Chapter Three: Skin and Scars

She never looked in mirrors for too long.

Not because she hated her face—but because she didn’t recognize it. Some days it looked too old, other days too young. Some days she looked fat. And some days she was a boy. Sometimes the reflection felt like a stranger’s, like the glass had a glitch and showed someone else entirely.

Touch was worse. Her skin was not skin—it was memory. A living, breathing battleground. Every inch had a story, and most of them were sexually violent. She never asked for her body to remember what her mind worked so hard to forget, but it did anyway—in the way she flinched at kindness, in the way she pulled away from lovers, in the way she could never fully relax even when she was safe.

She grew up thinking her body was the enemy. That she was fat and ugly. That her butt was too big. Her breast were too small. She grew up being weighed each day and was shamed when gaining even a pound. 

And when you believe that you are worthless, you learn to punish her.

Sometimes it was cutting. The blade was sterile, the pain honest. In a world that had robbed her of control, this—at least—was hers. She didn’t do it to die. She did it to feel. Or sometimes, not feel at all. 

Other times, it was starvation. She’d count orange slices, skip meals, dance until her ankles gave out. Hunger was a distraction, a substitute for the gnawing grief inside. Being thin didn’t make her happy, but it made her invisible, and that felt safer than being seen.

Sex was complicated. Her relationship with it was a pendulum swing—hypersexuality, then complete shutdown. For a while, she used it like currency. A way to get what she needed, a way to feel desired, if not wanted. Love was a word related to sex, and also a kind of yearning that . Lust, she could handle, she wanted to be held.

But even that had consequences. Too many nights ended in regret, in dissociation, in crying quietly under another stranger’s sheets. She wondered if anyone would ever touch her without waking the ghosts inside.

Then came the woman.

She hadn’t expected her. Hadn’t been looking. But love—real love—came in soft hands and slow patience. The woman traced her scars without flinching, touched her like she was whole. She didn’t try to fix her. She just stayed.

That was almost worse. Because now, she had something to lose.

And still, she pushed. Still, she ran. She sabotaged before she could be abandoned. She hurt people before they had the chance to walk away. It was easier to break your own heart than to wait for someone else to do it.

But slowly—achingly slowly—she began to listen.

To her body.

To her breath.

To the parts of her that weren’t screaming anymore.

She bought lotion and used it without disgust. She walked around barefoot and let the earth remind her that she was still here. She stood naked in the mirror and whispered, This is real. This is real. This is me. 

Healing didn’t come in big waves. It came in tiny, stubborn moments, through others who stood by me and walked with me. Those whose voices were the balm in the midst of her pain and offered a safe place for her to land. 

Eating a full meal. Sleeping through the night. Letting someone hold her hand without pulling away or expecting to return the kindness with sex.

The scars remained. Some faded. Some didn’t.

But for the first time, she saw them for what they were, proof of damage and proof of  survival.