Total Knock Out / Book Two

Chapter Nineteen: Butterflies

Logan slipped quietly out of bed and made her way to the lilac door, pushing it shut until it was open just a crack instead of all the way. Her hand shook when she reached for the lamp on her dresser, clicking it on and blinking at the soft glow that flooded half of her room.

She wasn't quite sure what possessed her to offer to kiss the scars Stanford's mother had left behind, to try and heal the hurt that he had been stuck with since his early childhood. It was probably the stupidest thing she had ever done, but the words had tumbled out of her mouth faster than her brain could keep up with and it was too late to take it back now. If she were being honest with herself, she didn't want to take it back.

She swallowed past her suddenly dry throat when Stanford pushed the blanket down and lifted his hips off of the mattress, pushing his pajama pants down and leaving him in nothing but his boxers. It wasn't like she hadn't seen him like this before, the boxing shorts he wore at the rec center covered less than his boxers did, but it still made her heart thump wildly in her chest.

Logan stumbled over to the bed and crawled in, laying her head down on the pillow like before. Stanford turned on his side, his eyes searching her face, and he gave her a slow grin that made her insides feel like jello.

"Lay on your stomach," Logan whispered, brushing her fingers down the side of his face and trying not to show him how nervous she really was. She scooter over to give him room and propped herself up on her arm, her free hand creeping over his hip and settling on the small of his back once he stopped moving.

She had seen his scars more than enough times to memorize where they were placed, knew what had caused them since the night he had crawled in her bed and confessed about the living hell his childhood had been. Her fingers slid over the puckered skin just above his left hip bone, a long, thin gash that had been made by a pocket knife his mother had kept hidden in between the couch cushions.

Logan sat up all the way and crossed her legs, putting both hands on Stanford's back and letting them follow the map of scars.

A thick angry looking one right in the center of his back, from the broken end of a beer bottle. A cluster of small circular scars on his right shoulder blade, shiny and puckered from cigarette butts. A patch of crisscrossed scars on the right side of his rib cage that he had told her had come from the metal edge of a belt buckle.

Logan's heart broke at the injustice of it all, at the thought of Stanford as a small boy accepting the abuse his mother had given him like it was supposed to be happening. It brought tears to her eyes and she brushed them away before getting up on her knees, gathering all of her hair to one side before leaning down and placing her lips on his shoulder blade.

She really had no idea what she was doing, if her brushing her lips across his skin was better than just lifting her head up and moving to a different spot. Her offer had been such an intimate one, and she didn't have that all those years ago with Kyle. Their time together had seemed like a chore most of the time, for both of them. It had been quick to come and even quicker to go, and she had been the blushing virgin who thought that's how it was supposed to be. And now, with Stanford clutching the sheets in his fist below her, she wished that she could at least know how to make this easier on him. How to make it feel like love instead of a curious exploration that she didn't need.

Her uncertainty made her hesitant to have him turn over, to show her the scars that were hidden on the left side of his body. The jagged zigzag right under his arm, the one that looked like it went so deep Logan was surprised he could even use that arm at all, that had come from his father tying him to the bed and letting his mother do whatever she wanted. The scar that started out as a smooth line on his hip but turned jagged and wide towards his stomach from a knife wound that had been ripped back open just a few days later, angry fists raining down on him because he had missed the school bus. But then she thought about how Stanford hadn't even blinked when explaining them to her, about how he had shrugged when she cried at the horror of it, and pushed at his hip until he settled comfortably on his left side.

"What does it feel like?" Logan whispered against his skin, lips catching on the puckered flesh and tongue brushing against it by accident. Stanford's hand bunched up the sheet even more before relaxing, fingers stroking the soft material.

"Butterflies," Stanford said softly, moving his hand up to tuck the hair that had fallen into Logan's face behind her ear. "It feels like butterflies taking flight. The warm feeling I get in my chest when Rori calls me Daddy. The air being sucked out of my lungs when you look at me and see me. It feels like redemption."

Logan pulled away and let Stanford slip onto his back, leaning into his touch when he put his hand against her cheek. She had more scars to kiss, more hurt to try and erase, but she couldn't bring herself to pull away from him. Not with his heart in his eyes, looking at her like that. Like he could devour her whole.