Chapter 10: Matching Scars
The first thing Ana noticed was the absence of warmth. The cool, empty space on the mattress beside her. She surfaced from sleep slowly, the deep, chemical exhaustion of love and emotion and fresh ink holding her down. The sheets smelled like Nevaieh—coconut soap, cannabis, and the sharp, medicinal scent of tattoo aftercare. Ana opened her eyes. The other side of the bed was rumpled, deserted.
Morning light, the pale, watery blue of pre-dawn, bled around the edges of the blackout curtains. It was that silent, suspended hour where the city held its breath. No sirens, no distant bass, just the low hum of the building itself. Ana pushed herself up. Her body felt heavy, used. The hummingbird behind her ear announced itself with a bright, localized sting. She touched the saniderm, the plastic smooth under her fingertips.
She padded barefoot out of the bedroom, the polished concrete floor cool against her soles. The penthouse was a landscape of shadows and sharp, angular furniture. Then she saw it—the sliding door to the balcony was open a crack, a thin rectangle of cooler, humid air slicing into the climate-controlled stillness.
Ana approached silently.
Nevaieh stood on the balcony, silhouetted against the periwinkle sky. She was shirtless, her back to the room, the intricate tapestry of her tattoos a muted map in the low light. Her hair was a wild, untamed cloud around her shoulders. A thin curl of smoke, carrying the familiar sweet-herbal scent of good weed, drifted from her side, caught by a breeze and pulled apart.
But it wasn’t the smoke that caught Ana’s breath.
It was the new mark.
Glistening, raw, and unmistakably fresh, a tiny hummingbird was etched into the skin just above Nevaieh’s left collarbone, its silhouette a perfect, mirror-image echo of the one behind Ana’s own ear.
Ana stopped in the doorway, the cool air raising goosebumps on her arms. She didn’t speak. She just watched. Nevaieh took a long, slow pull from the blunt, the ember flaring orange, illuminating the sharp line of her jaw. She exhaled a plume towards the waking city, her posture one of coiled, contemplative energy.
“I can feel you staring,” Nevaieh said, her voice raspy with sleep and smoke. She didn’t turn around.
“You got a new tattoo,” Ana whispered.
Nevaieh finally turned. Her face was soft in the morning gloom, the rings under her eyes pronounced. She looked tired, beautiful, and utterly sure of herself. She held Ana’s gaze, then looked down at the fresh ink on her own skin. She ran her fingers over it, a wince flickering across her features. “Yeah.”
“When?”
“Couple hours ago. Couldn’t sleep.” Nevaieh took another drag. “It was just… itching in my head. The idea of it.”
Ana stepped onto the balcony. The morning air was damp and carried the distant, salty promise of the ocean. She moved close, drawn to the mark like a magnet. Up close, she could see the fine details—the slight puffiness of the skin, the minute red pinpricks around the solid black lines, the subtle sheen of the aftercare ointment. It was a perfect match. A declaration so silent it was deafening.
“You did it yourself?” Ana asked, her voice thick.
Nevaieh shook her head. “Nah. My hands were shaking too much.” A slight, self-deprecating smile. “Called in a favor. Jamal downstairs. He has a steadier hand for something this small.”
Ana reached out. Her fingertips hovered just above the new tattoo, not touching. “Why?”
Nevaieh looked at her, her dark eyes holding a universe of unspoken things. She lifted the blunt to her lips, held the smoke, then slowly exhaled it to the side, away from Ana’s face. “You said you were mine,” she said simply, her voice low. “Felt like I should… mark the territory.” The corner of her mouth twitched. “Too much?”
Ana’s heart hammered against her ribs. “No. Not too much.” Her finger finally made contact, tracing the air just above the hummingbird’s outline. “Does it hurt?”
“Like a bitch,” Nevaieh said, her smile turning real. “Right on the bone. You were right. It sings.”
They stood there for a moment, the city beginning to murmur below them, the sky lightening from blue to a soft gold at the horizon. Nevaieh looked at the blunt between her fingers, then decisively stubbed it out on the balcony railing. She flicked the dead ember into the abyss.
Then she moved.
One hand slid around Ana’s waist, pulling her flush. The other came up to cradle the back of Ana’s head, fingers carefully avoiding the fresh tattoo. She backed Ana up, two smooth steps, until Ana’s shoulders met the cool, towering glass of the penthouse wall. The pressure was absolute, confident, but not harsh. It was a claiming, yes, but one Ana had already consented to with every word, every touch, every surrender of the night before.
Nevaieh leaned in, her body a line of heat against Ana’s. She smelled of ink, weed, and her own clean sweat. Her breath was warm against Ana’s lips.
“Now we match, cariño,” she whispered, the words a vibration against Ana’s mouth.
Then she kissed her.
It wasn’t like the kiss on the beach, which had been a question and an answer all at once. This was a confirmation. A sealing of a pact. It was deep, slow, and tasted of ash and something sweet. Ana melted into it, her hands coming up to grip Nevaieh’s bare shoulders, her thumbs brushing the sensitive, freshly-inked skin of the hummingbird. Nevaieh flinched slightly, a sharp intake of breath through her nose, but she didn’t pull away. She leaned into the pain, into Ana’s touch.
When they finally broke apart, both were breathing heavily. Nevaieh rested her forehead against Ana’s, her eyes closed. She reached behind her, fumbling on the railing for the half-crushed blunt. She pinched the twisted end, relit it with a quick flick of her lighter, took a short pull to rekindle the ember, and then brought it to Ana’s lips.
“Here,” she murmured.
Ana took it, her fingers brushing Nevaieh’s. She inhaled, the smoke curling hot in her lungs, and exhaled slowly, watching it dissipate between their faces. She passed it back. They shared it in silence as the sun finally crested the distant line of the Atlantic, painting Nevaieh’s skin in molten gold. The light caught the fresh ink on her collarbone, making it gleam.
“I love it,” Ana said quietly, her gaze fixed on the hummingbird. “It’s the best thing you’ve ever worn.”
Nevaieh barked a short, real laugh. She took the blunt back, finishing it with one last, deep pull before killing it for good. “Don’t let my other clients hear that. Jamal does nice line work, but he’s no me.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.” Nevaieh’s expression softened. She traced Ana’s jawline with a single knuckle. “That’s what makes it scary.” She pushed off the glass, taking Ana’s hand. “C’mon. Let’s go back to bed. The sun’s up. My body feels like it got run over by your motorcycle.”
“Hey,” Ana protested, letting herself be led inside. “I’m an excellent driver.”
“Debatable.” Nevaieh pulled her towards the bedroom, the world outside now fully illuminated, their shadows long and tangled on the floor behind them. “But you’re my excellent driver. And my roommate, apparently, since you haven’t gone home in three days.”
“My plants are probably dead.”
“We’ll get you new plants.” Nevaieh fell back onto the messy bed, pulling Ana down with her. She arranged them so Ana’s back was against her chest, her arm a heavy, comforting weight across Ana’s stomach. Her lips found the un-inked skin behind Ana’s other ear. “Sleep,” she mumbled, her voice already slurring with exhaustion. “We’ve got all day.”
Ana nestled back into the warmth, the solid reality of her. She reached up and over her own shoulder, her fingers finding the new, tender hummingbird on Nevaieh’s skin. She felt Nevaieh sigh, a contented, sleepy sound, and press a kiss into her hair.
Outside, the city was fully awake, loud and relentless. But in the quiet, dark cave of the bedroom, there was only the syncopated rhythm of their breathing, and the twin, singing aches of two small, permanent birds, now forever in flight across the map of their skin.
But in the quiet, dark cave of the bedroom, there was only the syncopated rhythm of their breathing, and the twin, singing aches of two small, permanent birds, now forever in flight across the map of their skin.
They slept through the morning, a heavy, dreamless sleep of exhaustion. Ana woke to the sensation of careful fingers tracing the saniderm behind her ear. She opened her eyes to find Nevaieh already awake, propped on an elbow, studying her face in the watery afternoon light. “It’s red,” Nevaieh murmured. “But it looks clean. How’s mine?”
“Puffy,” Ana said, her voice scratchy with sleep. She rolled over to inspect the mirror-image hummingbird on Nevaieh’s collarbone. The skin was raised and angry around the black lines. “You’ll have a hell of a scab.”
“Worth it.” Nevaieh’s stomach growled, a loud, comical sound in the quiet room. “We never ate breakfast. I’m actually starving.”
“We ate burritos at four AM,” Ana corrected, smiling.
“That was a pre-breakfast snack.” Nevaieh threw back the sheets. “I’m making eggs. You’re on toast duty. And coffee. Lots of coffee.”
They moved around the kitchen in a comfortable, silent ballet. Ana found the sourdough. Nevaieh cracked eggs into a bowl with a precise, one-handed skill. The domesticity of it felt enormous, a new layer settling over the raw intimacy of the night and the fresh ink they now shared. The coffee machine gurgled its promise.
The doorbell buzzed, sharp and incongruous.
Nevaieh frowned at the eggs sizzling in the pan. “You expecting anyone?”
“No.” Ana walked to the intercom panel. “Who is it?”
A chorus of voices, bright and overlapping, crackled through the speaker. “It’s your entourage!” “Open up, we brought mimosa stuff!” “We saw your motorcycle downstairs, we know you’re alive!”
Ana sighed, a fond smile breaking through. “It’s Val, Chloe, and Dez.” She pressed the button to unlock the main building door. “They have mimosas. And boundary issues.”
“The three musketeers,” Nevaieh said, pulling another carton of eggs from the fridge. “Guess I’m making a dozen. Tell them if they track dirt on my floor, I’m throwing them off the balcony.”
Minutes later, the penthouse elevator dinged, and the quiet shattered. Val entered first, a tall, willowy woman with a shock of blue hair, holding a bottle of cheap champagne aloft like a torch. Chloe followed, a woven bag full of orange juice and grapes hanging from her shoulder. Dez brought up the rear, his camera already raised, capturing the scene. “The lovebirds emerge!” he announced.
“We come bearing liquids,” Val said, sweeping into the kitchen and kissing Ana on the cheek. She paused, her eyes narrowing. “You got new ink.”
“Where?” Chloe demanded, dropping the bag on the counter.
Nevaieh, tending to her eggs at the stove, kept her back turned, but Ana saw the subtle straightening of her shoulders. Ana tilted her head, pulling her hair back. The movement made the fresh tattoo sting. “Here.”
A collective gasp, then a flurry of movement. “Oh, it’s beautiful,” Chloe breathed. “Tiny. So feminine. Who did it?”
Ana’s eyes flicked to Nevaieh’s back. “Nev.”
Val whistled low. “That’s some steady hand. Behind the ear’s a tricky spot.” She turned her attention to the chef. “Speaking of, what’s cookin’, good lookin’?” She leaned over Nevaieh’s shoulder to peek at the pan, and froze. Her eyes locked onto the glistening hummingbird on Nevaieh’s collarbone. “Oh. Oh, shit.”
Dez’s camera lens swiveled. “Hold on. What’s that? Is that fresh? Did you get a matching one?”
Nevaieh didn’t turn around. She just gave the eggs a final shake in the pan. “Mind your business, Dez.”
“That’s adorable,” Chloe sighed, clutching her chest. “Painfully adorable. I might cry.”
“Don’t,” Nevaieh and Ana said in unison, which sent Val into a fit of laughter.
The morning unspooled into a lazy chaos of shared food, clinking glasses, and overlapping conversation. The story of the matching tattoos was told, edited, and embellished. Nevaieh remained characteristically terse, but a softness lingered around her eyes, a private satisfaction she couldn’t quite hide. She sat on the arm of Ana’s chair, one hand resting possessively on Ana’s shoulder, her thumb occasionally stroking the spot just above the marine life sleeve.
Somehow, the conversation turned to college.
“Remember that semester you tried to minor in interpretive dance?” Val said, pointing a grape at Ana. “What was that about?”
“It was movement therapy,” Ana corrected, dipping a piece of toast into her egg yolk. “And it was a single elective. Not a minor.”
Dez snorted. “Movement therapy. Is that what we’re calling it? I remember you coming back to the dorm with blisters the size of quarters.”
Nevaieh’s thumb stilled on Ana’s shoulder. “Blisters? From interpretive dance?”
“Not from the dance part,” Chloe chimed in, her eyes sparkling with mischief. She took a long sip of her mimosa. “From the shoes.”
Ana froze, a piece of toast halfway to her mouth. “No one needs to know about the shoes.”
“What shoes?” Nevaieh asked, her voice dropping to a low, interested register. She looked down at Ana, who was now studiously examining her plate.
“Her secret shame,” Val announced, delightedly. “Well, not shame. Her secret skill.”
“Spill,” Nevaieh said, not to Ana, but to the room at large.
Dez leaned forward, his voice taking on a mock-serious, documentary narrator tone. “Our Ana, lover of combat boots and sensible sneakers, once spent an entire semester taking a heels technique class. As in, six-inch, strappy, dance heels.”
The silence that followed was profound. Nevaieh slowly removed her hand from Ana’s shoulder. She stood up, walked around the chair, and crouched down in front of Ana, her eyes level with Ana’s. Ana refused to meet her gaze, focusing instead on a crumb on her jeans. Nevaieh’s expression was one of pure, unadulterated wonder. “You,” she said, slowly, each word weighted. “You took a class. To dance. In high heels.”
“It was about posture,” Ana mumbled, her face heating. “And core strength. And… foot articulation.”
Val cackled. “She was good! Like, scarily good. We went to her final showcase. It was a jazz routine. All fierce strutting and hair flips. I have video.”
Ana’s head snapped up. “You do not.”
“I do!” Val sang, already pulling out her phone.
Nevaieh was still staring at Ana as if she’d just revealed she could speak fluent Martian. The initial shock melted into something warmer, more intrigued. A slow, devastating smile spread across her face. It was a smile Ana had never seen before—a smile of delighted, predatory curiosity. “You have hidden depths, Anaijiah,” she said, the words a soft rumble.
“It was one semester,” Ana insisted, but the protest was weak.
Nevaieh stood up. She took Ana’s mimosa glass from her hand and set it on the table. Then she offered her own hand. “Show me.”
“What? No.”
“Show me right now.” There was no arguing with that tone. It was quiet, but it filled the entire room. Her friends fell silent, watching, glasses paused mid-sip.
“I don’t have the shoes,” Ana said, a last, feeble defense.
“You think I don’t have a pair?” Nevaieh arched an eyebrow. “What kind of queer do you take me for? I have three. In my closet. Now get up.”
Ana looked from Nevaieh’s determined face to her friends’ expectant ones. Val gave her an encouraging, double-thumbs up. Defeated, but with a strange, fluttering excitement in her chest, she took Nevaieh’s hand and let herself be pulled to her feet.
“The black patent ones,” Nevaieh called over her shoulder to no one in particular as she led Ana toward the bedroom. “With the ankle strap.”
Nevaieh’s closet was a walk-in chaos of leather, denim, and neat rows of identical white beaters. She pushed past hanging jackets with a sharp scent of motorcycle oil, kneeling before a disordered stack of shoe boxes. Ana lingered in the doorway, her bare feet cold on the floor, the ghost of old blisters tingling on her soles. “You don’t have to do this,” she said, her voice thin.
“I really do,” Nevaieh murmured, not looking up. She found the box, black and dust-covered, and blew across the top. The lid came off with a whisper. Inside, nestled in crumpled tissue paper, were the shoes. Patent black, six-inch heels, a single delicate ankle strap. They were brutal and beautiful. Nevaieh lifted them out like they were holy relics. She stood, turning to face Ana, her expression unreadable. “Put them on.”
The air in the bedroom thickened. From the main room, a hush had fallen over her friends; they were listening. Ana took the shoes. They were heavier than she remembered. She sat on the edge of the unmade bed, the sheets still smelling of them. The first strap buckle felt unfamiliar under her fumbling fingers. Nevaieh watched, arms crossed, leaning against the doorjamb. She didn’t offer to help.
The second buckle clicked shut.
Ana stood.
The world tilted, sharpened. A rush of muscle memory fired up her calves, her core engaging instinctively to find the new, precarious center of gravity. She took two experimental steps across the carpet. Her posture shifted, shoulders pulling back, chin lifting. It wasn’t a pose; it was a reclamation. A forgotten part of her skeleton woke up.
“Holy shit,” Val whispered from the living room.
Nevaieh didn’t speak. She just pushed off the doorframe and walked to a sleek media console. She tapped her phone, scrolling through a playlist with a frantic, focused energy. She skipped three songs before finding what she wanted. A track started low—a deep, pulsating synth bassline, a sultry, snapping beat. It was nothing like the jazz Ana had learned to. This was modern, oceanic, full of dark swells and electric tension.
“Now,” Nevaieh said, turning. Her gaze was a physical weight. “Dance.”
The command was simple. The expectation in the room was a held breath. Ana looked at her friends’ eager faces, then back at Nevaieh, whose eyes held only a challenge and a fierce, burning curiosity.
She closed her own eyes.
For a second, there was only the humiliating echo of her college studio, the mirrored walls, the instructor’s clinical voice calling counts. Then she pushed it away. She thought of the ache behind her ear, the mirror-image sting on Nevaieh’s collarbone. She thought of the ocean on her arm, the phoenix on her thigh, the permanence etched into her.
She began to move.
It wasn’t a routine. It was a translation. The first step was a slow, deliberate roll of her hips, a defiance of the high-heeled constraint. The bass thumped through the floor into the bones of her feet. Her arms lifted, not in rehearsal-hall precision, but in a slow, liquid unraveling, tracing the marine creatures inked on her skin. She let the music find the spaces between her vertebrae. Her head dropped back, hair brushing the fresh tattoo, a flinch of pain she embraced. She turned it into the motion, a sharp twist of her neck.
She was no longer Ana who worked at a café, Ana who was careful. She was anatomy in motion. The peacock on one thigh, the phoenix on the other, seemed to pulse with each step. She crossed the room in a series of controlled, powerful strides, the click-clack of the heels a metronome under the music. When she reached the open space before the floor-to-ceiling windows, she spun. The city blurring behind her was just another wash of color.
Her friends were silent. Dez’s camera was forgotten in his lap.
Nevaieh hadn’t moved from the console. Her arms were still crossed, but her knuckles were white where she gripped her own biceps. Her breath was visible in the rise and fall of her chest. Her eyes were wide, dark pools taking in every shift of muscle, every expression that flashed across Ana’s face—concentration, surrender, power.
Ana caught her reflection in the dark television screen—a fragmented, warped silhouette of a woman transformed. It spurred her on. She dropped into a deep pliè, the muscles in her legs burning, then rose with a explosive energy, one leg slicing through the air in a high, graceful kick before she landed, solid and sure, on the punishing heel.
The music swelled, crested, and began its slow fade.
Ana’s movements softened with it. She came to a final stillness, facing Nevaieh, her chest heaving, a fine sheen of sweat on her temples. The last synth note hung in the air and died.
The silence was absolute.
Then Nevaieh moved. She crossed the room in five long, swift strides. Her hands came up, not to applaud, but to cup Ana’s face. Her thumbs smeared the sweat on Ana’s cheeks. Her eyes searched Ana’s, looking for the woman she knew in this new, formidable creature.
“Where,” Nevaieh breathed, her voice ragged, “the fuck has that been hiding?”
A stunned laugh burst from Chloe. Val let out a whoop. Dez finally remembered his camera, lifting it with a shaky hand.
But Nevaieh didn’t wait for an answer. She kissed her. It was nothing like the balcony kiss. This was pure consumption, a claiming laced with awe and a spike of something like fear. When she broke away, she kept her forehead pressed to Ana’s. “Never do that for anyone else,” she whispered, the words hot against Ana’s lips. “That’s mine.”
“It was always yours,” Ana whispered back, her heart hammering against her ribs. “I just didn’t know it yet.”