Until now, she’d never thought of herself as pretty. She though of her body as a reclamation project. One of those trash dump sites that had filled up and had to be pounded down, covered over and made to look like something else. Something stable and pretty. Like a piece of ground someone would be willing to invest in - maybe build some houses on and raise kids without ever knowing what was underneath.

She couldn't fix everything, of course. Those scars...well, there just wasn't much she could do about them. Long sleeves, not tanning too much so they wouldn't stand out, that was about it. The rest of it, though... oh, yeah. She'd taken a bulldozer to that. Slipping a hand underneath her shirt, she gently ran her fingers across long stretches of rib pushing at her skin, dipping into the depressions that lay between. Not much more to go and she would be done.