Page 53 of Scars Like Wings

Something inside me began to unfurl and stretch out like she had been asleep for too long. All my thoughts and memories of dates were quieted. My breath caught in my throat. I didn’t know what to say, but I was also terrified to ruin this… or whatever this was. We hadjustmet the night before. Literally twenty-four hours prior, I didn’t know this woman existed. I didn’t know anything about this girl. I didn’t know her middle name. I wouldn’t be able to buy her a gift for Christmas or her birthday. I didn’t even know when her birthday was. I didn’t know what temperature she liked the house, her coffee order, or how clean she was in her day-to-day. But why did none of that matter? How had she found a way to make it so hard for me to remember my promise? Why was falling in like with the idea of her becoming more like I wanted to fall in like with just her and everything that entailed?

Quinn brought me back to the present with a caress on the other side of my face. “I know I sound very lesbian right now, and you said you wanted to take things slow. So, I hope I didn’t scare you by saying all of that. I promise I’m not about to call up a U-Haul or anything,” She chuckled, and I did the same in her arms. “I still want to go at your speed and let you lead. But I do want to see where this goes. I want you to know that.”

I reached up on my skates. She met me halfway and bent down to kiss me. It was like our first kiss. Delicate and soft and sweet and cool. But I was just as obsessed as I was with any of our kisses. They were all addictive nectar to me.

I was so focused on the kiss that I forgot we were still on ice.Andthat Quinn didn’t know how to ice skate. I was too slow to correct and save us from falling backward as Quinn lost control and took me down with her. Quinn fell on her ass and nearly hit her head if it wasn’t for her Titties hat cushioning the blow. And I ended up on top of Quinn.

Well,straddlingher, actually.

My top half rested on her chest. My knees framed her thick waist, the ice fighting with the hot babe underneath me to try to chill my body. It was battling a losing battle since Quinn’s large hands were holding onto my thighs. I was trying not to notice how they gripped them nicely and although they couldn’t wraparound them entirely because of their size, they were still perfect for me. My face was on fire from my blush.

“I would say we should stop ending up like this, but that’s no fun,” Quinn joked.

I pushed off her chest to look down at her—Still, very muchstraddlingher. Quinn’s smirk was so hot, I once again found myself wondering how this skate rink wasn’t a pool by now.

“Oh, I could absolutely get used to this view and position of you.”

“You know, I was going to say that I wanted to see where this goes, too, but you have me questioning that with your non-stop flirting and inability to be serious for longer than half a minute.” I rolled my eyes, but my fingers flexed against her chest.

Quinn sat up and readjusted me in her lap. She gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “That is one of my many charming qualities. You are going to grow to love it.”

“Yeah! Get it in, Quinn!”

Quinn flipped Cody off. I turned to see he had not moved that far from the gate. I shook my head. “Cody, you look like you are struggling over there. You know it’s common to have performance problems even at your young age?—”

“Fuck off!”

“These girls are so fun!” Nat joked, leaning on Maisie’s walker like they were handlebars for a bike but pumping her fist in the air. Quinn and I laughed. I got up to stand on my blades again and helped Quinn stand, too.

The rest of our time on the ice was childish, stupid, ridiculous, absurd, and classic fun. I performed more figure skating tricks for everyone, including spins and jumps, but I mainly spent time alongside everyone. Quinn and I held hands as I guided us along the ice, joking and flirting the entire time. Simone, Maisie, and I skated together, too, using the wall and Maisie’s walker. I even led a line of the eight of us holding ontoall of our waists as we skated our way around the rink. We were like a game of Snake, trying to dodge the walls to avoid crashing but still failing as we all ended up falling onto each other. We honestly spent a lot of time falling on the ice or onto each other, but it wassomuch fun. It was the best time I’ve had in a while.

Eventually, everyone wanted to go and play the other games, so we got off the ice, took off our skates, and returned them to get our shoes. The others quickly put on their shoes and skedaddled to go do activities, but Quinn and I took our time. We were too busy laughing, talking, and flirting with each other and enjoying our time together.

Quinn had just finished putting on and tying her sneaks when the employee handed me my Docs. I bent down to push my socked foot into my Docs, their laces still tied and knotted up from earlier since I hated tying up my shoes every time I put them on. As I lowered, my shacket fell from my shoulders to sag against my elbows. Having been skating for at least an hour, the chill felt nice on my back, cooling my warm sweat.

“Oh, hey, I love that tattoo,” Quinn complimented, as she leaned against the counter next to me.

I chuckled. “Hahaha, thank you! Which tattoo are you talking about? I have, like, thirty, at least.”

“Your back tattoo. It’s badass. How did they make it look that realistic?”

I turned to look up at her, my brows furrowed. “So sorry, what tattoo are you talking about, starlight?”

“The giant tattoo on your back, sweetness. It kind of looks like… dragonfly wings? But they are huge, detailed, and lifelike. They could seriously be real.”

I straightened and stood with both my feet in my shoes now. I blinked at Quinn, staring at her with more confusion than I ever had experienced in my life. There was no humor in hervoice or on her face, just genuine interest and curiosity. She was serious.

But… it was impossible…

There wasnoway.

When I was thirteen, I was one of the last people to see my mother before she was murdered. Uncle Everett and I found her surrounded by a gang of masked men, and she had been tortured. From what I remembered, her red and gold raincoat was in tatters around her bleeding skin. Her hair was disheveled. Her entire visage was a tortured mess, and it broke me. Then the perpetrators noticed me and Uncle Everett, and he told me to run while he tried to save Mom. I ran away until I found a tree to climb to be safe. I climbed and climbed and climbed until I reached a limb big enough to hold me fully. That is where I stayed. I stayed up there long after the murderers ran off elsewhere. I stayed up there until my legs went numb. I stayed up there for what felt like hours. I stayed up there until I was too tired to hold myself up any longer. That was when I fell. I hit every branch with my back and scratched it to high heaven before I landed on the ground. Or that is what I was told when I woke up after passing out to find my entire life had been ruined.

Waking up later, I was on my stomach. My back was bleeding and forever marked. Even now, it was the only place I couldn’t ever get tattooed because of the scars from the base of my neck to the base of my spine. I had made peace with this, and I had even accepted these scars as a part of what made me uniquely me. It was just another thing I had to turn into a positive to continue to survive, to keep going.

But now?

“C-Can you take a picture of my back?”

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