Written in the Scars (13 page)

ELIN

“Your regular?”

My eyes adjust to the light in The Fountain as the door closes behind me. I search for Ruby, the owner for the last fifty years, and find her at the sink.

“Please,” I smile, standing at the counter next to Lindsay. Fishing out two dollars from the bottom of my purse, I lay them beside the napkin dispenser for a large Bump.

“What are you doing here?” Lindsay asks, sipping on a strawberry milkshake.

“It’s sixty-degrees outside,” I say, pointing at her glass. “Why are you drinking a milkshake?”

“I told her I won’t tell a soul,” Ruby says, sitting my Styrofoam cup in front of me. She leans on the counter with a knowing look.

“Tell who what?” I ask.

She leans closer, her eyes sparkling. “That’s she’s pregnant.”

“Hush,” Lindsay giggles, looking around the deserted building. “I don’t want anyone to know. Not until I’m out of the first trimester.” She looks at me and then away just as quickly.

I hate this. Lindsay should be asking me to throw a baby shower, having me help pick out names. Instead, she’s not discussing it with me and I’m not bringing it up and it’s just wrong on every level.

It has to stop.

I gulp.

It’s going to stop.

Ruby picks up on the awkwardness and clears her throat, backing away. “I understand. And like I told you earlier, no matter how much you try, I won’t serve you caffeine. It’ll be milkshakes for a while. Or juice. But the acid won’t do you any favors.” She goes back to the sink and Lindsay looks at me out of the corner of her eye.

“How are you feeling?” I ask her.

“Good.”

“When are we going shopping and buying all the things?”

A wide, genuine smile splits her cheeks. “I want to. Now,” she giggles. “I just don’t want to make you feel awkward in any way.”

“Stop worrying about me! You are having a baby,” I grin. “I am so ridiculously happy for you, and I want in on everything. And I mean everything. The only weirdness is you avoiding me.”

She blinks back tears and laughs at herself. “I’m so hormonal. Jiggs is afraid to say anything because I just start crying. Poor guy,” she says, wiping her eyes with a napkin.

“I think it’s going to get worse,” I tease.

“I don’t know how,” she says, laughing at herself. “I’m worried about everything from the health of the baby to the best kind of crib to if I can nurse to if we should move to Florida.”

I toss her a pointed glare. “We’re still talking about Florida? Why?”

“I’m scared, Elin. What if we can’t support a baby here? It’s not just about us now.”

“No, it’s not. But . . . have you talked to Jiggs about it?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes and it goes nowhere.”

I find a little satisfaction in that, that my brother wouldn’t just up and leave me.

She digs around in her purse and places her money next to mine. “So, what are you doing in here at two-thirty in the afternoon?”

“I took a half day today,” I say, fiddling with my keys. “I had some errands I needed to run.”

“Things you can’t take care of after school?” she asks, picking holes in my obvious excuse.

“Yup.”

“Okay,” she says, drawing out the last syllable. She drinks the rest of her milkshake, slurping the last few inches from the glass like a little kid. “There. I’ve given you a few seconds. Now you can start all over.”

Glancing at the clock, I settle my purse on my shoulder. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t take half days, Elin. What’s wrong?”

The somberness in her voice is enough to break me, but I don’t want to do that in front of Ruby. I don’t even want to do it at all in public because the first breakdown—because I’m sure there will be more than one—should be somewhere private so I can just ugly snot down my face. That can get disgusting. I know because it looked exactly like that last night when I looked in the mirror.

I watched myself cry. It’s not the first time I’ve done that. But it is the first time I felt calm instead of being frantic. Quite possibly, it was closure settling over me.

For a brief moment in the hallway of the home we once shared, we were us. The old us. The people that promised so many things to one another. But once we pulled back, that moment was over.

I didn’t want to see the secrets in his eyes. The questions on my tongue were so dirty, so insane to consider that it felt like a slap in the face. The sting of abandonment was so piercing that I just couldn’t imagine it ever completely going away.

The foundation of a marriage is love. The walls of a shared life are built with trust, loyalty, and respect. Once those are torn down, there’s nothing left standing.

I love him, but that’s clearly not enough.

It took everything I had to make the call this morning, including vomiting my breakfast in the toilet first. But it had to be done. I need to see what options there are and what I can afford.

Lindsay watches my hand tremble as I pick up my drink and refuse to look her in the eye.

“Elin?”

“I have an appointment.”

“With?”

“Eric Parker.”

Her hand flies to her mouth and she pulls me to her with the other. I push away because hugging my best friend before I do the deed will inevitably have me walking in the attorney’s office with wet cheeks.

“Why, Elin? Did something happen?”

“I’m just going in to see what my options are. I probably can’t afford to file anything anyway.”

“Jiggs said—”

“I don’t care what my brother said,” I say, turning towards the door. She follows behind me, her hand on my shoulder. “Do you know how mentally fucked up this is making me?”

“I can’t imagine,” she whispers.

“It’s like a special form of torture and the longer I let it go, the murkier it’s going to get.”

“I get that, but . . .”

A sob roots itself at the base of my throat. When I look at her, the tears blur her face. “He’s going to break my heart. I know it,” I sniffle, trying desperately to compose myself. I shake my head, warning her not to try to hug me. “We can have sex, but we can’t talk. He tried to talk, but I don’t want to hear what he has to say.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m too weak, Linds. What if I just break and then things go bad and I’m back to square one?”

“You don’t know that is what will happen,” she implores.

“You’re right. But I need to know my options. I need to feel like there’s a plan, some way out if I choose to listen to him and it doesn’t work out. Right now, I’m just in this never-ending swirl of confusion and I can’t do it anymore. I need something to ground me that isn’t related to him.”

“Well, I disagree with this. For the record.”

“Noted.”

Pulling the door open, the light makes me squint. Lindsay’s lip quivers, and I have to look away before my walls collapse and I’m a heaping mess on the sidewalk.

“I need to go or I’m going to be late,” I tell her.

Sighing, Lindsay walks the two doors down the sidewalk to Blown and disappears inside. I remember hanging out in there with her, planning dinners and nights out with our guys, like my world was untouchable. How foolish.

I’d give anything to close my eyes and be transported six months back. To walking in the house and having Ty there, the kitchen a mess from his attempt at fixing lunch, the television on entirely too loud.

“Stop,” I mutter to myself, turning abruptly to head to my car. I jump when I almost collide with a hard body.

“Mrs. Whitt, I’m sorry!” Dustin Montgomery is standing in front of me, a wide grin on his face. His brown hair is cut short, his blue eyes shining.

“It’s fine, Dustin. I think I ran into you,” I laugh.

“How are you?” he asks, his eyes narrowing. “How’s Coach?”

Pasting on a smile to hide my uncertainty, I deflect. “I’m good, thank you. Why are you not in school?”

“I skipped a day,” he winces.

“Dustin . . .”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry.”

I can’t help the smile on my face. Dustin is one of Ty’s favorite kids, a boy reminiscent of a younger Cord. He is a child of foster care, a kid that does the best he can. Ty picks him up a lot and gets him to practices, and I fix a bag of food for him a lot of nights so he has something to eat after school before practice.

Dustin’s a good kid, and I know he loves Ty as much as Ty loves him, and it breaks my heart that he feels as abandoned by my husband as I do.

He furrows his brow, his face sobering. “We all miss Coach, Mrs. Whitt. Is he okay? Is he coming back? Jason said he saw his truck at the gas station yesterday. I said it couldn’t be him because if he was back, he’d have been at practice.” He forces a swallow. “He would’ve called me. Right?”

My chest aches for him. “He just got back. I’m sure he’ll be by to see you soon.” I feel like a jerk for leading him on when I don’t know what Ty’s plans really are. “But you have to remember, he’s not your coach anymo—”

“He’ll always be our coach,” he says with so much certainty it makes me feel like I’m being reprimanded. “You tell him,” he swears, bending forward so his eyes bore into mine, “that we want him back. At least to see him, know he’s okay. Tell him to come by practice. Okay? Tell him to call me, Mrs. Whitt.”

“Okay. I will,” I whisper, my heart tugging in my chest.

He flashes me a concerned smile before turning towards the Fountain.

“Hey, Dustin!” I call out.

He turns to face me. “Yeah?”

“Here.” I fish through my purse and pull out a twenty-dollar bill. “Get a sandwich before practice.”

Hesitating before reaching for the money, I can tell he doesn’t want to accept it. He never does.

“Take it,” I say, smiling. “Have Ruby make you a double cheeseburger. She’s bored in there today anyway. You’ll thrill her to death.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Whitt.” He reaches for the money, his eyes softening. “I’ll do that. But the burger won’t be as good as yours.”

Shaking my head, I adjust my purse on my shoulder. “If you need anything this week, you know how to get ahold of me. I mean that.”

“And if you need anything at all, call me. You’ve always . . .” His cheeks flush and he looks down the street for a long second before turning back to me. “You’ve always been good to me. Anything you need, Mrs. Whitt, I’m happy to help out however.”

“Thank you, Dustin,” I say, biting my bottom lip so the physical pain weighs heavier than my emotions.

He watches me carefully, trying to decide if I’m okay. Once he seems satisfied, he heads inside The Fountain and I head into Attorney Parker’s office a few doors down.

TY

Pulling off my blue hooded sweatshirt, I toss it into the truck before slamming the door behind me.

“Ball!” I yell out, and a few moments later, the basketball is in my hands. I step onto the court and launch the ball from half-court. It drains through the net. Grinning at Jiggs and Cord, I laugh, “Still got it.”

Jiggs rebounds the ball and passes it to me again. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“And why is that?” I pull up and drop another through the hoop.

“I was hoping you’d be at the high school.”

I let out a long breath. “I’m actually going to head over there in a bit.”

“You are full of surprises today, Whitt,” Jiggs says, whistling through his teeth.