A Mark That Stayed

A short reflection on what it means to feel real.

Sometimes you leave a room the same way you entered: untouched, unmarked, a passing shadow with no evidence that anything happened at all.

But that night, I didn’t.

When I got home, I caught myself in the bathroom mirror and saw it: the faint, perfect stamp of red, just below my jaw, pressed there by Natalia’s mouth.

A mark no one else would see, but I did—and for a long, silent minute, I couldn’t look away.

It wasn’t about the colour, or even her lips. It was about the way she saw me—not as an obligation, or a client, but as a man worth claiming.

She had smiled when she put it on, and after, she offered to leave it behind—as if she understood how much I needed the proof. As if she wanted the moment to last, even after she was gone.

I ran my finger over it, afraid it might vanish. But it stayed, stubborn as a memory, soft and real against my skin.

In that mark, I saw every version of myself that left empty—every night I wondered if it was possible to be chosen by someone beautiful, even for a moment.

I didn’t cry because I was lonely. I cried because, for once, I could point to the place where tenderness had lived, and say: here, I was real.

In the morning, the mark was gone.
But for the first time… I missed it the way you miss someone you’ve only just begun to love.

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A quiet share is how these felt truths travel to readers who might need them.

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Thank you.

- Søren Vale

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Felt Truths exists because of Ирина. She saw me before I believed I could be seen.