She had discovered that she was different a long time ago. Her life was a tapestry on her skin, one in shades of purple, red, silver and blue, one written in the rises and valleys along the smooth surface of ivory. But she wasn't talking about tattoos. She was talking about the scars. She was littered with them. Some looked like slashes, some looked like bullet wounds. Grief healed differently than her thoughts. Where as her thoughts littered her scalp in small-to-large vertical lines where no hair grew, grief was a cluster of bluish-silver, intricate burns that appeared over her shoulder. Those marks burned an angry red at first and warped her skin, making her feel like she had been branded. She had one of these grotesque scars for each person she had lost but over time the red faded into pale marks that healed into an almost feather-like pattern. But the worst scars were for heartbreak. She wore red to school today. She had recieved an ominous text, "we need to talk", from her girlfriend, and nerves were racking her body. She was the only person who's emotions left scars, so she tried to hide them. No one understood--as proof of that, words she had been called were carved into her skin by her mouth. "DISGUSTING" was carved into the lines on her bottom lip, small enough to not need to be concealed. But beneath the foundation on her cheeks, the gray-pink words "SCARFACE", "EMO", and "SLASHER" could just be seen. There were words she had cut away, too. Forcing herself through immense pain to try to hide them. The physical pain of taking them away had left scars, too. Jagged claw marks, as if from a lion, appeared on her achilles heel and traveled up the back of her shin to her knee. She wondered what Alex had to say. Things had been great up until a week ago, when the other girl had suddenly shut down. Her smiles became small and polite, her laughs half-hearted, her sentences abrupt and short. She had tried many times to ask Alex what was wrong, but the other girl had just brushed it off as if it were nothing. Now she knew. It wasn't nothing. "Hey babe, whats up?" she greeted her as her girlfriend leaned against the wall of the school. She leaned in for a kiss but was taken aback when Alex moved her head to left, making her lips land on her cheek instead of her lips. Alex didn't reply. "You said you wanted to talk to me?" Now Alex's brown eyes met her own. "I'm breaking up with you, Charlie." The scarred girl laughed and smirked at Alex, but then she noticed the sadness in her eyes and her breath was sucked away. "Wait... You're serious?" Alex looked down and bit her lip as tears rimmed at her eyes. "I can't be your girlfriend anymore." "But... Why not? I thought we were doing good!" "I thought so, too, but look at yourself, Char!" Alex picked up her arm and rolled up the red shirt sleeve to where small purple scars marred the skin of her arms. She knew what they looked like and so she bowed her head. In reality, they appeared from the stress of studying for a big exam she had last week. "But Alex, I love you. These shouldn't matter." Charlie whispered, tucking a lock of Alex's dark hair behind her ear. Her hands were shaking and her heart was hammering in her chest, knowing at any minute it was going to shatter. Alex shrunk back from her touch and looked up at her with sadness and anger in her eyes. "How can you talk like that? How am I supposed to love you if you can't even love yourself?" Now the heartbreak set in. Her heart exploded inwards in a million small fragments. A sudden pain on her chest almost bowled her over. She took a sharp breath in and felt her skin splitting open. She closed her eyes and stiffened all her muscles in order to deal with the pain. "Are you okay?" Now Alex's hand was on her elbow again. Charlie nodded and recoiled like the touch stung her. "Please just go," she gritted out through her teeth, ground tight against one another in order to combat the pain. Silence greeted her. She peeked her eye open and found Alex making her way into the school. Charlie let out a strangled groan and then scurried around to the back door. Pain echoed through her body with every step she took, reverberating within her hurt filled chest. Frowning as warmth trickled down the skin of her abdomen, she reached a hand under her shirt and paled as she felt her fingers dip into something sticky and wet. She pulled back and found them dripping with blood. Her heart in her mouth, she ran for the bathroom, praying to whatever higher being that it be mercifully empty when she needed it most. Thankfully, her prayers were answered. She stumbled in, held her breath for a moment to see if she could hear if anyone was in there, then let out a sigh as she realized she was alone. She shrugged off her shirt and stared at herself in the mirror in horror. Just above her sports bra, in the center of her chest right above her heart, was a large gaping wound. It looked like all the world like a stab wound, except three times as big. With shaking hands she pressed paper towel to the wound, watching it soak up all the blood as if it was water. But the wound wouldn't clot. Thankfully the red hid the blood. This was why heartbreak was the worst scar to bear. It bled for so long and hurt so deep that when it finally healed over, Charlie felt nothing but the pain inside. Even thinking about Alex broke the delicate scab and the wound bled profusely until she found a distraction. Sometimes it happened in the most random of places. She had entered a coffee shop that looked vaguely familiar and was ordering food when she connected the dots and realized that Alex had taken her here on their first date three years ago. She felt the wound crack at the same time that tears welled up in her eyes. The scarred girl ran from the order que without finishing her order. Instead she crouched in the bathroom, dabbing at the lumpy, sore wound that was trickling a small trail blood with toilet paper. A knock sounded on the door and she scrambled back, flinging the blood stained paper into the garbage and dabbing at her eyes. She opened the door and peered out at the blonde haired barista, who had something like concern in her eyes. "Are you okay?" the girl asked, her blue eyes examining Charlie's scarred face, the fierce words exposed from the tears tracking through her makeup. "I'm fine," Charlie sniffed, ducking her head so the woman didn't have to stare at her gruesome face. With her eyes downcast, she noticed a bit of blood from the wound had soaked into her grey blouse. She hastily hid it with her hand. "Let me guess," the woman said. "Heartbreak?" Charlie's head jerked up and she stared at the barista with a gaping mouth. The woman had moved closer, so close that Charlie could make out a small scar below her eye--a small scar that read "WORTHLESS". She took a step back in shock and the woman tugged down the neckline of her black shirt, so that Charlie could make out three large wounds identical to her own, all lumpy and pink with healed scar tissue. "Heartbreak is the worst," the woman continued, putting her shirt back in place. "It won't stop bleeding until you've moved on. Why don't you come and have a muffin or something on the house? We can chat a bit. I'm on break." Charlie hesitantly nodded, her brain in overdrive trying to think if it was possible that someone else was like her. The woman led her out with a comforting smile. "I am Sophie," she said. "I'm Charlie," Charlie replied. They lapsed into a comfortable conversation that had Charlie forgetting all about her strange scars. It wasn't until after Charlie got home with Sophie's number written on her hand that she realized her scarred heart had healed.
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