Chloe knelt on the sand beside my towel. She smiled down at me, her eyes crinkling with genuine warmth.
“Idiots,” she muttered playfully, shaking her head.
She reached into her beach tote and pulled out a bottle of high-SPF sunscreen. She squeezed a large dollop of the cool, white lotion into the palms of her hands, rubbing them together to warm it.
With incredible gentleness, Chloe began to rub the lotion over my back. Her hands moved with a deep, sacred reverence over the thick, raised keloids on my shoulders and spine—the exact places that had shielded her from the collapsing, burning roof fourteen years ago. It was a deeply intimate, caring gesture, a physical apology she repeated every time we stepped into the sun. She was tending to the very scars she had once used to mock me.
“Don’t let them bother you,” Chloe whispered fiercely, leaning down to press a soft kiss into my hair. “You’re the most beautiful person on this entire beach, Maya.”
“I know,” I smiled, leaning into my sister’s gentle touch, closing my eyes and feeling the profound, healing warmth of the sun on my bare skin for the first time in my adult life.
Society had told me to hide my scars. They had told me that damaged skin was ugly, that trauma should be covered up, that perfection was the only acceptable aesthetic. For twelve years, I had believed that my body was a grotesque secret that needed to be locked away in the dark.
