Chapter 2 - The Scars
The belt slipped loose between my fingers.
The robe opened.
For one breath, the whole backyard seemed to hold still.
Then I let the fabric fall.
It landed on the stone beside my bare feet.
The laughter died so fast it felt like someone had cut power to the entire night.
A girl near the pool dropped her drink. Glass shattered across the deck. Someone gasped. Another person whispered, “Oh my God.”
Phones stayed raised, but no one looked entertained anymore.
My scars caught the warm gazebo lights.
They covered my shoulders, my arms, my back, my ribs, and the tops of my legs. Pale, twisted, raised skin. Old burns. Grafted patches. A body repaired by surgeons and time, but never restored to what it had been.
For twelve years, I had imagined this moment in nightmares.
The staring.
The silence.
The way people’s faces changed when they realized my body was not something they could joke about.
Chloe’s smile collapsed first.
Her eyes moved over my scars, not with surprise—because she already knew they were there—but with panic.
She had expected humiliation.
She had not expected witnesses.
I picked up the microphone she had left on the small glass table between us.
My hand shook once.
Then steadied.
“You really want them to see?” I asked.
Chloe swallowed.
“Maya,” she said, too low for most people to hear. “Don’t.”
I turned toward the crowd.
Not toward the phones.
Toward the faces behind them.
“All of you were laughing because you thought I was ashamed of my body.”
No one moved.
“You thought my sister was making a joke.”
Chloe stepped closer, her voice trembling. “Stop.”
I looked at her.
My twin.
The girl with my birthday, my childhood bedroom wall, my mother’s smile in her old photos.
The girl who had spent twelve years pretending I was the broken one.
I lifted my chin.
“These scars,” I said clearly, “are the reason my sister is still alive today.”
The entire backyard froze.
Chloe’s hand flew to her mouth.
My father opened the patio door behind me.
For the first time all night, his voice broke through the silence.
“Maya…”
I did not turn around.
Because if I looked at him, I might lose my courage.
So I kept my eyes on Chloe.
“When the fire started,” I said, “I covered you with my body.”
May you like
Her face turned white.
“And you let me spend twelve years hiding for it.”
