TLV? Soft Skin Deserves Tenderness?

I went to the beach. Lately, I had been going there often, whenever my thoughts started circling, folding in on themselves with no way out. The last time I had been there, I was consumed by thoughts of having OCD. My mind had turned against me, taken your side, moving in endless loops, suffocating me. And it was all triggered by you.

You canceled our plans after I had spent a week planning. That morning, I had woken up excited to work, washed my car, and thought about where to take you for dinner. But then you canceled, again. The news came suddenly, simply, as if it were something small, unimportant. And I was left with an intense anxiety that led me back to that same beach. The waves rolled in and out, the same motion, the same sound. Nothing changed, but nothing stopped either.

It was just meters away from where we had shared our first real kiss. But that was only a fact, it had no real weight. Instead of spiraling downward, I found myself observing humans being humans on a cold and beautiful beach day.

A woman sat alone. She was beautiful, probably Russian. She took off her sweater, revealing a thin frame with pale skin, marked by a symmetric scar that looked like it came from a medical surgery. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened and when. I thought about how strange it was that we can break open and then heal. As I continued to observe her scar, my thoughts drifted to your skin. One morning, while we were cuddling in my bed, you were still asleep, and I was mesmerized by your hand. Your skin was so beautiful, so soft, covered in freckles that spread everywhere, uneven, yet forming their own kind of syncopated rhythm. A pattern without order, yet somehow complete. It was delicate, as if it had never endured the hardships of your past. I touched it slowly, knowing that if you ever stayed, I would always treat it with care. When skin is that soft, it deserves nothing but tenderness.

Suddenly, I remembered being bullied by a guy two years older than me in ninth grade. He was a redhead like you, but he looked nothing like a winner. In fact, he bullied everyone around him, and I had had enough. I told my friend I was going to hit him because I couldn’t take his unfair treatment of me and others anymore. My friend laughed and said I didn’t stand a chance. They claimed that redheads had stronger bones than others, that was why they were so tough.

It all made sense to me now. I had been deceived by your exterior, thinking that a body with skin as soft as yours could never hurt me. But I forgot about what lay beneath the surface. And in the end, I did not stand a chance.

All that was left was the sound of the waves, coming and going, pulling the sand and letting it go. It went on like that, without stopping, without rest.