The back of my hand

On my left hand, in an almost central position, are two white marks. They are less than a millimetre across and maybe half a centimetre long at most. I've had them for just over 10 years (10 years, 5 months and 6 days). Nobody has ever noticed them. And if they ever were to and asked me about them, I would lie.

In my head, I like to pretend that I got them when I came home drunk one night. I fell in my front door drunk, scraped my hand on the door jamb of the kitchen which was what gave me the marks, and then in a pissed up manner passed out peacefully whilst The Cat sat atop me, keeping guard. That injury did happen, but it didn't give me the marks. Ella did.

Ella is the only aspect of my past that I lie about, and I do so freely without reprimanding myself. To acknowledge the truth about how I feel about her; to acknowledge the truth about what I did is too enormous for me. I can never let her sit in my mind for too long - I can't contemplate the "what ifs?", and I can never tell the entire truth of what happened. She haunts me. Not daily, not constantly, but she's there.

Any time I start to forget; any time that my subconscious deems that she has been absent from my mind for too long; my eyes will turn to the back of my hand, and I remember.