SCARS THAT SPEAK

Dr. Elena Reyes’s office felt smaller today perhaps because Silas Vane filled it more completely than usual. He sat in the same armchair he had occupied for the last three family sessions, but today his posture was different: shoulders rounded inward, hands clasped between his knees, silver-streaked hair falling forward to shadow his scarred lip. Aiden sat beside him on the sofa, close enough that their thighs touched a silent anchor. Marcus was absent; this session was Silas’s alone, though Aiden had asked to be present. Silas had agreed without hesitation.

Dr. Reyes waited, giving the silence room to breathe. After nearly two minutes, Silas spoke voice low, almost reluctant.

“I don’t talk about before.”

“Before what?” Dr. Reyes asked gently.

“Before Vane Industries. Before the money. Before Aiden.” He glanced sideways at the man beside him, then away. “Before I learned how to make people hurt more than they could hurt me.”

Aiden’s hand moved slow, careful covering Silas’s clasped fingers. Silas didn’t pull away.

Dr. Reyes leaned forward slightly. “Many people build entire lives to outrun a single moment. Or a series of them. You don’t have to start at the beginning if it’s too heavy. You can start wherever the memory feels loudest right now.”

Silas exhaled a rough, unsteady sound. “Ten years old. Car accident. Mom died on impact. Dad lingered three days in ICU. I sat in the waiting room with a social worker who kept checking her watch. When they told me he was gone, she said, ‘You’ll be placed soon.’ Like I was furniture.”

He paused. The room stayed quiet except for the soft tick of the wall clock.

“First foster home was okay for a month. Then the husband decided I talked back too much. Belt first. Then closed fist. I was small skinny, quiet. Easy target. I learned to stay quiet. Learned to disappear into corners. Learned that crying made it worse.”

Aiden’s grip tightened. Silas’s thumb brushed over Aiden’s knuckles small, almost unconscious comfort.

“Second home was worse. The wife liked to lock me in the basement when I ‘disrespected’ her. No light. No food sometimes. I started scratching dates into the concrete with a nail I found. Counted days. Told myself I’d get out. Told myself I’d never let anyone make me small again.”

Dr. Reyes’s voice was steady, soft. “How old were you when you ran?”

“Fourteen. Broke a window with a chair. Ran until my lungs burned. Slept in alleys, ate from dumpsters. Learned to hack payphones for change, then ATMs for cash. By sixteen I had enough to rent a room under a fake name. By seventeen I was selling stolen data to people who didn’t ask questions.”

Silas looked up then directly at Dr. Reyes.

“That’s when I met the first real players. Men like Moreau. They saw talent. Saw hunger. Offered protection, money, power if I played by their rules. I played. I got good. Too good. Started keeping pieces for myself. Built Vane Industries on top of the dirt. Clean on the surface, dirty underneath. The mafia wasn’t a side hustle it was the foundation.”

Aiden shifted closer. Silas’s voice dropped even lower.

“I hated them. Hated everyone. But mostly I hated the kid who couldn’t fight back. Every time I hurt someone blackmailed, threatened, killed I told myself it was justice. Retribution. But it was just… noise. Keeping the quiet parts drowned out.”

Dr. Reyes set her pen down. “And Aiden?”

Silas’s gaze slid to the man beside him raw, unguarded.

“Aiden was the face of everything I hated. The bully. The golden boy. The one who made me feel small when I was already breaking. When I saw him at The Gilded Cage kneeling, blindfolded, desperate I could’ve walked away. I didn’t. I wanted to ruin him. Wanted to make him feel what I felt.”

Aiden’s breath caught small, audible.

“But I couldn’t,” Silas continued, voice cracking on the edge. “Every time I pushed him down, I pulled him closer. Every bruise I left, I kissed better later. Every time I choked him to the edge, I whispered how much I needed him to stay. I told myself it was control. It wasn’t. It was terror. Terror that if I let go, he’d see the scared kid under the billionaire and leave.”

Aiden turned fully toward him now knees bumping, hands clasping Silas’s face.

“I saw him,” Aiden said quietly. “From the beginning. The scarred lip. The way your hands shook sometimes after. The way you watched me like I might disappear. I stayed because I saw you. Not the mogul. Not the monster. You.”

Silas’s eyes closed briefly. When they opened, they were wet.

“I still dream about the basement,” he admitted. “About being small. Powerless. Every time I wake up and you’re there warm, breathing, wearing my collar I think… maybe I’m not that kid anymore. Maybe I don’t have to hurt to feel safe.”

Dr. Reyes spoke gently. “You built walls of vengeance because vulnerability once nearly killed you. Now you’re learning that vulnerability with someone who chooses to stay doesn’t have to be fatal. It can be… home.”

Silas looked at Aiden really looked. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “For every time I made you pay for my pain.”

Aiden’s thumbs brushed Silas’s cheekbones. “I forgive you. I forgave you the first time you kissed the bite mark instead of making it bleed. I forgave you every night you held me after. I’m still forgiving you. Every day.”

Silas leaned forward forehead resting against Aiden’s. “I don’t know how to be soft,” he admitted, voice barely audible. “But I want to learn. For you.”

Aiden smiled small, trembling, full of light. “You already are.”

Dr. Reyes watched them two men who had clawed their way out of separate hells, now holding each other in the same room. She didn’t interrupt. Some silences were sacred.

When the session ended, Silas stood first offering Aiden his hand. Aiden took it. They walked out together shoulders brushing, steps matched.

In the hallway, Silas paused. Turned to Aiden.

“I want to take the collar off,” he said quietly. “Not because I don’t want it anymore. Because I don’t need it to know you’re mine. And I don’t need it to know I’m yours.”

Aiden reached up slowly unbuckling the leather. It came away easily. He held it between them like an offering.

Silas took it. Kissed the inside where it had rested against Aiden’s pulse. Then tucked it into his pocket.

“Keep it,” he said. “Not as a leash. As a promise.”

Aiden nodded tears shining but not falling.

They stepped into the elevator. Doors closed. Silas pulled Aiden into his arms gentle, enveloping.

“I love you,” Silas whispered against dark hair. “The kid in me loves you. The monster in me loves you. The man I’m trying to be loves you most of all.”

Aiden pressed his face to Silas’s throat. “I love all of you. Scars and storms and everything in between.”

The elevator dinged. Doors opened to the lobby.

They walked out into the afternoon light hands linked, heads high, hearts finally lighter than the shadows they had carried so long.

And somewhere inside Silas, the boy who once scratched dates into concrete finally stopped counting days.

He had come home.