Under Your Scars (Under Your Scars, #1)

by Ariel N. Anderson

“And now I’ve got a whole section of my brain dedicated solely to you, and I think about more than just the next day. I see next week. I see next month. I see next year. I see you in every possible version of my future.”

She’s the only person who commands my self-control just as much as she makes me lose it.

There isn’t a you and me anymore. It’s us. You’re worried about not measuring up, but there’s no competition. Don’t compare yourself to women that don’t exist. We’re together now, nothing else matters.

“I am painfully, catastrophically in love with you.”

Then I met you, and falling in love was like some nuclear catalyst inside me. I’ve been consumed by it—by you. I can’t think about anything else except how much I want you to be mine to love, forever.”

Loving her was a drug I got addicted to after a single hit,

My heart has been yours ever since. I don’t just mean my love. I mean the actual, functional, beating heart in my chest is yours. You’re taking it with you when you leave, and I’ll be nothing more than an empty shell with a gaping hole in my chest in the shape of you where my heart should be.

“I love you.” I say through gritted teeth, her hair wrapped tight around my fist. “I love you so much it makes me insane. I love you so much it makes me dangerous. I love you so much that I would burn this world for you and all the people in it just to keep you all to myself. Do you understand me? If it comes down to a choice, you will choose me. I don’t give a fuck if it costs the remainder of your soul. You are mine and only mine.”

“Do you know why I cut myself?” she asks, though she doesn’t wait for my answer. “Because I wanted to be in control again. I wanted to be in control of my body, and I wanted to be in control of when and where I felt pain.” Control. The thing she lost when she was raped. The control of her emotions, the control of her reaction to touch.