My nephew came to stay with me for the entire summer. From the first day, he wore black gloves. Every single day. Even inside the house. When I finally asked about it, he gave me a small, rehearsed smile and said, “Uncle… my hands are just sensitive.” At first, I didn’t push. But one morning, I quietly opened the bathroom door. He was at the sink. The gloves were off. And when I saw his palms… my heart nearly stopped.
“Lila,” I called softly, but she didn’t hear me. I had to check.
I walked quietly down the hallway toward the bathroom. The door was cracked, just enough to let a sliver of light escape. As I approached, I heard something else: scrubbing. Slow, methodical scrubbing, like someone was trying to erase something that wouldn’t come off.
I hesitated at the door, unsure of whether I should knock or just step inside. It felt invasive, like I was about to witness something that was meant to stay private. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right, that this was different from the usual teenage quirks I had brushed off before.
I turned the doorknob gently, and the door swung open.
Nate was standing at the sink, his shoulders bare, his head bowed low. The gloves sat on the countertop, discarded for the first time in days. He was scrubbing his hands with an intensity that felt unnatural, too focused, too deliberate.
At first, I thought it was just a weird phase, something he was doing because of his obsession with cleanliness. But then, as the water ran over his wrists, I saw something. His skin wasn’t just pale. It was raw. Red lines streaked across his palms, jagged and uneven. The kind of marks you’d expect to see after something was pressed into your skin again and again.
But the worst part? In the center of his left palm, there was an emblem. A symbol burned into his skin. It was too clear to be a scar, too deliberate to be a mistake. A police insignia. Not inked, but branded.
I froze in the doorway, my breath catching in my throat. Nate didn’t look up at me immediately. Instead, he just kept scrubbing, the water running over his hands in a futile attempt to wash away the marks that I knew now were meant to stay.
The silence stretched between us for what felt like an eternity.
Finally, he looked up at me through the bathroom mirror. His expression was unreadable, his eyes calm, almost resigned.
“You weren’t supposed to see that, Uncle,” he said softly, his voice barely a whisper over the sound of the water.
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