Written in the Scars Read online

  “You’re a shit mechanic.” Relief washes over me at his easy, nonviolent, greeting.

  He nods and leans against the doorframe of the rusty truck, the paint peeling off the antiquated structure. “Truth. But that’s why we’re friends. You’re not.”

  “Asshole,” I laugh, grasping his shoulder as I pass deeper into the barn.

  “What made you decide to bless us with your presence?” The caution is there, the yellow flag warning me to proceed carefully. That he’s Elin’s brother before he’s my friend.

  I knew coming back to town would mean answering for things. Looking into the eyes of the people I care about and seeing fury or annoyance . . . or a broken heart. Imagining how to handle the judgement was easier in the farmhouse, fifty miles away.

  “You gonna answer me, Whitt?” His work gloves come off and go hurling across the barn. “I’m glad to see that ugly mug of yours, but you have some explaining to do.”

  “I know.” Cringing and gathering whatever pride I can find lying around, I suck in a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “What do you want to know?” I ask, unsure where to even start. Everything is so scrambled, I don’t know which way to go.

  “Where the hell you been?”

  “North of Terre Haute. Cecil Kruger’s farm. He was a friend of my dad’s back in the day.”

  “You didn’t think to call? To answer any of our thousands of fucking calls?”

  My head drops, my gaze landing on a discarded pop tab in the dirt floor. “I smashed my phone and didn’t replace it. I was going to . . .” My chin lifts. “I’ll be honest with ya, Jiggs. The quiet was nice. No fighting. No reminder of how fucked up I am or how fucked up everything is.”

  “So you just fucked it up worse?” he laughs angrily.

  “I figured it might do Elin and I both some good to take a break. To, you know, have some time to think about things.”

  Dust covers my boot as I kick the ground, waiting on him to reply. I’m at his mercy. Whatever he doles out, I deserve.

  “Why did you come back? Why now?” he asks finally.

  “Because it’s time.”

  Our eyes meet over the hood of the truck. He searches mine, looking for the meaning of my words. Together, our heads begin to nod in understanding.

  “You can’t expect things to go back to the way they were,” he says, picking up a wrench.

  “I don’t.”

  “Then what do you expect?”

  It’s a simple question. One I can’t answer. I don’t even know what I have to come home to. My wife hates me. My best friend is skeptical of me. I even resigned from coaching the high school basketball team before I left, the one true passion of my life. What’s left?

  “Why didn’t you come talk to me? Or to Cord, if you didn’t want to talk to me about things with my sister? Why let it get like this, Ty?”

  “I wish I knew,” I mutter.

  Jiggs sighs, resting his forearms on the truck’s frame. “We worried about you. No one could get ahold of you. Elin was a fucking disaster, Ty, and I honestly thought she was going to have a breakdown. The only person to see you was Pettis—”

  “Woah, wait. Pettis?”

  “Yeah. Said he saw you in Rockville a couple weeks ago.”

  Racking my brain for where Pettis would’ve seen me, I come up blank. I didn’t see him. I wasn’t anywhere to see him to begin with. Before I can think it through, Jiggs speaks.

  “Part of me wants to kill you and toss you in the lake back there,” he says, jutting his thumb over his shoulder.

  “Might be easier.”

  “Oh, it would. Which is exactly why I won’t do it.”

  “Pussy,” I tease.

  Jiggs laughs, shoving away from the truck. “Why did you leave?” Before I can answer, his gaze narrows. “The real reason, Ty. Cut the shit. Give it to me straight.”

  “You know what it was?” I ask, a burn igniting in my chest. “It was like getting smashed by the timber at work destroyed my entire life.”

  The pain in my core smolders, taking the loneliness of not having Elin, the loss of my team, the fury of losing everything I’ve ever wanted and worked for, and stokes the flames until it’s scalding.

  “You can’t go through all that, Ty, and not come out affected. Your leg was snapped in half a couple of hundred yards below the surface of the earth. We carried you out on a stretcher.” His tone is somber. “We thought you were going to fucking die. That’ll mess with you.”

  I nod. “Yeah, but I could’ve stayed sane. I could’ve managed everything better, but I didn’t. I let my marriage go to shit. I walked away from the team.”

  They should’ve started practice this week. I looked at my watch at exactly five-o’clock on Monday and imagined them lined up at half-court, wondering why Reynolds was in front of them and not me.

  I wonder what they thought, what they were told. How many voice messages were left in my inbox by them—Dustin, in particular. He’d have taken my leaving the hardest of them all and I should’ve reached out. But I didn’t. I failed them all too.

  “It was the right choice,” I say aloud, maybe more for myself than for Jiggs.

  “Maybe. But you aren’t just their coach. You’re their friend, their go-to. You can’t just say fuck it.”

  “I already did.”

  He looks at me and waits.

  “I don’t know why I’m here,” I admit. “Elin hates me.”

  “Yeah. Probably.”

  “I wish I could hate her.”

  Throwing me another cautionary glance, he strolls across the barn and gathers his gloves. “What are you gonna do? What’s the plan, Sir Fuck Up? I know you went to Blown. Lindsay called, said Elin left right after you.”

  “I’ll put it to you like this—my first move didn’t go as expected.”

  “You couldn’t have expected her to run to you. Cord calls her Pit Bull for a reason.”

  I can’t fight the grin that spreads across my lips. Her fire and her fight are my favorite things about her. “I didn’t,” I admit. “But I didn’t expect such a coldness from her. Like she despises me.”

  “Can you blame her?”

  “No,” I gulp. “But she told me to leave—”

  “I don’t give a fuck what Lindsay tells me,” Jiggs barks, his eyes lighting up, “I’m not leaving her. I don’t give a damn if she throws my shit in the yard and kicks my ass out the door, I’ll sit on the stoop until she lets me back in. Get my drift?”

  “I was at fucking rock bottom,” I toss back, offended that he thinks I just took a vacation from my life. “Don’t you get that? The accident, the pain, the bills adding up because there’s no overtime. Watching E have to kill herself to keep us both going when that’s my fucking job! Having to get into the savings fund we’d been putting aside for years to get in-vitro. I couldn’t even fuck my wife without it being on some motherfucking calendar! Then, month after month, she takes the goddamn test and it’s negative and I have to look at her face and realize it’s me that failed her!” I shout, my face hot to the touch. “Damn it, Jiggs! I didn’t leave her because it sounded easier! There was no other choice!”

  “I had no idea,” he whispers, his face paler than I’ve ever seen it.

  Turning away from him, I drag lungful after lungful of air into my body and focus on calming down. When I turn back around minutes later, Jiggs is sitting on a cooler watching me.

  “I just wanted to make things better,” I say. “I couldn’t stand fighting with her. There’s nothing worse than looking in the face of the person you love and seeing . . . disgust. Indifference. Wondering if she thinks you’re lazy or worthless or feels like you can’t even do your job and give her the baby you’ve both talked about since before you were even married.”

  “Ty, man, I really didn’t know.”

  “DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE? DO YOU KNOW HOW EMASCULATING IT IS TO NOT BE ABLE TO PROPERLY FUCK YOUR WIFE?�
�� I PAUSE, LETTING THAT SINK IN. “THE ONE TIME SHE GOT PREGNANT, SHE MISCARRIED. DO YOU REMEMBER THAT A FEW YEARS AGO? YEAH, WELL, SHE NEVER GOT OVER THAT. MAYBE IT WOULD’VE EASED UP IF I COULD’VE MADE IT HAPPEN AGAIN, BUT I FUCKING CAN’T!” I SCREAM. “I SWEAR TO GOD, IT’S JUST TOO MUCH PRESSURE. THAT’S THE PROBLEM.”

  “It all came to a head the day I left,” I say, a hollowness to my voice that even I hear. “We lashed out. I think the hurt we both were feeling just hid behind so much anger. It’s easier to be pissed off than to feel pissed on all the time.”

  Shaking my head, I lean against a work table. Saying this aloud to someone else feels good. Feels manageable. Jiggs offers nothing in response, so I keep going. “She told me to leave, and I left. I figured it couldn’t get any worse if I left, and it sure as shit wasn’t going to get any better if I stayed.”

  “I miss her,” I sigh. “No matter what I try to think about, it’s related to her. High school. The mine. The lake.” My jaw clenches as I look at him. “Our lives are one and the same, you know? Everything we’ve been through in our lives we’ve done together. I held her hand at your parent’s funeral, remember your mom’s lemon pie every time I go through the produce section. I know she hates storms and love being there for her when she reaches out.”

  “So fix it.” Jiggs raises his brows. “Go to her. Talk it out.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can,” he laughs. “You’re just a pussy.”

  “Maybe I am,” I chuckle. “But I’m afraid I’ll make it worse.”

  Jiggs rustles through a red cooler and pulls out a beer. “Want one?” he asks, extending a bottle.

  “No. Thanks anyway.”

  The top flies off and hits the dirt floor. He takes a long swallow, wiping his face with the back of his hand. “You coming by the bonfire tomorrow night?”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “You can’t pass, asshole. We do it every year.”

  Grabbing a wrench, I start to work on the truck’s alternator. “Yeah, we always have. But some things have changed.”

  “Maybe in your life, but your issues aren’t fucking up mine. You better show up or I might have to kick your ass.” He waits for me to respond. “Elin’s not coming, if that helps.”

  “Where’s she going?” I ask too quickly.

  “Some teaching thing or something,” he says, his voice on the bridge of a laugh. “So be here.”

  “We’ll see.”

  He leans under the hood with me, holding a wire out of my way. I glance at him out of the corner of my eye.

  “By the way,” I say, smirking. “You can’t whip my ass. Let’s not get it twisted.”

  He laughs, smacking my shoulder. Walking out of the barn, he leaves me with his broken truck and my thoughts of the woman I love too much to even love at all.

  ELIN

  The back door groans as I push it open into the kitchen. Letting it swing shut behind me, I sit my bag brimming with papers I need to grade on the kitchen counter. The thump resonates through the room, bouncing off the buttery-colored walls that Ty and I took forever choosing.

  “I love this color!” I squeal, holding up a color swatch and flashing it in front of his face. “It would be perfect in the kitchen of our new house.”

  “It looks like piss.” He grabs my wrist to stop the sample from waiving erratically.

  “It does not,” I pout. “It’s beautiful.”

  Instead of pulling the sample out of my hand, he tugs me closer to him. Leaning down, his lips hover inches from mine. “The color is piss, Mrs. Whitt. But if you like it, then we’ll take it, because my eyes won’t be on it when I’m in there. They’ll be on you.”

  I can feel the heat of his kiss lingering on my lips, even nearly seven years later, as my heart rapid-fires in my chest. He always let me have what I wanted, always made me feel like the only person in the world that mattered.

  How did things go so terribly wrong?

  The room feels empty, so barren, even with the knickknacks sitting on the counters and the dishes from last night’s dinner in the sink. It’s my home, but it doesn’t feel comforting. There’s no contentment to be found here.

  It’s been this way since he left. Even though I’ve purged the room of all of his physical belongings because I can’t look at them without wanting to curl up in a ball and die, that or throw them into the fire pit out back and burn them to ashes, the little nuances of him still exist and still hit me at hard.

  The oil stain on the floor beside the door is still there, a tarry looking spot made by his mine boots lying there after a shift. No amount of cleaner will remove it. I’ve tried them all.

  The little basket that hangs under the cabinets is now filled with ink pens and highlighters, not for any reason other than to take the place of Ty’s keys and gum packets. Even though it’s technically not empty now, it feels that way. Because what’s in it isn’t what should be.

  His face from only an hour ago pops in my mind, and I squeeze my eyes shut, like somehow that will make it go away. Like the action will barricade his rich, warm voice from echoing in my ears.

  The door creaks again and I jump, my eyes jerking to the door, my breath automatically ceasing. I watch and wait for it to swing open, for a knock, for a certain voice to call through the air. Because only two people use that door. Me and Ty.

  The wind rattles the glass against the wood and my hopes dash.

  “Damn it, Elin,” I mutter, my spirits sinking faster than I can gather them. I don’t miss the defeat in my shoulders or the squiggle in my bottom lip as I glance into the living room. The little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I stare at the back of the empty sofa.

  “Guess what happened to me today?” I saunter around the sofa and stand with my hands on my hips, trying not to melt down. He looks at me again. “I went to the bank to take some money out of the savings to pay the house insurance.”

  His face slips just a bit, the corners of his mouth dropping ever-so-slightly. Forcing a swallow, I suck in a breath and continue.

  “There’s over a grand missing from our account.”

  I watch him with bated breath, hoping to see him startle or confusion cross his features. He doesn’t look at me. He just watches the television like it’s the most interesting thing in the world.

  “Ty?”

  “Yeah?” His jaw is set, flexing under his grimace. “I took some cash. What’s the problem?”

  “What’s the problem?” I exclaim, my head spinning. “It’s a thousand dollars! It’s the money to start our family! What did you do with it?”

  He swings off the sofa, cringing as his weight settles on his leg. “It’s my fuckin’ money too, Elin. I don’t have to explain shit to you.”

  “If it were twenty or fifty bucks—hell, if it was a hundred dollars—I’d agree.”

  Our heated gazes meet. Mine in disbelief, his in some state of defense that I don’t understand.

  I think back on the past few weeks and a chill slowly twists itself through my body.

  The hours he goes missing. The sudden secretiveness of his phone. The hushed conversations, the distance he’s put between us. The fights we have that start over nothing and the more than willingness on his part to sleep on the couch. My stomach hits the floor, my knees wobbling.

  “Ty?” I ask, my voice shaking. “What did you do with that money?”

  “It’s none of your damn business.” Although his eyes blaze, his tone is more uncertain now as the words drop, weighted with insinuations.

  He stands, babying the leg that was hurt when a wall burst in the mine and snapped his fibula. He hasn’t been the same since—physically or mentally. It’s put a strain on our marriage as I’ve tried to keep up with him emotionally and financially.

  “Ty?” I choke out.

  He seems to understand my suggestion without me saying it, and I’m glad. I don’t think I could ask him out loud if he was planning on leaving me, if he had another woman somewhere wa
iting on him. I couldn’t handle that. I don’t care how bad things have been. I can’t stomach an affair. The thought alone sends bitter bile creeping up my throat.

  “If that’s true,” I say, squeezing the words past the lump in my throat,“then get out.”

  “Oh, you’re throwing me out now?” he asks, his voice rising. “Is that how it works?”

  “Were you fucking around on me?” I cry.

  “Was I fucking around on you?” he huffs. “Are you serious? What, you think maybe I wanted to have sex that wasn’t dictated by a calendar and thermometer?”

  The laugh in his tone, the mockery he’s making of our attempt to have a baby incites me.

  “Fuck you,” I say.

  “I’d love to, but we haven’t checked the date yet,” he says, amping himself up.

  “How dare you! How dare you throw that in my face!” I shout, tears stinging my eyes.

  “A spade’s a spade, E.”

  My face heats, my cheeks scalding as the tears wash over them. “Are you cheating on me?”

  “Elin . . .” he scoffs, like my name is dirty coming out of his mouth.

  “Are you?”

  “You want me to? Would that make this all so much easier for you? You can hate me and feel good about blaming everything on me.”

  “Yeah, I want you to. Of course I do.” I roll my eyes. “I’m so sick of this, Ty.”

  “Not as sick of it as me.”

  “Then go.”

  He storms by, taking a wide circle so we don’t accidentally touch, so I can’t reach out and grab his arm. My jaw slams against the hardwood, words begging to be spoken, but I can’t find them. I can only watch his back flex under his shirt as he walks out of my life, the door squeaking behind him.

  A full-body shiver yanks me back to reality, to a kitchen that lacks the smell of his coffee or the sound of the television in the other room. With a lump in my throat, I head into the living room. Grabbing a pillow off the sofa and pressing it to my chest, I fight back the sorrow by setting my jaw and grasping for the anger lurking just beneath the surface.

  “It’s just because I saw him. That’s it. Don’t let this spiral, Elin,” I say aloud. I miss him. My God, I miss him. Tears stream, an endless testament to the emotion, the dreams, the rejection, the failure, that swirl inside my soul.