But then, she stopped. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and instead of pulling the robe tight, she let it slide off her shoulders, pooling at her feet.
She turned to face me.
The breath violently left my lungs.

My heart hammered against my ribs, and for a moment, the entire world stopped spinning. I was completely stunned.

I had prepared myself for the signs of a difficult life. I had prepared myself to see a body that had birthed three children, to kiss every stretch mark and assure her she was beautiful. But that isn’t what I saw at all.
Her stomach was perfectly smooth, completely untouched by pregnancy. But that wasn’t what paralyzed me.

Spanning from her left collarbone, trailing down her ribs, and wrapping around her torso was a massive, jagged landscape of horrific burn scars. The skin was puckered, thick, and discolored, a jarring testament to unimaginable trauma and pain. Along her right side were deep, surgical scars, the kind left behind by major reconstructive trauma surgery.

She stood there, shivering in the cool air of the room, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, tears leaking through her lashes. She was waiting for my revulsion. She was waiting for me to turn away in disgust.

My legs finally moved. I closed the distance between us, falling to my knees in front of her. I reached out, my hands shaking, and gently laid my palms against her scarred ribs. I leaned forward and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the center of the worst burn.

Emily let out a shattered, agonizing sob and collapsed onto her knees right there with me, burying her face in my shoulder as she wept like her heart was breaking.
“Emily,” I whispered, holding her tightly as she shook. “My god, sweetheart. What happened to you?”

It took her a long time to calm down enough to speak. When she finally found her voice, the truth poured out of her, washing away months of cruel rumors and silence.

“Johnny, Paul, and Lily aren’t my children, Nathan,” she choked out, her fingers digging into my shirt. “They’re my little brothers and sister.”
Five years ago, she explained, they were living in a dilapidated trailer in a deeply impoverished part of West Virginia. Their father had passed away, and their mother worked nights just to keep the lights on. One evening, an old, faulty space heater in the living room caught fire.