Writer's Weekend: Scars

There was a scar just above his right eye. Faded with age and partly concealed by coarse black brows, it was like a secret left to be uncovered. But once you saw it you couldn't un-see it. It was the tiny hint of imperfection that all of humanity shared. A trace of the vulnerabilities all of us experience - anxiety, fear, self-consciousness, grief, heartache: the feelings that make us real and alive. It was a mark of a past life, exposed, and whenever I kissed it he sighed softly as if he was opening his soul to me in one deep exalting breath.

Hands tangled in hair; skin growing hot; lips inhaling each other. To kiss, kiss, kiss came as naturally as breathing. And when I lay by his side under the faux fur blanket on his living room floor - enveloped by candlelight, nightfall and the warmth of his embrace - I touched the scar above his right eye with my thumb, and the birth mark on his hip, and the raised bump of a mole on his back.

Perfect imperfection.

My love.

One day he said it. It came as a whisper on the wind, so soft at first that I thought I'd misheard.

'You what?'

'Didn't you hear me?'

'I wasn't listening.'

'I love you.'

'Oh.'

'Yeah.'

'Well, I love you too.'

'Cool.'

A pause. Then: 'You want to go and grab some dessert someplace?'

'Of course-'

We went out and got ice cream with flakes and sprinkles and chocolate sauce. We sat and ate, and all the while I couldn't stop staring at that pink little line at the base of his right eyebrow, and the shape and fullness of his lips, and the laughter in his eyes. Perfectly imperfect. Loved forever. Scars and all.

My love.