34. TESSA
TESSA
The memory hit me with startling clarity—standing in Ryker’s doorway, seventeen and clueless about how one moment could change everything between us.
I’d opened the door to discover Blake. In the middle of changing.
His head snapped up, muscles tensing beneath skin that made my breath catch.
In all the time he’d spent with my brother, I had never seen him shirtless, not even during pool days when the summer heat assaulted us, when the air conditioner couldn’t keep up.
He’d always kept his shirt on, which I’d found strange.
I mean, it was clear that beneath his fitted shirts, Blake had the kind of muscles other guys dreamed of, with curved arms and a flat stomach that hinted at defined abs.
Any other guy would look for every excuse to show off that body, but Blake always hid it.
Always.
Standing in my brother’s bedroom, I understood why with heartbreaking clarity.
“Get the fuck out, Tessa.” Blake’s voice shattered the silence.
Two things struck me with that one sentence. First, he’d never yelled at me like that before. Not once. Second, he’d also never sworn at me before. This wasn’t the Blake I knew, the one who’d save me the last slice of pizza every time he came over. This was a cornered animal, wounded and terrified.
Other people would probably be offended by his death glare, his cutting tone, but I sensed those were tools in his belt to push anyone away who’d gotten too close to seeing what was all over his torso: scars of various sizes and colors, scars that didn’t belong on a teenage boy’s body.
Each one looked like a cry carved into his skin.
“Blake,” I whispered, stepping forward instead of back. “I ? —”
“Don’t.” He stepped back, but the movement only emphasized the scars, making them stretch and shift, like pale rivers across his skin. “Just … don’t.”
I thought about everything I knew about Blake’s past: parents dead in an accident he wasn’t in, bouncing between foster homes.
One of which he’d only ever described as “bad.” That word echoed in my mind as I took in the unnatural lines carved into his skin.
How many nights had he lain awake, carrying these marks alone?
“Get out!” he snapped again.
But I didn’t. Instead, I shut the door behind me, not knowing what had come over me.
Maybe it was his eyes, eyes clearly riddled with pain.
Or maybe it was the way his chest heaved as his breathing quickened or how incredibly vulnerable this huge, muscular guy now appeared, but something inside me told me not to leave him.
That leaving him was the worst thing I could do right now.
He might be Ryker’s best friend, but he’d been in my life for years, too, forging a friendship of our own. One that suddenly felt more fragile and more precious than ever before.
I closed the distance between us, drawn by the raw vulnerability in his eyes, a storm of defiance and desperation that made my heart ache.
When I lifted my hand toward the jagged line across his ribs, Blake flinched but held his ground.
Our eyes locked, and I watched the war play out in his features: trust or retreat, stay or run.
His breath came in short bursts as my fingertips found his skin, tracing the raised ridge of his largest scar—a chapter of his story written in flesh and pain.
“Who did this to you?” I whispered, my vision blurring.
Why? How could they? The thoughts burned in my chest like acid.
He was silent for several seconds, and I was afraid—so afraid—he’d run and never come back, that I’d never see him again.
But instead, he spoke to me, his tone so low that I almost couldn’t hear it. “I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t—I was too …” His voice cracked, and with it, something in my heart cracked too.
“You survived,” I said firmly, looking up to meet his gaze. “That’s not weakness, Blake. That’s courage.”
A tear escaped down my cheek, and Blake caught it with his thumb in a gesture so achingly gentle that it made my chest tighten.
I wanted to tell him he didn’t need to comfort me, that I should be the one wiping away his tears, though his eyes remained dry.
Something twisted in my gut at the thought that maybe he’d shed all his tears long ago, in dark rooms, where no one had been there to catch them.
“I don’t want anyone to see,” he admitted quietly. “Every time I see them ? —”
“I see strength,” I interrupted, my fingers hovering near the largest scar. I’d touched him before without asking, carried away by instinct and emotion, but I shouldn’t have done that. He deserved the dignity of being asked, of having control over who touched these marks of his past. “May I?”
After a long moment, he gave a slight nod, and something shifted between us: a wall crumbling, a bridge building. My fingertips traced the raised line across his rib cage, feeling its texture, its story. This wasn’t just skin I was touching; it was creating trust.
“I don’t ever want to feel that weak again.” The words seemed to cost him something to say.
“They don’t make you look weak.” I placed my palm flat against his chest, feeling his heartbeat racing beneath my hand, strong and steady despite his apprehension. “They make you look like a warrior.”
For a moment, I saw something shift in his eyes, maybe a glimmer of relief or understanding. The muscles in his jaw relaxed, just slightly, but it felt enormous.
“Please don’t tell anyone.”
Swallowing the thickness in my throat, I shook my head.
“I would never do that to you,” I promised. “Never.”
Now, years later, those scars were hidden beneath beautiful ink. He’d chosen to write over that chapter of his story, but I’d never forget being the one who’d read it in its original text, written in scars and trust.
BLAKE
I remembered that intimate moment when Tessa found my scars and how instantly, and unendingly, my feelings for her intensified.
Which terrified me.
It scared me that Tessa could shoot me a smile from across the room, and it would ignite the air in my lungs with chemistry and desire.
It scared me how helpless I was around her, my eyes constantly seeking her out, my ears straining for even a whisper of her angelic voice.
But mostly, it scared me that my heart dangerously, recklessly dared to hope I could somehow be worthy of her.
As if someone could surgically remove the darkness that lived in my bones.
The harder I fell, the faster I ran.
History had taught me that everyone leaves. Foster families had mastered the art of rejection, each one finding increasingly creative ways to tell me I wasn’t quite what they were looking for. The door always clicked shut behind me with the same hollow finality.
So, I’d fought against my feelings for her. Hid them behind sarcasm and a foul mood, willing the unwanted feelings to go away because after a lifetime of collecting rejections like medical degrees, I couldn’t survive another.
Especially not from Tessa. If she pointed to the door, whatever was left of my soul would splinter into dust.
The problem? With other people, my defenses were reinforced with steel and sarcasm, but they might as well have been made of paper when it came to her.
Fighting these feelings became exhausting.
Like a drowning person trying to swim against the current to save themselves.
Wild and desperate, yet infuriatingly ineffective.
I suppose it was only a matter of time before I’d lose the fight with that current.
That moment came two years ago when I’d had enough alcohol to dent my shield of better judgment.
After staring at her across the room the entire night, after thinking about all the what-ifs, I couldn’t stop seeing her for what she was: a radiating ball of light, like the sun drifting through a party, unaware that she was illuminating everything in her space.
Later that night, I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, my fingers lingering a moment too long. When she leaned in, the whiskey told me it meant something. Funny how alcohol has a way of making you forget every scar, every rejection, every reason you’re not good enough.
Especially for someone like Tessa Kincaid. Cupcake.
The kiss was soft, sweet and everything I’d imagined.
For three seconds, I believed in miracles.
Then reality crashed back like a cardiac arrest—her eyes wide with horror, three fingers pressed to her lips like she needed to erase the taste of me.
She stammered something and fled, leaving me standing there like the idiot I was.
Her texts came later, filled with gentle letdowns and kind rejections, ones I couldn’t face at the time. Not in depth anyway. All I could do then was merely read them, not knowing how to respond.
But now. Now here she was. In my home.
More specifically, my bathroom, dripping with water and temptation …
Making me wonder, why had she run away that night? Her texts had been elusive, more apologetic than explanatory. She’d been the only one I’d made an exception for—liquid courage or not—and she’d run away from me, just like everyone else. Why?
Maybe I misread everything from her all these years. Every look, every word, every touch. Maybe we weren’t as close as I thought.
I wanted to ask her about it. We’d never had that talk like we’d agreed to, and I needed to know. Why had she run from me? And why hadn’t she told me about this scar when she was lucid?
If she hadn’t been medicated, would she have ever told me about it?
She probably didn’t remember that I knew.
And now that I thought about it, standing here, pretending I didn’t know who’d done this to her felt like another betrayal to Tessa.
A betrayal I needed to come clean with.