Scars You're Keeping

I watched as her mouth moved but I couldn’t hear the words that escaped past her venomous lips. The tears dropped from her crystal eyes but I couldn’t see them as my mind blinded my own vision. Her hand came out to touch me and as it connected with my face, I jerked my body away. Her hands were warm against my own cold numb skin, but more then that I didn’t want her hands of sin touching me.

She was what I called the devil in disguise. Her skin was fair, her lips plump and perfect, her face was that of an angel but what she carried on the inside was much darker. She was not capable of love and as I looked at her I knew that I had given my heart to the wrong girl for the past four years. This love had brought me joy at one point, but she lost her interest in me and walked out of it, leaving a hole where my heart used to be.

But instead of letting her go, I kept her around, not fully able to let her go. I didn’t want the bullet that entered me from the front, to exit out my back. But as I watched him walk into the living room gun in hand I knew that I should have let her go a long time ago.

He was just as in love with her as I was, just as blinded by this awkward feeling that couldn’t be described. She stirred passion in the blood and made it bleed out from every pore on your body. Her red painted lips was like ecstasy to the eyes and euphoria to the lips. She left her mark on me in more ways then one when the exit wounds of our battles were laid out on my body.

But she was always clean, nothing ever touched her and nothing ever bothered her. She always carried her demeanor well and she never showed that anything ever bothered her. But then again when it came to matters of the heart he was sure that she never got involved. She couldn’t sacrifice her heart in ways that he had, she had to protect it for unknown reasons.

The jealousy in his eyes boiled with a rage that I had never seen in anyone else. I knew that when he met her, she had told him she was single. She let him believe that she was not in a committed relationship with me. I couldn’t help as a chuckle passed my lips and I shook my head. She had not only played me, she had played him and the rest of the world. She was a class A actress, worthy of a fucking Oscar.

She cried, he yelled yet I still couldn’t hear a word they were saying. I watched as he walked out the room and I leaned my elbows on my knees as my hands ran through my hair. I couldn’t believe the kind of shit that this woman put me through. But then again it was all my fault that I was in this situation, I kept her around when I knew I should have kicked her out. She would have never walked out on her own accord, and unfortunately I couldn’t handle being single.

I watched as he walked back into the bedroom and pointed a gun towards my face. She fell to her knees tears streaming her face as she stood in a prayer position, begging him not to shoot me. But my body didn’t flinch, my eyes showed no fear. If I was to go down, I was to go down like a man.

Besides the gun that was being pointed towards my body, I had contemplated death in the form of suicide often in the past two years. I had imagined myself slitting my wrists, swallowing a bottle of painkillers, hanging myself. I had contemplated it so much that I would think of more unique ways of ending it all.

I had imagined myself hanging in my closet, the door closed so that no one would find me for sometime. I had imagined climbing the highest building in Huntington Beach and blowing my brains out, allowing my body to fall back down to Earth. I had envisioned putting weights that were too heavy for me on my ankles and jumping into the cool Pacific Ocean.

And though I truly had wanted to end it all because of her, none of my ideas were creative enough. If I were to go out, I wanted to go out with some kind of bang, so she would remember me. So she would remember the pain and trouble and turmoil that she had caused in my mundane life.

Depression was a comical thing to suffer from. It not only brought melancholy into your life, but to everyone that you had the pleasure of being associated with. I knew that not many people wanted to hang out with me, especially when I was such heavy damaged goods. I had been broken down and I saw as a million pieces of me lay on the floor at her dirty feet. She was unchaste.

I heard as the gunshot went off and broke the silence that sat in my fragile mind. As the pain converged in my mind I couldn’t help but laugh as I realized that I had finally been provided the exit wounds for this love.

The pain blinded me as I brought my hand up to my chest. I felt the blood soaking past the thin cotton material and assimilate on my fingertips. I knew that I would die from all the love that I gave. I gave and gave while I never got it back. Losing love in the heart was just as bad as the bullet that entered my chest and ricocheted across my brittle bones.

She dropped on her knees in front of me and moved my hand. I saw the immense amount of blood on my palm. My skin no longer held it’s pale peach color; it was a brownish-red, the color of my blood as it clotted due to the exposure to the oxygen in the air. She pressed her hands to my chest and I felt as my skin burned to her touch. She was my definition of evil; she personified that word in more ways then one.

Looking at her face I saw the roads that her tears burned into her rosy pink cheeks. I wanted nothing more then for her to feel the pain that existed in my heart for the past two years. I held her hand to my chest and for the last time looked up into her eyes. She knew how to lie from the soul; it was a trick I knew that I would never learn. But she couldn’t hide the emotions from me tonight; no matter what happened to me, she would have to live with the burden that her love had killed me.

Mark pulled on her arm, yelling words at her that were incoherent to me and just like the conformist that Clair always was, she stood up and followed him. There was no care or worry as to what would happen to me or when my dead body would be discovered, she just left me bleeding through my exit wounds. But I knew that Claire wasn’t getting off scotch free; she was leaving with my scars. She would carry the burden of the score that she left on my mind, body and soul till the end of her days. My world went black and I knew, I knew, that it was my time to go.



I had awoken to various noises that disturbed my head and made it feel like it were to explode. I knew instantly that I wasn’t dead because there was no way that such pain would exit in heaven or in hell. My body felt as if it had tumbled down the Andes and hit absolutely every rock and tree on its way down.

I opened my eyes and I saw the gray walls and white sheets. The IV’s jabbed into my veins and gauze that was slightly covered in blood covering my chest. My shirt was gone and the scars that covered my body were visible to the world.

“You’re awake? My God we all thought that you were a goner.” I turned my head as I watched Jimmy walk into the room, a cup of coffee or possibly tea, in his hand. I tried opening my mouth to talk but my mouth was dry and no words came out. I opted for the next best option, so I nodded my head.

“You were in a coma for two weeks. The doctors said that your chance of getting out of it was ten percent. None of us believed it though and now look here, you’re finally awake. If I would have found you any later, you would have been a goner.” A smile came to my lips as I slightly pushed myself up, trying desperately to sit. It was as if Jimmy was able to read my mind as he poured me a small glass of water and handed it to me.

I thanked him by nodding my head as my shaking hands took hold of the small but very heavy glass. The small amount of liquid rehydrated my throat enough for me to finally be able to speak; I had to thank the tall but lanky man for saving me.

“How did you know that I was in trouble?” My voice weak and unstable from not being used in some time and Jimmy sighed as he ran a hand over his hair.

“Well we should get this out of the way before the doctors and nurses find out that you are awake.” I simply nodded my head, I didn’t want to overstrain my new found vocals. “When you came back home, she called me. She admitted to me that she was cheating on you and that it was that fellow Mark. He became blinded with fury when he saw you because he didn’t know you and Claire were together and she knew that he would do something stupid. I was hoping to get there and stop him, but they left five minutes before I got there. Any longer and you would have probably not made it all.” I nodded my head as I looked down at my body and felt disgusted from it.

“I know that you never believed that she loved you, but she did. If she didn’t she wouldn’t have called me. Now I didn’t call the cops or give any names. I told the doctors that I got there after you were shot because we were supposed to hang out. It’s your choice if you want them to find her and put her away.” I shook my head as a wary smile crawled onto my lips.

“It’s okay. She’s keeping the scars that she left on me and that’s a punishment worse then any prison can do. She does not need to know that I survived, let her believe what she wants for now. I’ll make sure when we perform on stage, that I will be without a shirt. I want this scar visible. This way if she ever see’s a picture of me, she will always remember what she did to me.” I told Jimmy as I brought my hand to my chest and lay my hand there.

I did not know if I was ever going to love again. Hell, if these were the consequences of love I knew that I never wanted to love again. But the problem was that I believed that love was magical and that it could be amazing. I knew that my heart was an open wound now, but with time my scars would heal and maybe, just maybe, I would be able to love again.