He ignores me and reaches for the antiseptic spray. Oh, for God’s sake, he is so bloody stubborn. I place my hand over his and press my other hand to his chest. Slowly, I trace the letters on his chest with the tip of my finger.
P-L-E-A-S-E
He watches my finger, then meets my eyes and there is this look on his face . . . I can’t quite define it, but it seems vulnerable.
“Okay,” he says, and grabbing me around the waist, he lifts me to sit on the countertop.
For a few moments he just stands there—his hands gripping the edge of the counter on either side of me, his body leaning forward, and his jaw is set in a hard line. Our faces are so close, I can feel his breath on my skin while the deep blue of his eye watches me closely.
“It’s not a pretty sight, Bianca,” Mikhail says in an even voice, his face closed off. “If you can’t stomach it, just say so.”
I don’t have a problem with blood. He knows that already. I’m missing something. Mikhail turns his back to me and starts unbuttoning his shirt. A feeling of dread collects in my stomach. I remember his arm from that one time I saw it. He always wears long sleeves, and the other night when I placed my hands on his back, I felt ridges on his skin. Although, it was too dark to see anything. His hesitation isn’t about the wound at all. He doesn’t want me to see his back.
Mikhail finishes unbuttoning his shirt, takes it off, and throws it onto the floor. I stare at his back as tears start pooling at the corners of my eyes, and no amount of self-control can keep them from falling. Long, slightly raised but faded with age marks crisscross his torso. Old wounds. So… so many of them. There are a few patches of untouched skin, but other than that, his whole back is a tapestry of scar tissue.
I close my eyes for a second and brush off the tears with my hand. When I look again, Mikhail is still standing in the same position, his back to me, looking straight ahead and letting me take my fill. I take a deep breath, reach for the compress pack and the antiseptic spray, and turn my attention to the cut on his left shoulder blade. It’s not very deep, probably won’t need stitches. I clean the cut with sterile gauze several times, coat the cut with an antibiotic cream, then place butterfly bandages to hold the skin together. With that done, I put a layer of gauze over the wound and secure it with a few pieces of medical tape. I take another breath to prepare myself for the pain that will come and place my hand on his upper arm.
“Turn around, Mikhail.” My voice is so faint, barely a whisper, but it feels like I’m yelling because my throat hurts like someone is scrubbing sandpaper over my vocal cords.
Mikhail turns to face me, and the movement is so quick and sudden, I flinch. He’s looking at me like I’ve grown another head. I move my gaze down to his chest. No whip marks here, but there are burns on his side and stomach, as well as numerous scars from knife cuts, like those on his arms. Dear God, how is he even alive?
I look up at his closed off face, raise my hands and bury them in his hair. Without removing my eyes from his, I hook one finger under the string of his eyepatch and wait. He doesn’t say a word, just grinds his teeth and nods. I nod in reply and remove the patch.
He still has both eyes, but while his left eye is clear and deep ocean-blue, the iris on his right one is much paler and foggy. There is some heavy scarring on the skin around it, and on the eyelid, as if someone tried to remove his eye.
“I have around five percent of sight left in my right eye,” he says in a detached voice, “but it interferes with the sight in my left one, making everything blurry. I wear the patch all the time, except when sleeping, working out, or showering.”
Oh, Mikhail . . .what happened to you? I wonder if he’ll ever tell me. With me sitting this high up, we’re almost face to face, so I lean forward until our noses touch and put my palms on either side of his face, feeling the harsh ridges marring his skin.
“Jesus, Bianca.” He closes his eyes and touches his forehead to mine. “How can you bear to look at me?”
I reach out with my hand to remove a strand of his hair that has fallen over his forehead, and brush the back of my palm down his right cheek. The pain he experienced sustaining this must have been unbearable. The longest of the scars is breaking his right eyebrow into two parts, and I trace my finger along it, then down his nose, until I reach his mouth.
“I think . . .” My throat screams in pain, but I continue anyway. “You are . . . hot.”
I cup his face with my palms and place a kiss on his lips. Then another one. I am obsessed with his lips. I think I could spend hours just kissing him.