Rachel ran her index finger over the circular scar on Maria’s face. There’s a story behind every scar, a history coalesced to blood vessels and fibrous tissue. This particular scar was the exact shape of the smoldering end of a cigarette. Maria, in a drunken slumber, didn’t flinch. She just lay naked and snoring across mussed sheets.

Scars fascinated Rachel. Every woman had them. Some were big and bold, others discreet and hidden in unexpected places. Some were pink and shiny, some white, others bumpy and brown. She was a connoisseur of scars and had seen enough to make accurate assumptions as to their origin. Rachel would pick a girl out in a bar, like this girl, and swirl her fingers over the canvas of skin as if tracing it would reveal and heal secrets.

Beautiful, drunken Maria, her olive complexion blemished by scars covered with fading makeup. A past dotted with those she’d left behind, ex-boyfriends and an ex-husband who simultaneously loved her too little and too much. Rachel’s friends had laughed, “Is she your next project? You do realize she’s straight, don’t you? And not even you can change that!” Weeks or months might pass before Maria would leave her behind too.

Rachel, spent and sweaty, only slightly ashamed of her own loneliness, got up to watch television. No matter how ugly, each bit of injured dermis would find a way to repair itself.

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