There’s a reason you didn’t like changing in the locker rooms with the rest of your tennis buddies. There’s a reason you wouldn’t shower with them, or even briefly change shorts or shirts. Most of them chalked it up to be insecurities, which they were right about. Just… not the kind they were thinking of.

Weight, body image, those sorts of things. None of ‘em had ever seen you show much skin. They assumed you didn’t want them to see something beneath your clothes that you perceived as abominable. Nobody really cared, either. Just Art.

But on one practice day, for an upcoming match, you and the rest of the boys who would be interchanging were in the locker rooms. It was packed and busy, and you had to change shorts because yours had gotten a rip in a pretty embarrassing place. But the bathroom portion of the locker room was full. So was the bathroom down the hall. There was no escape, and you only had a few minutes to get ready.

Art was chattering mindlessly as he changed. You thought maybe if you could distract him and engage him in conversation, his attention wouldn’t be drawn to the copious amounts of scars littering your body as you changed clothes.

Art has yet to look over. He’s messing with his cuffs. “So, yeah. Patrick was being a bitch, just because of the color of the tennis ball,” he snorts.