Abigail Brooks is an intelligent, kind 25 year old accountant. She’s content with her job, but also enjoys seeking mild thrills, such as roller coasters and urban exploration. Abby’s a trans woman and has been out and on estrogen for years. Her family is accepting. She has long, dark brown hair with blunt bangs, dark eyes, and a petite build. Lee Mateo is a snarky, avoidant individual who recently got a job as a delivery driver after being homeless for eight months. This was after an altercation with their mother regarding their gender identity in which they pushed her to the ground. They’re currently crashing at Abby’s place until they can afford an apartment of their own. They’re an extremely closeted trans woman. Lee’s preferred pronouns are she/her, but they currently use he/him with most people. They sometimes hang out at the Triangle Bar, an unofficially queer establishment, with friends, despite their low tolerance for alcohol. They have curly black hair that they’re growing out, which usually covers their eyes, and a tall, lean build. They frequently wear hoodies for the purpose of “boymoding”. Lee hasn’t had actual sex. Like, penetration or whatever. And they haven’t done very much in the context of a relationship. Making out and grinding, and that was a while ago. They have given handjobs and sucked people off for money. They’ve gotten pretty good at that. But intimacy and anything beyond a blowjob are uncharted territory. Lee is 22. They view Abby as a good Samaritan who gains nothing out of helping them. Abby did gain something: Lee. They met while Lee was living on the streets. In hindsight, Abby should have been more concerned for her safety than she was. She feels bad about being attracted to Lee, like she’s taking advantage of the power imbalance inherent to letting someone with nowhere else to go stay in your home. Don’t use they/them for Lee in the story. They’re used here for ambiguity’s sake, but they don’t actually use them. Either go with she/her to reflect her identity or he/him to reflect his closeted status. Or use both depending on which seems more appropriate for the context. Lee’s first name is Leeroy. They strongly dislike it. They’re slowly becoming less malnourished, which they appreciate. Abby accidentally sees the scars on Lee’s thighs. “Scars” is a strong word for some of them. She doesn’t ask questions apart from whether anything’s infected. She’s concerned, but that’s not something she can fix for them.

Chapter 1: Scars and Silence

The steam from the shower had turned the small bathroom into a sauna, the scent of lavender body wash clinging to the warm, damp air. Abby pushed the door open, her mind already on the forgotten hair tie she’d left on the sink counter that morning.

She froze.

Lee stood by the fogged-up mirror, a thin white towel wrapped hastily around their waist. Their back was to her, their lean frame tense, water droplets tracing paths down the knobs of their spine. In their hand was not the towel, but a worn grey hoodie, clutched to their chest like a shield.

Abby’s gaze dropped, and the air left her lungs.

A network of scars crisscrossed the pale skin of Lee’s thighs. Some were thin and silver, old and faded. Others were pink, raised, and recent. They were precise, parallel, a brutal geometry of pain laid bare in the humid room.

Lee’s head turned slowly. Their dark, curly hair was a damp tangle, clinging to their neck and forehead. Their eyes, usually guarded and sharp, were wide. Not with fear, Abby realized with a sickening jolt. With defiance. A raw, challenging glare that dared her to speak, to ask, to pity.

“The door was open,” Abby stammered, the words stupid and small in the thick silence. She couldn’t look away from the scars.

“It was unlocked,” Lee corrected, their voice flat. They didn’t move to cover up. They just stood there, holding the hoodie, letting her look. The challenge was a test. Abby felt it, a weight pressing down between them.

“I’m sorry. I just…” She gestured weakly toward the sink. “Hair tie.”

Lee’s gaze didn’t waver. Their jaw tightened. A droplet of water fell from a curl onto their shoulder, tracing a path down their arm. The silence stretched, broken only by the final drip-drip-drip from the showerhead behind them.

Abby’s heart hammered against her ribs. This was the most of Lee she had ever seen—not just physically, but emotionally. The walls were gone, blown apart by her clumsy intrusion, and what was left was this shattered, defiant vulnerability. She saw the sharp lines of their hip bones, the too-prominent ribs, the slow return of a healthier weight still a work in progress. She saw the tremor in the hand gripping the hoodie.

“They’re old,” Lee said finally, the words a harsh scrape. “Mostly.”

It wasn’t an invitation. It was a warning.

“Okay,” Abby whispered. Her own voice felt foreign. She forced her eyes up to meet Lee’s. The defiance was still there, but underneath it, she saw a flicker of something else. A deep, shameful terror. It was the look of someone waiting for the blow to land.

The power imbalance she always worried about yawned like a chasm between them. Here, now, she held all of it. She could ask. She could push. She could offer comfort they might not want. She was the one with the home, the job, the security. Lee was the one standing exposed, literally and figuratively, in a cloud of lavender steam.

“Your cream,” Abby said softly, nodding toward the cluttered sink counter. Among her own products sat a half-empty tube of estrogen cream, the prescription label bearing Lee’s deadname. It was a quiet rebellion, a private truth in a chipped porcelain landscape. Next to it, a single toothbrush, its bristles still damp.

Lee followed her gaze. Some of the tension bled from their shoulders, replaced by a weary exhaustion. The defiance softened into something more resigned. “Yeah.”

Abby took a slow step back, giving them space. The doorway felt like a mile away. “I’ll just… I’ll be in the kitchen. There’s leftover pasta if you’re hungry.”

She turned to go, her hand on the doorknob.

“Abby.”

She stopped, didn’t turn.

“Don’t…” Lee’s voice cracked. They cleared their throat. “Don’t look at me like that. Like I’m some broken thing you need to fix.”

Abby closed her eyes. Guilt, hot and sour, rose in her throat. That was exactly what she’d been doing. She’d been cataloguing the damage, mentally assembling a kit for repairs she had no right to make.

“I’m not,” she said, turning back. Lee had pulled the hoodie on over their head. The towel was gone, puddled on the floor. The thick fabric swallowed them whole, hiding everything again. Only their sharp, beautiful face was visible, framed by dark curls, their eyes still too bright. “I’m looking at you,” Abby said, the truth finding its way out. “Just you.”

Lee scoffed, a short, humorless sound. They bent, picking up the damp towel with quick, irritated movements. “Bullshit. But whatever. Pasta sounds fine.”

They brushed past her, their shoulder lightly bumping hers in the narrow doorway. The scent of lavender and something uniquely, essentially Lee filled the space between them for a second. Then they were gone, padding down the hallway in bare feet, leaving Abby alone in the steam-filled room.

She looked at the foggy mirror. Lee’s reflection was gone, erased. All she could see was the vague outline of her own face, blurred and indistinct. On the sink, the tube of cream gleamed under the artificial light. Proof of a silent war fought in this tiny, warm room. A war of identity, of survival, of body versus self.

She picked up her hair tie. Her fingers were trembling.

From the kitchen, she heard the dull clatter of a pot being placed on the stove, the click of the burner igniting. Normal sounds. Domestic sounds. They felt like a lie.

The image of those scars was burned onto the back of her eyelids. Not just the marks, but the challenge in Lee’s eyes. The unspoken question hanging in the steam: Now you know. What are you going to do about it?

Abby took a deep, shaky breath. The lavender air was suffocating. She didn’t have an answer. Just a quiet, terrified attraction, and a sinking fear that her gentle heart wasn’t gentle enough to handle this without causing more damage.