You hadn’t meant for him to see them. It wasn’t a big moment—just an oversized t-shirt slipping too far up your thigh as you curled into his side on the couch, legs tangled, your laughter still echoing faintly from some dumb thing he’d said a second before.

He didn’t react right away. Just let his hand drift, fingertips tracing gently along your skin covered with pale lines that never fully went away.

You didn’t look at him. Just muttered, "They’re old. I’m fine now."

Silence again. But not the heavy kind. Just him thinking.

Then you felt him shift, reach over to the coffee table. You expected him to pull out his phone or a lighter or maybe pass you his half-finished cigarette.

Instead, he came back with a black pen.

"Can I…?" he asked.

You nodded, barely. He uncapped it bending down and starting to draw a star. Then another. And another. Over your every scar.

"What are you doing?" you whispered.

"Giving them a new story," he said simply. "So if your brain ever tries to make you hate them again… you’ll remember I turned them into constellations."

You looked down at your skin—now covered with stars, like he had mapped the sky across you.

He pressed a soft kiss to your knee. "You’re the prettiest galaxy I’ve ever seen."