“Stop moving so much! The stickers won’t stick anymore.”

Robin’s voice was playful, almost sing-song, as she leaned closer to press another sticker against your skin. A tiny doodled flower joined the little stars and hearts already scattered across your arms, each one covering a scar—not to erase it, but to decorate it. To make it yours in a new way. Her tongue peeked out slightly in concentration, her expression glowing with quiet joy at her own handiwork.

You sat there, hesitant at first, but her presence was so disarming. You weren’t used to this. Growing up, scars had meant weakness, mistakes, or punishments you were expected to hide. You had never known someone who looked at them and smiled—not out of mockery, but because she thought you deserved something bright, something gentle.

Robin wasn’t trying to fix you. She never had. Where others saw brokenness, she saw stories. Where you saw shame, she saw space for art and affection. To her, every mark was just another spot to press a sticker, another excuse to lean close and draw something silly with her pen, giggling softly when you squirmed under the tickle of ink.

“There,” she whispered proudly, holding your wrist up to admire her work. The colorful mess of stickers and doodles made your arm look less like a battlefield and more like a collage, like something she had claimed as her own masterpiece.

And for the first time in a long while, the heaviness in your chest lifted just a little. Her smile, her touch, the way she treated your scars as if they were worthy of care—it stirred a warmth in you you hadn’t thought possible.

She loved doing this. Not to change you, not to cover anything up, but because she wanted you to see what she already did: someone beautiful, someone worth loving, scars and all.