceries to me. She knew who I was since I’d met her several times after I bought the place. They had a sideline business and cared for houses in the area when owners weren’t around and I hired them.”

  “Yes, Karen told me that. That’s how I got her key.”

  “So, she knew of the accident and she was very, ah, respectful. She treated me the same way she did before, which to her credit, was no different than the way she treated anyone. I wasn’t a big Hollywood star here. I was simply Zachary.”

  “You didn’t go by Adam?”

  “No. This was a place I was just me. No one, not even Ryan, knew about this place.”

  “I see. Your hideaway.”

  I felt his lips brush my head. “Exactly.”

  “So, I was here,” he continued, “running low on pain meds, and I knew I should be looked at. I called the town doctor and told him I needed a house call, and it needed to be that day. He told me to go to hell.”

  “What?”

  “I was my, ah, usual, demanding, egotistical self when I called.”

  Well, that would explain a lot. I’d heard his demanding tone on more than one occasion.

  “He asked if my legs were broken and when I told him no, he wasn’t polite,” Zachary chuckled. “He told me when I could address him civilly to call back, or better yet, get my lazy ass down to his office.”

  I tried not to laugh at the image I had of Zachary’s face after being told off by someone. “Oh. What did you do?”

  “I hung up and cursed him out. I threw stuff and yelled a lot.”

  “Did you feel better?”

  “Not really. Plus, I had a mess to clean up.”

  “I see.” A small chuckle escaped and Zachary’s lips grazed my hair again.

  “A couple days later, when I was getting desperate, I called back and asked, politely, if I could come see him, after hours. He agreed and I went to see him.

  “I was a fucking nervous wreck leaving the house. His practice was out back of his house and I sat in my car for a good ten minutes before I went in.” Zachary snorted. “What a cantankerous, grumpy old man
he was.” His voice became softer. “One of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”

  I captured his hand that was restlessly waving as he spoke and laid it on his chest. “Tell me.”

  “He was fine. Didn’t react to my face or comment on it. He checked me out, agreed I needed more medication and sent me on my way. Or at least let me get to the door, before he asked me if I played chess. I told him yes, and he nodded. That was it. I was almost to my car when he came out and informed me he lived alone and spent his evenings sipping whiskey, wishing he still had a chess partner. He pointed to the side door. It’s always open, he’d said. Then he went inside without another word.”

  “You went back?”

  “Eventually.”

  “He counseled you?”

  “Doc didn’t believe in fancy shit like counseling. He believed in talking. So we did—sometimes. Sometimes I talked, sometimes he did. Some nights we said nothing and he beat my ass in chess, like he always did. I spent a lot of nights at his kitchen table.”

  I ached at the sadness in his voice. The way he spoke, I knew Doc wasn’t around any longer. “Did he pass away?”

  “No. He missed his wife, who had passed away a few years before I got here. His daughter lives in Boston and he missed her, too. She wanted him to retire and come live with her, so he did. He left a couple years ago.”

  His pain was so evident. I hated the thought he’d been alone for so long. “You miss him.”

  Zachary’s voice was quiet. “As gruff as the old guy was, he helped me. He never told me how I should feel or what I should do. He kind of let me talk until I figured it out myself.”

  “He was your friend, Zachary.”

  He thought about it before nodding. “Yes. Yes, he was.”

  “Did he know? What happened, I mean?”

  “It took me almost a year to tell him.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He told me I was right. I was a bastard.”

  I gaped up at him, but he didn’t look upset. “He also told me I needed to let it go and move on. I couldn’t change the past, but I could learn from it. He told me I could choose to be different and not be a bastard anymore because I knew better now.”