Written in the Scars

by Adriana Locke

  “Yeah,” I mumble. “He’s been gone for weeks and—boom! He’s back. And then he doesn’t even speak to me, Linds. Like I’m some stranger.”

  “Give it time.”

  “Time for what?” I look at my best friend, bewildered. She knows what I’ve been through. She picked me up that afternoon and sat with me in the middle of my bed and held me while I came to terms with losing a baby I never knew I was going to have. It was her that picked up the pieces that day. How can she tell me to give it time?

  “Time to work out, Elin. He just came back. He was probably as overwhelmed as you were.”

  “He had the advantage of knowing what he was walking into.” I sigh, exhaustion evident in the heaviness of my voice. “Late last night, I was sitting on my bed and a thought hit me: maybe it’s over.”

  She blanches, reaching for my hand.

  “No, really, Lindsay,” I sputter, my voice cracking. “Maybe it is. Maybe I just accept that we aren’t who we once were and we need to let it go.”

  Her eyes fill with tears, her bottom lip quivering.

  “What are you doing crying?” I laugh. “You can’t cry or I’ll cry, and I’ve cried enough.”

  “I just hate this,” she sniffles.

  “I hate it, but I don’t want to hate him. And it’s getting so easy to.”

  She looks around the room before settling her eyes on me. “We always said we’d be pregnant together,” she whispers.

  I take off around the island before stopping dead in my tracks. A cold rush races across my skin. “Wait,” I gulp. “Are you . . .”

  I look up at my best friend and she nods slowly, her eyes filled with trepidation.

  “Lindsay!” I exclaim, racing to her side. “Oh my God!”

  Tears spill down her rosy cheeks. I grab her and pull her to me. I can’t say anything, the lump in my throat too massive to get around.

  I’m thrilled for her, my best friend carrying my niece or nephew that I already know I will love more than any human being on this planet. But at the same time, I’m heartbroken because she’s right. We were going to do this together. Not only are we not doing it together, I’m starting from scratch. Without Tyler.

  “I’m sorry, Elin,” she sniffles.

  “Don’t you ever say that again,” I laugh, pulling back and wiping the tears from her eyes and mine too. “I’m happy for you.”

  “I know. But I didn’t even want to tell you. It just feels so unfair.”

  I paste a smile on my face for both of our benefits. “It’s life, and you’re bringing a new one, my niece or nephew, into the world. That isn’t unfair in any way. That’s exciting and exactly how it should be.”

  The front door closes, causing us to jump, and his voices rolls through the house. “Jiggs? You in here? Linds?”

  I grab the counter behind me for stability. My cheeks are stained with tears, but I’m too frozen, too off-guard, to dry them before he sees.

  Ty walks around the corner and his sight lands immediately on me. He stops in his tracks, the playful smirk on his face vanishing. “I, uh,” he stutters, looking at Lindsay. “Linds?”

  “Hey, Ty,” she says carefully. “Jiggs is out back.”

  He doesn’t move a muscle, only his eyes, and those just enough to find me again. The energy between us crackles, the air thickening by the second.

  He pulls his hat off his head, smoothing down hair that’s still damp from a shower. The movement is enough to rustle me out of my daze.

  I look away, swiping a tissue off the counter and dabbing at my eyes. My hands tremble as they swipe at my face.

  “You okay, E?” His words are so soft, so kind, I would think they weren’t real if Lindsay didn’t look at me, waiting on my response.

  I nod my head, but of course I’m not all right. I haven’t been in a long time, but why should he start caring now? Because he has an audience? Because Lindsay is standing there watching?

  I focus on her, using her as a crutch to keep me level. “I’m going to go,” I whisper, only meaning for Lindsay to hear.

  “Don’t,” Ty says quickly from the other side of the room. “I’ll go. Jiggs said—”

  Laughter floats inside the room as Jiggs and Cord return. Jiggs stops in his tracks when he realizes what he’s just walked into. He looks from me, to Ty, then to the ceiling.

  I shoot him a dagger, knowing exactly what he’s done.

  “Jiggs said what?” Cord asks. He grabs a brownie and has it inches from his face when he looks up. Assessing the situation, knowing Ty and I wouldn’t be in the same place at the same time on purpose, he puts the dessert back on the counter. “I can only imagine what Jiggs said to make this happen.”

  “Look,” my brother starts, shoving his hands in his pockets, “you’re both here now. Let’s go outside and have a hot dog and a beer.”

  “I didn’t know she was going to be here,” Ty says, directly to Jiggs.

  I look at Ty, baffled by the way he used a pronoun to refer to me. “What did I ever do to you?” I scream inside my mind. Instead of saying that or throwing the mug of coffee sitting in front of me at his face, I turn to my brother.

  “I asked you if he was going to be here. You said no, otherwise, I wouldn’t be.”

  Their heads whip to me, reacting to the fury in my voice. My cheeks are hot, half from pure anger at my brother and half from embarrassment. Even though they’re my friends, my family, except for Cord and practically him too, it’s still mortifying. They know he left me, and they must wonder, too, what is so wrong with me that my husband, the man I’ve loved my entire life, walked out and hasn’t bothered to come home.

  “Did you lie to me, Jiggs?” I ask, feeling Lindsay’s hand rest on my forearm.

  “Look, sis, I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t think he was coming.”

  “I can leave,” Ty says, boring a hole into Jiggs’ skull with his stare. “I probably should go, actually.”

  His shoulders slump, his navy blue Henley showing off the width of his shoulders and his trim waistline. He turns towards the foyer when Cord speaks up.

  “Hey, man. Why don’t you stay?”

  Cord takes a step towards me, his sparkling green eyes soft. “That’s an awful big yard out there, don’t you think, Elin? I’m pretty sure we can all enjoy the night and give each other some space. I mean, fuck, remember the night Jiggs got drunk as fuck and puked all over himself? We all avoided him like the plague because he stunk so bad.”

  The memory eases the tension in the air just enough for us to chuckle under our breath. I can’t look at my husband, though I know he’s looking at me.

  “You’d be all right with that, right, Elin?” Cord asks gently, coaxing words from my lips. “We’re just five friends. Two of y’all are just fighting right now, which, by the way, has gotta stop. Ty is sleeping at my place and he’s messy as fuck.”

  My gaze focused on Cord, I start to grin. “I know he is. Good luck with that.”

  There’s no denying the relief in my posture at knowing Ty is at Cord’s.

  “I can leave, E, if it makes it easier for you,” Ty says, causing me to shiver at the intimacy in his tone.

  They all look at me again, the weight of their gazes too much to bear. I grab the plate of brownies off the counter and head to the back door. “I’m taking these outside. Ty can do whatever he wants. He’s been great at avoiding me for weeks now. I’m sure he can manage another couple of hours.”

  The door slams behind me.

  TY

  The fire crackles, sending sparks shooting into the sky. Scents of burnt marshmallows and hot dogs linger in the chilly night air as most of the people I grew up with relax on hay bales and lawn chairs.

  The party is a lot tamer than most of the bonfires out here. So many of the guys I grew up with, even some of our dads, worked at the mine and are now unemployed. It’s not just a truck payment we have to cover now; we have families and mortgages and bills.

  The lucky ones do, I gues
s.

  Maybe that’s why no one is doing anything that would need the fire department this time. Everyone has too much on their minds—real shit—for mischief. It’s just as well. I don’t even want to be here. I wasn’t even going to stay, just stop by and say hi, until I saw her. Now I can’t leave.

  Twirling the bottle of beer between my fingers, I watch Elin across the fire. She’s talking to Lindsay, her hand on her friend’s stomach, and I realize they’ve told her about the baby. I take a swig of beer, more to squash the burning in my throat than because of thirst.

  A baby—that’s what we’ve always wanted. I felt guilty our senior year of high school when she thought she was pregnant and I was happy about it. There are worse things than a baby. I hated being an only child. I wanted the chaos the neighbors had with five boys.

  Elin’s mom used to say she and I had the same spirit. That’s why we were so drawn together. I didn’t correct her and say it was her daughter’s ass that initially drew in, but it was her sweet, selfless spirit that kept me.

  Her having my kids, my name, felt like such a victory. Such a coup. What more could a man want than to find a woman of Elin’s caliber to have your family with?

  Our life was built on that. The house we picked out has a large oak tree that Elin thought was the perfect view for a nursery. Her job teaching would keep her home on holidays and summers and my job at the mine would afford us plenty of money to raise a slew of children. It might even let her stay home, if she chose.

  To think none of that might happen . . .

  “Hey, man,” Cord says, bumping my shoulder. He plops his tall frame into the chair beside me. “How are ya?”

  I shrug.

  “Yeah, I feel ya,” he voices, following my line of sight. “She’s pretty hot.”

  My head jerks to the side, my fist ready to pound his face. I don’t give a fuck that he’s one of my oldest friends. He just crossed a line.

  “Oh, did you think I meant Elin?” he laughs. “I was actually talking about Becca, but Elin isn’t bad either.” He tosses me a wink.

  “I just about ended you, McCurry,” I chuckle, sitting back in my chair. “You were this close to dying tonight.”

  Cord laughs and stretches his legs. “Yeah, well, what are you going to do when you do see her with someone else? Have you thought about that?”

  Yeah, I’ve thought about it, and it makes me want to end up in prison for a very, very long time. Instead of answering, I just watch my wife from the safety of the darkness.

  The light of the fire highlights her delicate cheekbones and the fullness of her soft lips. Her hair brushes against her shoulders as it hangs straight, not curled or fixed up like she usually does. She’s thinner than I remember, and I miss her curves and hate knowing that they’re missing because of me.

  “Have you talked to her at all?” Cord asks.

  I start to respond but press my lips together instead. Whatever I say is going to make me sound like a pussy.

  “Do you remember when my birth mother came looking for me a few years ago?” he presses. “Fuck, that was hard, Ty. I grew up hating even the idea of her. I was never the kid that wanted to know her. I was the boy in foster home after foster home, wondering why my own mother didn’t love me enough to keep me. Wondering why I had to live with the alcoholic in a rage downstairs or the foster mom that had me only for the check, not to actually feed me or take care of me. I mean, if my birth mom couldn’t love me, didn’t want me, no one would.”

  He looks into the night, away from everyone, and I watch as a flurry of memories skirt across his face.

  “You know, one night I remember lying in a bed with no blanket or pillow, and it was cold as hell,” he says to himself more than to me. “It must’ve been December or so because I remember seeing Christmas lights out the window. My stomach ached,” he cringes, “and I mean ached. I hadn’t eaten more than a half a sandwich in a couple of days and a handful of iced animal cookies I snuck out of the cabinet in the middle of the night.” His voice breaks and he pulls away from me, turns so I can’t see his face anymore. “I remember lying there and praying that my mother and father, wherever they were, were hungry and cold and miserable. I prayed they died.”

  I watch his shoulders tense, his jaw clench, and I feel absolutely terrible for him. “Man, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

  He faces me. “I hated my parents more than I ever thought one person could hate another. Their choices ruined my life. And then my mom showed up out of nowhere.”

  “I remember that. She came into Thoroughbreds, right?”

  “Yeah. And she asked me who I was, and I told her, and she started crying,” he says, the corner of his lips twitching. “I called her every name under the sun. I mean, I really ripped into her. But after I settled down some and the shock wore off, we went out to the lake and sat by the water and talked. It was . . . it was okay.”

  He quiets, stares across the night. “She made me all of these promises, swore she wanted to be a part of my life. Not that I believed her, but she said them anyway. Then she disappeared again.”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeat. I wonder how often he thinks about that and how it feels to be all alone. Because he is. Without Jiggs and I and Elin and Lindsay, Cord is by himself.

  He turns to me, his eyes boring into mine. His gaze tells me this isn’t just a life story—he has a point. And if I thought hard enough about it, I’m fairly certain I could figure it out. But who wants to do that?

  “You get what I’m saying, Ty?”

  I take a drink and look for Elin.

  “You need to attempt to fix this,” he insists. “Your choices might have fucked shit up—her choices too—but you need to make good ones now to repair the damage.”

  Ignoring him, I take another swig.

  “She may not forgive you for leaving her. She might not want any part of you.”

  Swinging around, I shoot him a glare. He shrugs.

  “She might not,” he repeats. “But I’m fairly certain her reaction right now is just an emotional overload. She’s trying to figure this all out, and you’re the one that caused the pain, so she’s lashing out at you.”

  “Thanks,” I grimace.

  “Well, you’re the one that left.”

  “Shut up, McCurry.”

  “Truth hurts, but I’m telling it to you anyway.” He leans forward. “Don’t you respect everything you’ve been through enough to at least go and talk to her?”

  “And say what, Cord? That I’m a piece of shit that left when I should’ve fought, that took the easy road—”

  “You didn’t take the easy road,” he says. “You did what you thought was best. You left so matters didn’t get worse.”

  “I left because I was at the end of my goddamn rope.” I stand, shoving off the chair so hard it almost falls over. “I left because I didn’t know what to do to fix any of it. I left because I was a fucking pussy.”

  “Ty, wait—”

  “I need to piss.”

  Heading for the house, I keep my eyes open for Elin but don’t find her. I need to at least get a visual on her, make sure she’s okay. The tears on her face when I walked in tonight stabbed me in the chest, and I think I’ve bled a little all night.

  It’s not that I think she hasn’t cried. It’s just I can’t see it. I don’t think I can shake the image. Two to four in the morning, the hours my mind goes through every mistake I’ve ever made, will be fun tonight.

  Cord is right. Of course he is. There’s a part of me that’s desperate to talk to her, craving some form of interaction with Elin. But I know I have to tread lightly because something’s different about her. Something’s happened. I just don’t know what or why it changed even more between us.

  The kitchen is deserted when I walk in. I make my way down the narrow hallway to the little bathroom off the guest bedroom I’ve stayed in a number of times. My hand is reaching for the knob when it pulls open.

  “Oh!” Elin
yelps, her eyes going wide. She takes a big step back inside the bathroom.

  Under the bright lights of the vanity, I can see the pink in her cheeks from the fire. I can smell her perfume mixed with the smoke from outside. It’s a vanilla scent I haven’t smelled since I went to the house the day after I left to get some of my clothes while she was at work.

  My breath stills, my throat going dry. I’m unsteady on my feet and my hand reaches for the doorjamb for support.

  She watches me like she’s being cornered. Her chest rises and falls like she just got finished walking the five miles around town that she does every evening.

  I should walk away. I should turn and walk down the fucking hallway and to my truck and leave. I should. Before I do more damage.

  “How are ya, Elin?” I ask instead because it’s her in front of me, and it’s the most natural thing in the world. It’s how my world should be, she and I, close enough to touch . . . yet she shouldn’t have that look in her eye, and I shouldn’t feel like a miserable puke.

  “Ty,” she breathes, her voice trembling as hard as her hands.

  Instinctively, I start towards her, but her stumble back halts me. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I should get out of her way and let her pass. But after not having been this close to her in so long, I can’t do that. I need every second she’ll give me. I wouldn’t have searched for her like this, but now that we’re here, I can’t break the moment. I won’t.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, searching her face for the truth because I’m not sure she’ll give it to me. I’m not even completely sure I want to hear it.

  “Sure.”

  She fidgets and that’s enough to cause the air to escape my lungs, an invisible knife to slice the wall between us.

  “Elin,” I start to plead, “I just . . .”

  Tears flood her eyes, but her lips form a thin, hard line. “You just what, Ty?” she spits. The words come out, a sob mixed with a ferocity that knocks me back a few steps. “You just want to stand there and act like we’re friends from high school just running into each other randomly at a party?”

  “No,” I snort, watching her body stiffen. “I want to see how you are.” Her posture softens just a bit, and I decide to push a little. “I was thinking maybe I could swing by the house. We could talk.”