Chapter 7

Why? Why did I do that? Why did he touch me?

My thoughts see-saw back and forth between disgust and anger. Disgust at myself is primary. Hate for what I've become. Mostly I bury my feelings about it, drift through the days waiting. Waiting but never considering what it is I'm waiting for. That path is too depressing to give attention to.

Because in the end, this will never end. I'm scarred. For life. There is no fixing it and no reprieve is possible. I am, and always will be, ugly. Deformed. An atrocity that is only worthy of pity from others.

But that balances with the anger. The rage. This wasn't supposed to be my life. I was happy on the ship. I had a good job. I had friends. I had family. I had a boyfriend who I thought might ask me to marry him, once upon a time. But then the crash happened which led to this. The memories rush in in an unstoppable onslaught.

‘Kai, you're alive. I'm so gla?—'

Lying on the hospital bed I turn towards the sound of his voice and his words die on his tongue as his eyes widen and his mouth drops open in horror. He swallows and shakes his head as tears form in his eyes.

‘Oh Kai,' he whispers taking a step back.

I was in too much pain to keep up at the time and on too many painkillers, which weren't working anyway, but the memory is burned indelibly.

‘Kir—'

I can't finish saying his name. The pain is too much and I must black out for a second because in the next he is gone.

I choke and have to cough to clear my throat then sob some more. Provyd touched me. Touched my scars. And I feel awful for it.

I know no one can look at me. Want me or desire me. I'm awful. The necklace dangling from my clenched fist catches the light in a way that sends a sparkling beam of refracted light into my eye.

I lift it up and stare at the damnable thing. This thing that caused this. This bastard of a beautiful piece of what? Glass? Stone? I don't know what its source is but if not for it then I would never have looked up, he never would have touched me, and I wouldn't be feeling this… desire.

The one thing I cannot allow myself to feel. Desire. Need. I've spent so much time shutting down every possible emotion, shoving them into boxes, and outright denying them that I thought they were gone. That I had finally succeeded in getting rid of this incessant need that all humans have for contact. To not be alone.

I like alone. I'm better alone. Alone, no one looks at me with pity. Or sympathy. Or horror. Alone no one looks at me at all.

Why did you touch me? What is it you want?

He didn't have pity in his eyes. Nor horror. Or anything but kindness. Kind eyes. Something my mother used to say. He had kind eyes as if that's a thing. Kind eyes, I snort. Nice ass, sure, that makes sense. Great abs, got it. Kind eyes? What in all the black universe does that even mean? Yet…

There was something in his eyes. And are kind eyes that different than pitying eyes? Those I am more than familiar with, seeing them almost every day of my life since the accident. Or horrified eyes? Another look of eyes that I am way too familiar with.

He didn't recoil. He looked at my face and he touched my scars. In a nice, gentle way. And, apparently, he made me this necklace. And what did I do? Act like a total asshole, that's what I did.

I screamed at him. Threw the necklace at him like a total bitch. And all he did was try to be nice.

I don't need his pity. I don't need anyone.

It's a mantra. But deep in my thoughts is another whisper. The one that says I do. I don't want to be alone. I don't want to be unhappy anymore.

The gem twists and turns, reflecting and refracting. Not a care in the world as it sends its message. A message I think I hear at last.

I see you.

The gem declares. But is it true? Or is this a ruse made of imagination and loneliness? I lie on my bed, staring at the twisting gem, and try to figure it out.