Free Scars and Songs by Christine Zolendz, Frankie Sutton, Okaycreations Page B

her breakfast. I hadnʼt realized that I even took my shirt off until I turned my head around to look at her because she hadnʼt answered me yet. Her eyes were slowly following the flowing designs of my tattoos. I watched them, drinking me in, roaming from the dragon on my elbow to the tribal bands along my arms and traveling across to the dove wrapped in its own broken wings on my shoulder. I never felt more bare in front of a woman before.  Completely and utterly naked, down to my soul.  It was as if she could read between the inked lines and know my story, my soul out in the open, my fall from heaven.  And I wanted it, I wanted this beautiful creature to know my story.  To know me .  It made a chill run up my spine.
    Her eyes slowly moved further along my skin, inching their way across my chest and down my stomach, and even in this human body filled with my cold dead angel ʼs heart, I couldnʼt help but feel hope .
    I placed a plate of food in front of her as a splash of crimson colored her cheeks. “Spinach, mushroom, green pepper and cheese omelet ala Shane,” I said. “You haven ʼt answered me. What is it about me that makes you think I canʼt cook?”
    Grace picked through the omelet inspecting it carefully, tentatively putti ng a small forkful to her lips. Her shoulders relaxed as she chewed. I guess she thought I was going to poison us both.
    Tilting her head up at me, she said, “You just strike me as a shallow person who gets everything they want from other people. I would have bet you ʼve had a different blonde make you breakfast every morning of your life.” Those beautiful lips of hers turned downward as she talked, but not from disgust, from pity.  That intrigued me.  I never saw anyone look at me in Shane’s perfect body and pity it.
    Trying to keep the conversation light, I laughed. “Well, you are half right. I am shallow. But, I can cook, and honestly, I like chicks with jet black hair better than blondes. Well? Is it good?”
    “Yeah, sure. Thanks. I didnʼt realize how hungry I was,” she mumbled. I was betting that it was the best omelet sheʼd ever had, but sheʼd never own up to feeling that way.  At least never to me.
    “So, what ʼs the deal with you? Whatʼs with the intense Shane revulsion?  Iʼve never had a girl not jump at the chance with me. Or, wait, are you into chicks?” I teased.
    She graciously played along with my teasing and laughed along with me.  “So you think because I ʼm not falling for your crap that I must be a lesbian?”
    “Bi? Maybe just playing hard to get?” I hoped I wasn’t pushing this too far .
    Some sort of flicker of emotion danced behind those eyes. “You really are full of yourself. Brace yourself, Shane, this might be hard to hear,” she teased , “but you just donʼt do it for me. Sorry.”
    That made me want her even more. My soul ached to tell her who I really was. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled with the thought of telling her my secrets, just to see if the real me who was hidden from those soulful eyes, would do it for her. “So, who does it for you then?”
    Her eyebrows burrowed together and she stood up and walked to the counter. Turning her back to me so I couldn ʼt read her expression, she opened the dishwasher and loaded her plate in noisily.  Turning around, she straightened up and leaned her elbows against the counter with a thoughtful look on her face. She looked incredibly sexy.  “Someone who doesnʼt think of me as a walking vagina,” she blurted out.
    I laughed so hard my sides ached. I laughed, not because what she said was funny, but because I felt like the complete opposite toward her. Yes, I wanted to be with her, but in so many more ways than just the one way, she thought.
    A slow, hesitant, tight smile appeared on her face, and my stomach dropped. “And whatʼs your deal? What happened to you that makes you think that women were put here to serve you? Maybe something happened that makes you so