[ WP ] You live in a world where each lie creates a scar on the liar 's body . The bigger the lie , the deeper and larger the mark . One day , you meet someone that only has one scar ; it is the biggest one you have ever seen .

I met Mark in a coffee shop. I could n't say it was love at first sight, but he was a real head turner, everywhere he went one or two people did a double take. I've never been one for conventional beauty, but my God, his skin. He was in his late 30s, but he had the perfect skin of a newborn child. He did n't have the scratches everyone else our age did. I had never seen a man like him, maybe a few models on billboards, but we all know they take a decently honest man and photoshop him into a saint. 
 
 I was intimidated, but just a second after I spoke to him, he interrupted me. He told me he thought I was beautiful, and I knew a man like this could n't throw that out to every woman he meets. From then on it was like a dream, he was just perfect. 
 
 Yet, everywhere we went, I could feel the looming questions. All of them as they turned their heads away, trying to pretend they were n't staring, all thinking `` Why her? ``, `` How can someone like him trust someone like her? ``, or `` Relationships like theirs never work''. I know because I had thought the same things about similar couples, and never had the difference been so stark. 
 
 At first, I laid my makeup on thicker and thicker, every time we went out I felt like I wore a mask. He noticed this, and reassured me it did n't matter what everyone else thought, Mark told me `` Mary, this is about us, not them. I trust you. I know your an even better person than I am, a few lies do n't make you any less of a person''. In time I relaxed my makeup, I even wore less than most people. 
 
 I had always been rather conservative, but with him, I was hesitant to get physical for an entirely different reason. I know he said he did n't care about my scars, and I know he believed that, but I feared what he would think when he saw me laid bare, saw the scars that blanketed me. Mostly the little scratches that everyone has, but I had a few nasty ones. I had a 5 inch one across my stomach, that I desperately did n't want him to see, he'd ask me to explain it! 
 
 I got it in highschool, a friend I'd had since childhood had mugged a woman, things went wrong and he stabbed her. He ran back to our apartment building and told me the whole thing, how he left her there in the alley, in her own blood. I had known him since we were both four, I could n't let him go to prison. When the police questioned me, I covered for him, I told them he had spent the whole night with me. When I heard the woman died, my scar ached, it grew longer. He left town not long after that, and I did n't keep in touch, I could n't handle it. Before he left, I did see his scar. It was awful, it went the whole length of his forearm, not something you saw often, only on the news or on TV. 
 
 The idea of Mark seeing me nude terrified me, I told him so. I even asked him if we could do it in the dark, at least the first time. Maybe if he felt my skin before he saw it, then it would n't shock him so much. He was silent. He told me not to worry, he told me his skin wasnt perfect. He had a scar too. A scar. 
 
 It was supposed to make me feel better, but it only multiplied my self consciousness. Only one scar? That just was n't possible. He reassured me, he told me no matter how many scars I had, that he would n't ask questions, that he would still love me. 
 
 I cried there in his arms. I knew he was telling the truth. I do n't know how long it was, but with time and his comfort, I calmed down. We moved to the bed, him talking off my shirt. He was n't fazed at all, by all the blemishes, by the lies of all my 34 years on this earth, more than most. 
 
 Then he removed his shirt. 
 
 It was terrible. I shouted at the sight of it. It ran from his right shoulder blade to the lower left side of his stomach. It was wide. It was deep. I was shaking, and I saw the hurt in his eyes. 
 
 `` No, no'' he said quickly. `` I had a car crash'' he said `` three years ago''. 
 
 A car crash? Yes! An injury! It had to be, he could n't lie, he was the most honest man I had ever met, he never let a mistruth breach his lips. He had to be telling the truth now. 
 
 I embraced him. I hugged him tight. I never felt so relieved, I never felt so loved. I knew I had been completed, that I would spend the rest of my life with this man. 
 
 We kissed, long and deep. I ran my fingers through his hair and caressed his neck. There I felt it. A roughness. A single tiny scar, just behind his left ear. Had I just not noticed it before? We had only known each other four months, I had not felt every inch of his head. Maybe it was a single lie, from who knows when. Maybe it just another injury, a tiny nick from falling back and hitting his head. Maybe he did n't even know he had it. 
 
 We are getting married soon. I have n't asked him about his scar again. I wonder if maybe I should. Maybe I should measure that blemish behind his ear and see if it grows after I ask him. 
 

