“Maybe you’re right. Maybe the scars are just as bad as you remember. Maybe they’re not. The point is you'll never know unless you shave. Be braver than I was.”
Is that really what she thinks? That she’s a coward? For not participating in some ridiculous high school ritual? It’s absurd. Clearly she’s very brave.
She’s confronted me over and over again. She stole my fucking soil samples, which is just about the ballsiest thing I’ve ever heard of.
I want to tell her that, but instead I just say, “My memory is quite good.”
“Oh, I have no doubt. You probably have an eidetic memory. Many brilliant people do.”
“That's not what I meant. But when you spend years of your life looking in the mirror waiting for your beard to grow in enough to hide a scar, then you remember what the scar looks like.”
“When was the last time you shaved your beard?”
“When I interviewed for this job.”
My aunt had insisted. She and Tavey had helped me pick out a suit and took me to get my hair cut.
When Tavey and I went to live with our aunt and uncle after the accident, Aunt Jules had never quite known what to do with me, but she had tried. She had never stopped trying. Not when I blasted through high school and demanded that they let me go off to college at fifteen, even though she wanted me to stay close. And not when I skipped coming home for holidays for years, because life with her and Uncle Pete was just so different than life with my parents had been. I just never knew how to handle being around so much overt and obvious affection. But she’d always tried.
“So that was, what?” Holly asks now. “Five years ago? You know, scars fade over time.”
“I appreciate what you are trying to do. However, the timing of this is not logical. Sometime in the next seven days, I need to send in a sample video for the fellowship. If I shave my beard now, the scar will be visible during that video.”
“But if—”
“If you are correct, and my scar has magically healed in the past five years because I have been secretly wishing upon a star every night, then yes, I will be glad I shaved off my beard for the promo. However, if you are wrong, and the scar is still—” My tongue trips over the words. Because how can I describe the scar? Do I remember it? Yes. But how do I quantify it? I can’t. So I choose the easiest way to describe it. “Unsightly, it may ruin my chances of getting the fellowship.”
Her lips quirk. “First off, nice use of sarcasm. How about we compromise, then? You cut your hair, as we’ve already agreed. And then we trim the beard. I promise I won't go so close to the skin that the scar will show for filming.”
Before I can agree or disagree, she does the unthinkable.
She reaches up and runs the tips of her fingers along the top of my beard. “We’ll need to trim this up.” Her fingers pause to trace the spot where the scar dips into my beard. “A little more of the scar will be visible here. That's unavoidable.”
She is almost—not quite, but almost—cupping my cheek.
Inexplicably, I want to lean into her hand. To step closer until more of her is touching more of me.
Suddenly, her fingers freeze and her gaze darts to mine.
She drops her hand and takes a step back as she blurts, “And your neck.”
“My neck?”
It’s all I can do not to bring my hand to my cheek, to press the memory of her touch deeper into my skin.
“Yes. We’ll need to shave your neck. I'll compromise on a neatly trimmed beard. But the neck scruff has to go.”
She has no idea what she does to me.
How could she?
For her there’s nothing even remotely sexual about this.
She has no idea that the feeling of her fingertips on my skin drives me wild.
A woman like Holly would never be attracted to me.
And it doesn’t matter if I have a beard or not.
