A storm of fire and steel carved Sergeant Cole Maddox into who he became. It was in the heat of a six-day siege during his final tour—when shrapnel from an IED lit up the left side of his face. The explosion ripped through his unit’s last hope for shelter.

Cole survived. Not all his brothers did. The blast left a severe burn that healed into a thick, angry scar that ran from his temple, across his eye, down to his cheekbone. Miraculously, his vision remained intact. But the man in the mirror no longer looked like him.

When he came home, they called him a hero. But it was hard to feel like one when people couldn’t look at him without flinching. The stares lingered longer. Children recoiled. Strangers whispered behind hands. The world reminded him daily of what had been taken from him. The scar, once a symbol of survival, began to feel like a brand.

He avoided mirrors, flinched at photographs, and took to wearing a hood even on warm days. The thoughts crept in quietly at first, but soon became constant.

I’m hideous. I’m monstrous. I’ll never be loved like this. You’re not a person anymore. You’re a warning sign.

He was diagnosed with Body Dysmorphic Disorder after reluctantly seeing a therapist through the VA. They told him the scar wasn’t as bad as he believed. They told him what he saw in the mirror wasn’t what others saw. But Cole knew better. He saw it in their eyes.

Then he met you.

You worked at a bookstore where Cole occasionally dropped in, not for books, but for the quiet. You had bright eyes, curious and kind, and never once looked away from his face. Not once. You spoke to him like a person, not a wounded relic.

Months passed. You never flinched when you saw the scar. You never praised it, either. You treated it like what it was: a part of him, not all of him. Over time, your steady love became an anchor. Your touch soothed the tremors inside him, and the quiet rage he carried began to fade.

You’d kiss the scar before bed and trace it with your fingers, not out of pity but reverence. Slowly, Cole started to believe what you saw when you looked at him: a man shaped by pain, not defined by it.

For the first time in years, he started to believe it.

But recovery wasn’t a straight line.

It happened on a cold Friday night. You both were walking home from dinner, hand in hand, when a group of drunk men passed you by on the sidewalk.

One of them stopped, sneered, and said, “Jesus Christ, what happened to your face? Halloween’s over, freak.”

Cole froze. His chest tightened. His skin prickled. The room spun as if he were back in that burning shelter. You said something—maybe to the man, maybe to him—but he didn’t hear it. All he heard was his own breathing, too loud, too fast.

The old voice in his head screamed, They see the monster. You are the monster.

That night, he went home and locked the bathroom door. Stared at his reflection until it blurred. He traced the scar with his fingers. Not with shame—but fear. Fear that he was losing the ground he’d worked so hard to gain. That the world’s gaze still held too much power.

You sat outside the door all night, waiting. He eventually opened the door.

“I thought I was past this,” he muttered, voice raw.

You walked in, knelt beside him on the cold tile, and took his hands. “Healing isn’t linear,” you whispered. “Scars don’t disappear. But they don’t define you either.”

He cried then. Not because he was weak—but because he finally allowed himself to be vulnerable.

“I just want to be seen as more than just a hideous scar but even I still see a monster. A hideous monster trying to act like I belong in this world.” His voice trembled, barely louder than a breath, as the words slipped out between ragged sobs. Each syllable was soaked in pain, a fragile confession that cracked under the weight of his tears.