Written in the Scars

by Adriana Locke

  She drags in a long, deep breath that shakes her chest. Her eyes grow wide, her hand clamping on my wrist. “I . . .”

  My phone rings in my pocket, and the sound shakes her out of the moment.

  “You should get that,” she says, clearing her throat. She releases my wrist and steps away from my touch.

  Growling, I pull the offender from my pocket and see Jiggs’ name. “It’s your brother.”

  “Go,” she says, grabbing her bag off the floor beside the table. Her voice is clear now, the moment of truth far behind us. “I need to get to this anyway.”

  “You sure you don’t wanna talk?”

  With the bag on her shoulder, she turns on her heel. A look of resolution is stretched across her face. “I’m sure.”

  It’s clear I’m not going to get anywhere now, just dig myself in a deeper hole. I head for the door but stop beside her.

  Not giving her a chance to object, I slide her against me and press a kiss to the top of her head. “I love you. This bullshit is gonna stop soon, one way or the other. My patience is running thin. So figure out how you’re gonna deal when I come home for good because it’s happening.”

  And then I leave, the door squealing behind me.

  ELIN

  “Hello?” I squint against the late afternoon sun and toggle the phone against my ear.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Hang on,” I mumble, getting the phone situated before I pull out onto the highway. “Okay. That’s better. How are you, Linds?”

  “Oh, I’m good. Just sitting over here, wondering why my best friend hasn’t answered my calls in two freaking days. Just peachy.”

  Rolling my eyes, I smile. “I’m sorry. I just have a lot going on and need some space to think.”

  “Space? From me? Sorry, my friend. You don’t get that.”

  I laugh, squeezing my car in between two trucks and barreling down the road towards my house.

  It’s been a long day full of addition and the letters S and T. Of course, half of the kids in the class that had to bring something that started with a T brought a tie. And every time I said “tie,” I was thinking “Ty,” and my heart hurt a little. Or a lot. Definitely more than was fair.

  “Things are just weird,” I tell her. “I have a lot on my mind.”

  “Jiggs said that Ty’s been coming around to see you.”

  “I’ve seen him a couple of times,” I admit.

  She sighs. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “I don’t know. One minute I think one thing and the next . . .”

  “Did he tell you where he went? Did he explain things?”

  “Yeah.”

  She pauses and waits for me to continue. I don’t. As much as I love her, Ty’s problems are his to tell. I won’t betray that, not even for her.

  “So . . .” she leads.

  “So he explained it and I understand.”

  “What’s the hold-up then?” she asks.

  I flip my turn signal on and make a left onto my road. “I just want to make sure it’s the right thing to do. I love him and I know he loves me. But, really, our problems aren’t resolved. We are just kind of in limbo right this second.”

  “So you just don’t want to jump right back into it?”

  “Exactly.”

  She takes a deep breath. “Did you tell him about the baby?”

  My chest squeezes. “No, I haven’t. It’s gonna break his heart and it’s going to be devastating to me to tell him. And, really, I’m not sure if it matters.”

  “Of course it fucking matters!” she says. “I will always take your side in an argument publicly, but if you don’t tell him about this, and soon, you are wrong, Elin.”

  I fill my lungs with air and blow it out slowly. This is something I’ve been pondering, something I know is true. I need to tell him. I need to let him know the truth. He deserves it. I just can’t bring myself to bring it up.

  “Tell me about the baby,” I say, changing the subject. “How do you feel?”

  “Gosh, I feel pretty good, actually,” she nearly sings. “I’ve been a little sick, but nothing I can complain about. I go to the doctor again in two weeks and I think we’ll be able to hear the heartbeat!”

  I swallow past a lump in my throat. “I’d like to go with you. I mean, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’d love that, Elin.”

  “I’m pulling into the house,” I say as I hook a right onto the driveway. “But let’s get together this weekend and have lunch. Sound good?”

  “Absolutely. And call me if you need anything. Please. Whatever you’re going through, you don’t have to do it alone.” She hesitates. “You know what, call me even if you don’t need anything. Call me because I’m a needy friend and you know I’ll bitch if I don’t hear your voice.”

  I grab my bag off the passenger’s seat and head to the back door, chuckling. “I love you. I’ll call you soon.”

  “Night, chickie.”

  Popping the door open, I’m met with a chill. The air isn’t warm like I expect after leaving it set on 74-degrees. I flip on lights, set my bag down, and check the thermostat. It’s on but not running.

  “Shit,” I say out loud, looking at the ceiling.

  The furnace does this each start to winter. There’s some trick to it that Ty figured out the second year we lived here. A trick I don’t know.

  I eye the basement door on the other side of the kitchen. It mocks me with its hidden shadows and bugs and damp crevices. Shivering, I wonder if Jiggs could get it working or if I’m going to have to call my husband.

  My lip twitches at the thought of seeing him again, and I try to kick myself for it, but I don’t. Wanting to see him is as natural to me as breathing or sleeping or craving soda.

  Slumping against the wall, I can feel my heart thumping against my ribs. A decision is going to have to be made. I’ve known it since he left after taco night.

  I’m going to have to either be firm and end this for good or I’m going to have to tell him my truths and try to work this out. The latter is something I don’t think I can survive.

  Taking a deep breath, I head through the kitchen and place my hand on the knob to the basement door.

  I can do this.

  TY

  “I’m fucking beat.” I toss my gloves in the back of the truck, looking over the bed at Jiggs.

  He laughs. “I told you before we got here this morning that this was going to suck.”

  “Thanks though for the hookup today.”

  My leg cramps, the muscle still not fully rehabilitated. It hurts like a motherfucker. Still, it’s money I can give to Elin to put back in savings. I’ll do it every day for the rest of my life if I have to. I want to if that means I can make things right. If I can get one step closer to having a full house and family again.

  “He said he didn’t know how much longer he’d have work for us, but if Murphy can get us back to mining in the next couple of weeks, it should work out.”

  “Let’s fucking hope.”

  Jiggs digs around in his lunch box and pulls out a giant pickle. “So how’s my sister?” he asks, taking a snap off the cured cucumber.

  “Watching you eat that is like watching you eat a dick. I can’t.”

  “Fuck off,” he laughs, swallowing. But he doesn’t take another bite.

  “Elin’s . . . Elin,” I shrug. “I’m trying to see her without pushing her because I’m scared as hell to go right back to screaming matches again. But fuck, Jiggs, I’m tired of not being home. I’m sick of not seeing her every day.”

  “You think she’s coming around at all?”

  “I got papers in the mail when I went by Cord’s at lunch,” I laugh. “Not divorce papers, just a set from Parker explaining the process and what he would suggest. So I guess not.”

  He whistles between his teeth. “She’ll be all right. Just give her a little space. Let her come to you.”

  “She—” I’m cut off by my pho
ne ringing. I grab it out of my pocket to see Elin’s face. “It’s her,” I grin, swiping the screen. “Hey, E!”

  “Hi,” she says, irritation thick in her voice. “What’s the trick to the furnace?”

  “The trick to the furnace?” I laugh. “Why? What’s it doing?”

  “That damn thing it does every winter. I have no idea what I’m looking at and it’s cold in here.”

  “Want me to come fix it?” I grin, looking at Jiggs.

  She sighs. “Just tell me how to fix it and I’ll do it. Or I’ll call my brother.”

  “But I was your first call. I like that,” I laugh.

  “Forget it. I’ll call Jiggs.”

  “He’s standing right here, and he knows nothing about furnaces, right, Jiggs?”

  “I got nothing, Elin!” he shouts as I hold the phone up in the air.

  “See?” I say. “You better let me help you.”

  She yelps in the phone, making me laugh.

  “Are you in the basement?” I ask, trying to imagine her in the place she’s deemed the scariest place on earth.

  “Yes,” she whines.

  “Don’t look on the north windowsill. The spider that lives in that web is as big as my hand.”

  “Fuck you,” she says, her voice wavering.

  “And the snake that lives—”

  “Forget it!” she screams.

  Her feet pounding against the stairs leading to the kitchen has me laughing out loud. “Elin, calm down. I was only kidding.”

  “Just come fix it. Please,” she begs as the basement door shuts and locks behind her.

  “You don’t have to ask me twice. Be there in a second.”

  I give a quick salute to Jiggs and hop in my truck. Racing the 8.2 miles across town to the house, I get there in half the time it should take.

  Jogging to the back door, my breath billowing in front of me, I rap against the door quickly before pushing it open. She’s standing in front of the stove, a sweater wrapped around her shoulders.

  “Hey,” I say, noticing how the sunlight streaming in from the window makes her look like she has a halo.

  “Hey,” she says, looking defeated.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  She shrugs, her shoulders slumping.

  “You didn’t want to call me, huh?” I laugh.

  The sound eases her posture and she stands straight and smiles. “No, but I’m freezing, so I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Thank God for small favors.” I toss the envelope from her attorney on the counter. “You can have that.”

  Turning to head to the basement door, I hear her pick up the envelope.

  “No, that’s your copy to read,” she says from behind me.

  “Already told you,” I say, opening the door, “I’m not participating in this madness.”

  I leave her, jaw hanging wide, as I barrel down the rickety stairs and work my magic on the furnace. In less than three minutes, it’s up and running. Elin cheers from the kitchen.

  Bounding back up the steps, her smiling face is waiting on me.

  “Thank you,” she says earnestly. “I know you didn’t have to come over here and do that.”

  “Of course I did.”

  She frowns, but doesn’t argue. Progress.

  “You know,” I say, trying to figure out how to delay my inevitable departure, “it’s warmer outside than it is in here.”

  “Hopefully it doesn’t take long to heat up.”

  “Let’s go outside,” I say, trying to hide the fact that I’m scheming ways to stay with her.

  “For what?”

  “To not freeze to death,” I say like she’s silly, and wrap my arm around the small of her back. She lets me guide her outside. She feels so good against my arm that I have half a notion to keep walking and walking until we are at the sea.

  The sky is a ripple of pinks and purples and oranges as it begins its drop over the horizon and I tuck her into my side as we watch the colors bleed together.

  “Thank you for helping me,” she whispers, not taking her eyes off the sunset. “I was scared to call you.”

  “Why would you be scared to call me?”

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t answer.”

  When she looks at me, her eyes are full of some unnamed emotion. It sparks a desire in me to fight whatever demon has put that look there. I lift her chin. Her skin is so soft under my touch. My thumb strokes her cheek as I gaze into her eyes.

  “Never be scared to call me. Don’t hesitate to ask me for what you need, what you want. I know I walked out,” I say, gulping, “but it wasn’t walking out on you. And I will never do that to you again. I swear to God.”

  “I know you won’t.”

  “What?” I say in disbelief. “I mean, you’re right, I won’t, but you know that? You believe me?”

  She nods, turning her head to kiss my palm. Her lips tremble against the rough skin on my hand, her hand shaking ever-so-slightly as she holds it.

  “I do believe you,” she says softly. “But that doesn’t fix everything.”

  I pull her into me, trying to put her, me, our life back together with my embrace. Her arms find my waist, and I hold her in the middle of the driveway, swaying back and forth in a moment I’ll never, ever forget. The feeling of my world careening back into focus, into the places it should be, nearly drops me to my knees with my girl in my arms.

  “I should go in,” she says, looking up at me.

  “It’s cold in there.”

  She shrugs and I see her start to slip away from me again. Frantic, I struggle to find a way to stop it.

  “Let’s go for a drive,” I suggest.

  She looks at me warily.

  “It’s just a drive,” I promise. “The house can warm up and then I’ll drop you back off, if that’s what you want. What can it hurt?”

  “You won’t try to make out with me or anything, right?” she teases. “Because I know that look in your eye, Tyler Whitt.”

  “Only if you ask,” I wink, opening the door to my truck and watching her climb in. Before I shut it, I lean in and whisper into her ear. “Hey, E.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Please ask.”

  ELIN

  It’s like your favorite sweater on a crisp winter day or the smell of your grandmother’s apple pie at Sunday dinner. It’s walking into your childhood bedroom, even though you haven’t been in there for ten years, and knowing exactly where your possessions are because that’s your space. That’s your room. That’s home.

  Being in Ty’s truck as we drive out of town and hit a back road, dust flying off the tires as the asphalt turns into gravel, is the same thing. My heart finds a rhythm that’s eluded me, my body releasing the rigidity that’s stretched over my shoulders. I can breathe, here, with him, in this old truck.

  I glance over my shoulder. He has one hand on the steering wheel, the other on his thigh. His hair is a mussed up mess, the dark locks sticking up everywhere. It’s reminiscent of how it looks in the morning when he rolls out of bed, and I have a hard time keeping my hands to myself. Watching him get dressed and undressed used to be the best part of my day.

  The ice around my heart, the wall I’ve so carefully constructed, is crumbling. I feel it. As much as I want it to be there to protect me, I like the feeling of . . . this. It’s the warmth of being me, of being part of a relationship that’s a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing. Even though things have been rocky, this is my life. I know it. I feel it. I want it.

  He catches me checking him out and smiles, reaching across the console and taking my hand in his. Flipping my hand over, he rubs his thumb across my palm and focuses his attention back on the road.

  “You wanna know something?” he asks, his voice deep and crackly.

  “Sure,” I say, watching his eyes squint as he turns the truck up the lane to Moon Mountain, a hill that overlooks Dugger Lake. It’s our favorite parking spot, one that we’ve used countless times since Ty got his license.
“I said no making out!” I laugh, taking my hand away from his.

  “You did not. You asked if I was going to try and I said not unless you ask. I’m hoping if I set the mood right, you’ll ask,” he smirks.

  The truck hits the top of the hill just as the final rays of sunlight stream from the sky. The lake that the hill overlooks ripples in the breeze, the green cattle fields surrounding it shining with the dew that’s beginning to settle.

  “It’s so beautiful up here,” I say as Ty turns off the ignition. It’s silent, absolutely still, and I pop open my door and hop out.

  The air is clean yet chilly, but I don’t have time to take in the cold. Ty opens the tailgate and picks me up and sets me on it, settling between my legs with a hesitant smile on his lips.

  “You are so beautiful,” he says, stroking my cheek.

  “Charmer,” I giggle, unable to resist the handsome face in front of me.

  He laughs and takes his place beside me, his knee touching mine as our legs swing off the end.

  “Feels like we’ve done this a time or two,” he points out.

  “Because we’ve done this a time or a hundred. So many memories up here.”

  I look around the land below. I know what this looks like at dusk, like now, and also as the morning sun rises behind me. I know what it looks like at midnight when the world sleeps and what it looks like at six a.m. when only a few trucks pass along the road below as people begin to come to life and head off for their day.

  “We’ve celebrated birthdays up here. Remember when you and Jiggs turned twenty-one and he decided he was going to try to swim that lake to celebrate?” Ty laughs.

  “Yeah, in January! He almost got hypothermia,” I remember. “Or when Cord started a fire that one night after you won the basketball Sectional and it got away from him and almost burned that field?”

  “I forgot about that,” Ty laughs. “I think he threw gas on the fire to start it. He really should’ve tried Boy Scouts as a kid or something.”

  “What about when my parents passed away and I couldn’t stop crying? You brought me here then, remember? And let me just have my tears and screams away from everyone?”

  “Yeah,” he says, nodding. He looks at me over his shoulder, his dark eyes peering at me. “Remember when we celebrated our first anniversary in this very spot? We were too poor to go to dinner, so we packed bologna and cheese sandwiches and came here instead?”