Camilla Gibb: Between Wars

“’War,’ she repeats. What is the worst thing that ever happened to you?’ she asks him then.
He lifts his shirt and shows her a belly riddled with scars.
She gasps because she is a girl who loves tough men, because she is a girl who longs for a hero, she gasps and falls in love in that instant, wants to kiss his stomach and see him punch out one of the assholes who sits in the coffee shop after his shift and drinks until he cannot restrain himself from trying to untie her apron string, to drag her down onto his lap.
Because he is a man who didn’t grow up with this American romance, Amir doesn’t know what to make of her reaction. Is she horrified? Is she sickened? Does she think he is at fault? He is embarrassed to have been so bold. But she puts her palms against his shoulders then and leans her whole body against him. He remains still while she kisses him tenderly between the sparse black hairs on his chest.” (146)

Between Wars, in Contemporary Canadian Women's Stories, Ed. Lisa Moore.